All played out: Guardiola’s City look broken and Liverpool can inflict knockout

An extraordinary sense of a club imploding is taking hold and the champions’ title rivals have the chance to make it worse

Underlying every tactical question facing the Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola is a nagging sense that none of it much matters

On 30 January 2015, Bayern Munich lost in the Bundesliga for the first time that season, going down 4-1 at Wolfsburg. Pep Guardiola was worried. They had dropped six points in the first 17 league games and the title was almost certainly theirs already, but Wolfsburg, inspired by Kevin De Bruyne, had picked them off on the counter.

The space Guardiola’s teams leave behind the high defensive line had always been a vulnerability, could not but be a vulnerability, but something had gone wrong with the press, allowing Wolfsburg freedom. And if Wolfsburg could exploit it, Europe’s elite would certainly be able to.