How City beat the fear inside

Deepak Chopra — still waiting for his Premier League chance — calls it past conditioning. “A new experience enters the mind, but instead of being evaluated for itself, is shunted down a well-worn track.”

Which is — has to be — the kind of madness that gripped Manchester City tight last Sunday after Pablo Zabaleta appeared to have eased them to a straightforward coast into clover.

City, as a club, to a man, briefly allowed their minds flood with the sweet but deadly conviction that they were winners. Then everything they have ever known convinced them it could only end in tears. And it paralysed them.