At one point during Manchester City’s early-season training Pep Guardiola became so frustrated by Raheem Sterling’s puppyish eagerness to cut inside and join the crowd, thereby messing with his precision fine-tuning, he drew a chalk spot on the right wing of City’s training pitch and told Sterling to stand there. When in doubt to seek the chalk spot.
Watching this wild, brilliantly entertaining Premier League game, reduced at times to a selection of bruising collisions around the centre circle, you feared for Pep’s chalk spot. Sterling did stay wide, but also found himself snared into the crush of bodies like pretty much every other player on the pitch. Guardiola raged and whirled and steadily shed his insulated layers on the touchline, a man by turns appalled and consumed by the wonderful mess of a high-class football match in front of him.
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