Dark foreboding clouds. The smell of danger, if not wet
onions.
The reintroduction to the Premier League in its new guise as
backdrop for stretched fabric containing heart-warming messages from our
sponsors took place with some trepidation yesterday.
Having watched the first game be completely enveloped in a
farce of embarrassing proportions when a perfectly good – if odd – goal was not
given by the misted-aubergine binocular-wearing Michael Oliver, we were promised
Manchester City versus Arsenal straight afterwards. To be frank, I was still
digesting the event at Villa Park, when the sheeting rain told me Manchester’s
turn had arrived.
As an image of dank, dark reality for football, there is
nothing quite like the Etihad as afternoon turns to evening and a lusty northern cloudburst
issues forth. Within seconds Mikel Arteta’s puffa jacket looked like he was wearing the latest in wetlook pinniped fashion and Pep Guardiola took shelter under a hoodie that he appeared to be
trying to employ as a bivouac. All wore the expressions of people who would
rather be drinking Muga Gran Reserva and chomping on fried eels on a sunlit Malaga
terrace.
Where Villa had allowed fans to drape their banners and
flags from the ramparts, the Etihad was a picture of corporate messaging. Everywhere
you looked there was taught sky blue matte vinyl. Aware as our marketing
whizzkids are of the dangers of using materials that are not non-glare,
non-reflective, every eventuality bar Michael Oliver had been second guessed. There
was even one fitted with wind slits by the cunning people of Etihad Airways,
knowing how fond we are of rugged gales to go with our horizontal
sleet.
When the kneeling and gesticulating and forearm-greeting was
over, an actual match of sorts could start. Piped crowd noise, set at Constant Semi-Positive
Drone level, which we all know fades away by minute 4 of most people’s actual matches
to be replaced by the sound of burping, the mass opening of crisp packets and
the first bits of flying banter, proved less disconcerting than expected, even
if it did have the feel of being at Bayern or Basel, where the baffling sight of the local ultras continuing their flag and trumpet routines as their team
concedes goals is common.
Whether it is better than hearing Catalan expletives in the
quickening dusk is up for discussion. We had been promised full and unfettered
audio access to the coin toss, which had brought me to a particular state of pre-match
arousal, but that seemed to pass me by, perhaps because I was desperately looking
for a bottle opener at the time.
The sight of emptiness of this magnitude was already driving
me (back) to drink.
It was like the plains of the Serengeti or that lovely elephant
park in Rwanda that Arsenal’s sponsors, the decent upstanding folk of the ex-genocide-riddled
African state’s publicity department, wanted us to consider visiting. It made me
wonder whether there might be a team in the Rwandan Premier League, perhaps Mukura
Victory or even Heroes FC, proudly wearing “Visit Stockport Hat Works” arm stickers.
While mulling over these strange entries into our football universe,
it became evident that City had forgotten to furlough the stadium announcer. He
had evidently turned up, eased past security, donned his blue mac and was parping
out the usual inanities to the empty ground. It was becoming more and more surreal as the seconds ticked soundlessly
past.
Once you had disposed of the visual furniture, the
match itself, which had started unfurling at a gentle pace, demanded
watching. Only it seemed to be operating, like everything else, at a velocity
and intensity some digits below the full one hundred. Some things were recognizable
of course. Arsenal’s defence rapidly disintegrated, this time almost literally,
as substitutes entered very early on. That one of these happened to be the
swallow-diving, ineffectual Dani Ceballos augured well, but the introduction of
David Luiz, the semi mobile totem pole, was City’s saving grace.
Going somewhat through the motions, City did not even need
to be galvanized by Luiz’s shimmering presence, all wet-look curls and no-look
defending. The ball kicked up off the Brazilian’s sashaying hips and Sterling
was through to score, blissfully, without need to pause and think, which often
brings down the curtain on Raheem’s best efforts. The shot was pure instinct and
flew past Leno with the vivacity of a prime minister in sight of a walk-in
fridge.
Having rivalled new stopper Pablo Mari in the impersonate a
Bristolian slave trader stakes, Luiz managed to shake himself from the statues
game just long enough to be well beaten by Riyad Mahrez on the edge of the box. The distraught Brazilian briefly pulled a Phil Jones face. Then he puffed and he panted and he blew the whole house down. Penalty. Red card. Sad
to see him go, but new penalty hero De Bruyne put it where so many other have
not been able and City had a lead that this feeble Arsenal would not be arguing
with.
Luiz had been part of the entertainment for just 25 comedy minutes in total.
To complete the unusual feel, we were able to watch the
ticker click past 100 minutes, thanks to Ederson’s flooring of Eric Garcia, who
remained prone long enough for Martin Tyler to make a fool of himself. It gave
us all a bit of extra time to admire and read the rest of the banners at least.
For Arsenal, the relief must have been that, by the time Phil Foden had smashed
in a third, the stadium announcer was in no position to pipe out some virtual
booing to shepherd their bedraggled ranks from the pitch.
Every dark Manchester
cloud has something of a silver lining.
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