Three minutes into the second half of a game that had very rarely threatened to defrost, Kyle Walker looked up and slid a simple 10-yard pass for Kevin De Bruyne. There was space on the right and here was the most routine opportunity to get things moving. Nobody would think twice about a combination near halfway between teammates who, over tens of thousands of rehearsals, could complete that drill blindfolded.
The pass might have been for De Bruyne, but it never reached him. It skipped out of play, no opponent providing an excuse by applying the faintest pressure, and anyone could have been forgiven a moment to pause and wonder how it had come to this. How had two brilliant, supremely reliable elder statesmen of Manchester City’s all-conquering era become so paralysed as to fluff a move both have had off pat for seven years?
