A manager defined by finishing first may never be so relieved to come 22nd. Pep Guardiola was 45 minutes from abject humiliation. Twenty months after winning the Champions League, Manchester City were on course to be cast out of it. Embarrassment was on the agenda.
It was averted. By character, by the resolve of a veteran and the skill of a rookie. As Guardiola looked back on a night that laid bare some of City’s flaws, he sounded poetic. “When you are lost, you have to lift your soul and bones and heart and put the ball in the box and I think we did it,” he said. Unconvincingly, City nonetheless clawed their way above the dotted line, into the play-off places.
