As Pep Guardiola gathered the Manchester City players together on the pitch, his mood punctuated by fume at a missed handball in the dying seconds, he knew none of this is coming especially easy at the moment.
City have something to fight for but more to fight through before they can even contemplate lifting any shiny stuff in the coming months. That goes for at home and abroad. Guardiola will not sit there and say City are playing poorly, because they are not. By and large, it is good. They seem to be doing what he asks.
Never for a full 90 minutes, though, and that is allowing opponents in.