Sir Alex Ferguson was at the Etihad on Sunday but not Goodison Park on Saturday. Ferguson is too craven to speak out against the owners of Manchester United, still a paying employer and where he has a row of seats in the directors' box, and he has long known actions speak louder than words.
If Mancunian schoolchildren went to City one week and United the next, as they did in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies, they might have thought they were watching a different sport. City's 2-2 draw with Liverpool was a culture shock for anyone subjected to watching United on a weekly basis, becoming as torturous as Alex's therapy in A Clockwork Orange.
City and Liverpool play at a pace that suggests they are on fast-forward. The football is fabulous but just as striking is the work ethic. Every player in those teams strives to justify their starting role every week.
