Pep Guardiola is the moderniser who revisits the past, the innovator who is proving nothing is new in football. He has borrowed the idea of the false nine from the Hungary sides of the 1950s and revived a 3-2-4-1 formation that was influenced by the W-M system. And, in seeking to retain the English title, he went more English than the prehistoric – or pre-Premier League – English.
The most significant goal in the division this season, the one to decisively tilt the balance Manchester City’s way, thus far came in a manner scarcely becoming of the mentor of Xavi and Andres Iniesta, the man who dreamed of a team of midfielders, the architect of tiki-taka. City bypassed the midfield. They aimed for the big man who, it transpired, had a good touch for a big man. They got a runner around him. They played a variant of 4-4-2.
