The richest irony that Pep-ball could be finally killed off by Guardiola himself

Ageing revolutionary Pep Guardiola is waging war on his own tactical orthodoxies 

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola arrives for the Carabao Cup third round clash with Huddersfield. Pic: Nigel French/PA Wire.

Forgive me father, for I have sinned. This is my first confession.

Thirty-three per cent possession against Arsenal. Five shots. Gianluigi Donnarumma getting more touches than Phil Foden. And at this point, we have to acknowledge that Pep Guardiola is one of the principal reasons this kind of possession pornography exists in the first place: a serendipitous consequence of reinventing the game at exactly the moment we could start measuring the ways in which he was reinventing it, and exactly the moment we could beam it around the world in meme-sized fragments.