Those with marketing heads at Manchester City have already coined Pep Guardiola’s reign simply as ‘beautiful football’ and that is with days like these in mind.
An afternoon – or the 15 minutes that this remained competitive, to be precise - when the standard of opposition did not really matter. Birmingham City or Barcelona, when City play like this, there is nothing anybody can do.
Take Riyad Mahrez’s perfectly weighted pass with his outstep for the second goal, ending this tie. Defying logic, really, generating major sidespin with his cue to sink a tricky red, using Kevin De Bruyne as the cushion and an onrushing Bernardo Silva timing his run to pot the subsequent black.