This was a tantalising and, at times, oddly melancholy game of football. For an hour at the Etihad Manchester City and Liverpool produced an exhibition of finely-wrought escapism, one of those moments when football just draws the curtains on the rest of the world and basks in its own heat and light.
That they did so was a credit to the tunnel vision intensity of the players. And also to an engrossing bare knuckle tactical duel played out between Jürgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola in the opening half hour.
A shift of shape at the start from Klopp had surprised City and threatened to overwhelm them. A counterthrust from Guardiola radically altered the dynamic. As the players trotted off at half time, the score already 1-1, there was a sense of some perfect little miniature being played out.
It couldn’t last. The purity of that spell of football was a tribute to football’s own resilience in the face of interference from its two biggest enemies right now.
Firstly, the obvious draining effects of the current jet-lagged season, a place where nobody is ever really fit or fresh or injury free. Both teams were left drowning in lactic acid from around the hour mark, although City had the craft to dominate the ball from that point.
And secondly there was – of course – another unworthy moment of intervention from the video referee. Just before half time City were awarded another of those legitimate, but still objectively risible penalties, product of the poorly reconfigured handball law.
Kevin De Bruyne missed the kick, an odd note in an otherwise incisive performance. At which point it might be tempting to dwell on that moment, to riff all over again on the inanity of the penalty rules.
De Bruyne’s cross had struck Joe Gomez as the defender did everything he physically could to avoid it, rotating his body in mid-air, but finding, in extremis, that he still possessed a pair of working human arms. Craig Pawson looked a little stricken as he pointed to the spot.
Happily the actual football provided something far more interesting. It came from a surprise selection. Faced with a dilemma over the personnel in his forward line Klopp went with the ice-cream-and-custard option and played all of them.
It made sense. Mo Salah and Diogo Jota have been brilliantly sharp. Roberto Firmino ferrets away in the midfield areas in any case. And so Liverpool came with a fully loaded gun, and with a trap to spring in the opening exchanges.
The plan was in evidence straight away as Salah and Firmino swarmed around Rodri when City had the ball, a bold attempt to clog the first step in the passing machine. Otherwise Liverpool flooded the forward areas.
This Klopp-era team has never been about balance, or finding all the ways to play. Stick to your own strengths, turn up the volume, repeat until successful.
Just as Guardiola has packed his best teams with technical midfielders, making a fetish of pass and move, Klopp did something similar here, doubling down on hard-running inside forwards and turning the whole world a shade of red-shirted high press.
How many is too many anyway? At times, with the full-backs high, Liverpool had six attacking players arriving at improbable angles. Three times in the opening four minutes Jota or Salah spun into a huge pocket of space, blue shirts revolving around them giddily.
It was from the left that the opening goal came as Andrew Robertson fed Sadio Mané. His sideways spring was too slick for Kyle Walker, who went veering past like a bin lorry on an icy incline. A nudge to the hip sent Mané spinning. Salah buried the kick.
City were being smothered. Kevin De Bruyne completed just eight passes in the opening quarter of the game. The hounding of Rodri continued. And yet there was always a lurking sense of weakness. The 11-man duvet is never quite big enough. Every overload leaves a weakness somewhere else. Behind Liverpool’s heavy cavalry there would naturally be space.
Guardiola shifted his team to find it. It was thrilling to watch, a real-time display of in-game tactical chess as City pressed their back four a little higher and went wider with the ball from the back. Further forward De Bruyne pulled into the space on the right Liverpool had often vacated and began to take the ball with room to turn.
The game changed instantly. First De Bruyne’s cross almost found Raheem Sterling in front of goal. Moments later City slipped past the press again. Walker made good ground. De Bruyne played ball inside to Gabriel Jesus, who turned ingeniously and finished with real skill.
Those were Jesus’s seventh and eighth touches of the game. Ten minutes into the second half he had a chance to put City ahead, reading João Cancelo’s pass, making the right run, but heading wide.
It was hard not to feel sympathy. Sergio Agüero also misses chances. And while Jesus may not be an eye-catching Brazilian striker, he is a hugely intelligent one. The goal was his eighth in 11 games as City’s lone centre forward.
A 1-1 draw left both managers satisfied, neither happy. It will be fascinating to see how Klopp chooses to deploy the power of his four-man forward line, and how he manages the counterpoint, its brittleness against high quality opponents. For those looking on it felt enough that a game that kicked off in mournful November silence had provided its own surge of light and heat.