The ghost of Shamfield is well on the way to being exorcised by City boss Pep Guardiola who has clearly learned from last season’s debacles and realised, as did Napoli in midweek that if you take the steam out of an engine then it doesn’t function.
Although Liverpool’s red engine huffed and puffed for 20 minutes or so, City denied them the momentum they desired, slowed things down to a different pace and thereafter looked the most likely to go home with the spoils.
However, the spoils were to be spoiled by the penalty miss of the decade, when new boy Mahrez, given licence by Guardiola to over-ride the claims of Gabriel de Jesus and drilled the ball into the second level of the Anfield Road end to the disbelief of the City fans installed to his left and to the delight of the Scousers to his right.