And Tevez nowhere to be seen...

“AFTER the game, I went straight home, got into bed and put the pillow over my head. A sense of guilt had engulfed me.”

This is how Alex Ferguson described the aftermath of the 5-1 defeat to Manchester City at Maine Road in 1989. Writing a decade later in his autobiography, Ferguson revealed that for several days after that match he found it hard to meet the eyes of people in the street, he felt that he had let his supporters down in a deeply personal way.

It’s unlikely Ferguson feels anything like that bad this time around. The Manchester City that beat him in 1989 was a penniless shambles. Today’s Manchester City is financially doped to bursting point and rippling with demonic power.