News from elsewhere relevant to the city: Julian Alvarez – do you remember him? – scored twice for Atletico at Sparta Prague. They replaced him with… Savinho?

Krishna contacts: “Hello John (or is it Scott under a new pseudonym?)

“Lose to Spurs. Then you lose to Arne’s successor. And finally lose to Arne himself. Certainly Pep wouldn’t like such orderly things, a narrow win today followed by a draw at the weekend is my prediction.”

Yes, it’s John. Representing the great man.

The headlines: De Bruyne is still on the benchand Gimenez too. Walker fell, as did Savinho.

In: Nathan Ake, Matheus Nunes and Jack Grealish. Missing: Walker, Savinho and John Stones, who is not in the squad at all.

The teams are there

As always, Jonathan Wilson has been thinking hard about this unexpected malaise.

And yet something is different. According to Opta, City have had the third-easiest run of games of any club since the start of this Premier League season, but if they lose at Anfield next week (and Liverpool are the team Guardiola has lost to the second most times) they will be 11th points behind the leaders. The aura is gone; Enemies sense blood in the water. It’s like Chelsea in the 2015/16 season, or Manchester United under David Moyes, or Liverpool in the early 1990s. The sides no longer face each other with the sole aim of avoiding embarrassment; They believe there is a chance of a remarkable result.

The city isn’t old, okay? At least not according to Pep.

Missing for city: Oscar Bobb, Ruben Dias, Mateo Kovacic and of course Rodri.

The fact that the rest looks tired is also a big problem.

For Feyenoord: Santiago Gimenez will be missed heavily and he is questionable with a hamstring injury.

Brian Priske, the Feyenoord coach, Arne Slot’s successor at City: “For me they are still one of the best teams in the world, a world-class team. We’ve seen a lot of their games and for example at the weekend against Spurs they were really unlucky. We know that we have to play a perfect game to get a positive result, especially in defense.

More pizzazz: “In this situation we need to be more direct in our principles. Don’t change much, rather less than ever before. One day we will win a game and our heads will be clear. I hope it will be (against Feyenoord), if not Sunday (against Liverpool). But the desire is there to change it and we will try.”

Does that mean they’re leaving directly?

And Kevin De Bruyne: “It was a bit chaotic. I have seen so many people being passed around in the medical field. Seeing who’s playing, who’s not, people who weren’t supposed to play but did because of injury; We were all over the place in these games. Everyone is down, but we have to keep going.”

Some quotes from Pep from his press conference: “I still have the feeling that we will still do very good things this season. I’m not giving up and I have a feeling we’ll be there. We congratulate the team that takes our crown because they deserve it, not because we gave it to them. (When) you’re defending a legacy, a tradition or an achievement, it’s so difficult to deal with.”

preamble