For Manchester City and Pep Guardiola everything changed on Saturday evening.
*Published before Man City's 3-3 draw with Feyenoord
Until now it could reasonably be claimed that Man City were in a familiar autumnal daze that would inevitably be solved in the spring sunlight. That argument is no longer on the table, not for pundits, not for fans, and not for the players themselves.
This is a full blown crisis.
They will be confused, crestfallen, and probably a little panicked. City have never been in this position before. Pep Guardiola has never been in this position before.
Actually, nobody has, not since 1956, the last time an English top-flight reigning champion lost five matches in a row in all competitions.
These are unprecedented times, which means there is nothing for the squad to reach for, no knowledge to draw from, a fact clear in the pained expression on Guardiola’s face as he shrugged his way through the post-match press conference.
“When you lose 4-0 there is not much to say,” was pretty much the summary. “In eight years we never lived this.”
The truth of the matter is City’s decline was predictable, if not inevitable, and the consequence of a gradual slide towards a less refined - less truly Guardiola - team, because even putting the Rodri issue to one side there is a lot about the current Man City setup that just doesn’t feel right.
Standards have slipped. There is arrogance, even, in the moves not made in the transfer window; in the bolt-on pieces that have taken Guardiola’s principles towards a more preservationist approach.
The overreliance on Erling Haaland, the anti-Guardiola striker; the sale of every actual full-back; the packing of central midfield with wafting tippy-tappy types like Mateo Kovacic and Matheus Nunes; the departure of Julián Alvarez and assumption he won’t need replacing; the squad growing old together.
It looks and feels a lot like Manchester United around 2012/13, when their final league title under Sir Alex Ferguson was won not through tactical and technical excellence but on sheer vibes; on charisma and psychology, on the wisdom of titles past and the fear the red shirts put into their opponents.
Man City, too, have leant too heavily on the advantages of their multiple crowns, their assumed superiority winning matches and papering over cracks for well over a year.
Guardiola hasn’t seemed to notice the tactical frailties such as the growing vulnerability to counter-attacks or the repetitiveness of their attacking moves with Haaland as fulcrum.
It happens to every great team: hubris or complacency sees every champion eventually let standards slip and it is of course to Guardiola’s immense credit that it took six years for City to succumb.
But they have succumbed, there is no doubt of that. The press has disappeared, the passing networks have slowed, the Guardiola aesthetic is almost non-existent.
What we have here is a full-scale rebuilding job of the sort Ferguson had to do several times over during his 26-year reign at Old Trafford.
Guardiola must see that, which is why he deserves serious respect for the timing of his new two-year contract; for the bravery, loyalty, and leadership he showed in deciding to stick around and clear up the mess.
He needs a new approach. He needs new full-backs, a new Kevin de Bruyne, a new David Silva. He needs support and backup for Haaland. He needs backup for Rodri. He needs young players ready to learn and he needs to find the energy reserves in himself to coach the tactical details all over again.
All of this lies ahead for Guardiola before we even get to the possibility of a significant points deduction or worse. Were it not for the new contract everyone would acknowledge we are at the end of an era.
Instead, Guardiola has taken it upon himself to start again, and from who knows how low. To recover, to win a seventh Premier League title, would be his greatest ever achievement.
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