On Thursday evening Manchester City booked a place in the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup with a thrilling 3-2 defeat of Liverpool, and there were plenty of positives to take from the performance.
City played with a real intensity, seemingly energised and fresh despite the involvement of 16 of their first-team players at the World Cup in Qatar. Their pressing game plan - which didn't quite work when they last faced Liverpool in October - worked superbly, while Kevin de Bruyne put World Cup disappointment behind him with an excellent showing. Rico Lewis gave a glimpse of the future too with a tactically-astute performance way beyond his years.
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The significance of Riyad Mahrez's impressive performance appears to have flown under the radar though. The Algerian winger scored a delightful goal early in the second half to restore City's advantage, almost as if to remind supporters just what he can do.
To be fair to Mahrez nobody should need reminding of his quality, but he will be the first to admit that in the first three months of the season he simply wasn't good enough.
In recent seasons Mahrez has proved a key figure for City: in 2020/21 he scored crucial goals in the Champions League as the Blues reached the final for the first time in their history, and last season he was City's top goal-scorer in all competitions.
This season though he has looked a bit blunt, uninspired and inconsistent. That isn't to say that he hasn't put in the odd star performance, but too often he has gone missing when his teammates needed him to step up.
On Thursday, though, it was as if the clocks had gone back and before everyone's eyes was the Mahrez of old. His goal - one typically silky first touch to pluck Rodri's lofted pass out of the sky and another to fire into the bottom corner - was the headline trick, but all-round his game was near flawless.
Every time he attacked Andrew Robertson looked uncomfortable, the Liverpool left-back unable to venture too far up-field for fear of leaving Mahrez unattended.
Mahrez - not known for his off-the-ball contributions - played a key role in City's pressing set up too. He was completely in sync with his colleagues as City shepherded Liverpool's defenders down blind alleys, forcing them to play passes they knew would only invite more pressure because they just didn't have anywhere else to go.
Before the game, Pep Guardiola admitted that City's returning World Cup stars were actually in better condition than those, like Mahrez, who didn't go to Qatar. That the attacker put in such a high-quality performance after 41 days without a competitive match is seriously impressive.
Hopefully he can build on that, both for his and City's sake. The Blues have got a busy January ahead of them so Guardiola could do with having as many in-form options at his disposal as possible. Should World Cup fatigue set in towards the end of the season, then an on-song and relatively fresh Mahrez could be just what City need.
Nobody really spoke about Mahrez after the match, although Jurgen Klopp did. He labelled Mahrez's goal and contribution to the match as "world-class", and he was absolutely right. Mahrez has been world-class in recent years; maybe this is the trigger that gets him consistently performing at the level again.
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