Terrace talk: There is always a 'but' with Manchester City

Pep Guardiola's presence guarantees so much for City: organisation, pride, precision, drive, hunger, love, attention to detail and a blue river of tactical tweaks and fiddles

BLUE WAVE: Manchester City's Ilkay Gundogan lifts the Premier League trophy. Pic: PA

As is de rigueur these days when writing essays on Manchester City, mention should be made of sportswashing, financial doping, Hard Power, Nation State hegemony, the unutterable boredom of winning and the inevitability of death, taxes and nobody at all caring about City.

What difference does it make? It makes none. No coronation can go ahead without speed-delivery of a refrigerated container of asterisks, an enormous echo chamber of whataboutery and the laying of huge banners at the shrines of Anfield and Old Trafford reading “Nobody Cares. No, Really, None of us”.