The second half was only three minutes old when Phil Foden found himself in a familiar position in a Manchester derby.
The Manchester City midfielder has left many an imprint on this fixture in recent years but, presented with an inviting opportunity to put his side ahead eight yards out, he stumbled as he shaped to shoot.
Noussair Mazraoui, in turn, was able to intercept and poke the ball away. Initially, it looked as though the Manchester United defender may have caught Foden from behind. But replays revealed Foden had simply lost his footing and balance and, with it, went City’s best chance of scoring in a game decidedly low on quality, imagination, fire, pace, tempo and a whole lot in between.
Foden’s difficult afternoon would not last much longer. Ten minutes later, the board went up and off City’s disconsolate-looking No 47 trudged.
He has tormented United so often that the home fans seemed to revel in his misfortune, although Pep Guardiola was right to condemn the shameful, classless chants that accompanied his substitution.
There is no love lost between these two neighbours but it was deeply unedifying to hear a member of Foden’s family being subjected to abuse. That the City manager later called it out was to his credit.
There were also some reassuring words from Guardiola about Foden’s form, which he suggested was symptomatic of the team’s wider struggles more than anything else. He also backed Foden to bounce back. Both sentiments were justified.
But there was no denying City were a shadow here of the team that won six of the past seven Premier League titles, just as Foden was a shadow of the midfielder who enjoyed a clean sweep of the individual awards as the competition’s outstanding player last season.
He had scored six goals against United across four league games in the previous two campaigns and so often looked to be playing on a different level entirely to his opponents.
On Sunday, he was struggling just to find his own team-mates. All told, Foden lost possession on 14 occasions and completed only 61 per cent of his passes.
He lost all five of the duels he contested and did not manage a single take-on, which was quite something for a player accustomed to skipping past opponents. There was just no conviction to his football. He was not the only one who struggled to get to grips with Guardiola’s strange selection and system, in which he and Omar Marmoush were deployed almost as split strikers with Kevin De Bruyne as a false nine ahead of an ageing midfield.
In truth, though, this performance was not exactly at odds with how Foden’s season has panned out. Save for a few weeks early in the new year when he hit the goal trail again and there were signs of the 24-year-old rediscovering his mojo, he has been a pale imitation of the footballer we all know he is, has been and can still be.
So often he has taken to the pitch looking like a man carrying a weight, unduly burdened. Guardiola talked about seeing “every training session and the passion, the smile on his face” but it has been harder to detect that player on a match day. He has looked lost, tormented even. His City team-mates are known to have worried privately about him.
Foden himself has said he suffered from “mental fatigue” at the start of the season and that his brain had become foggy during training sessions.
He played the second half of City’s opening game against Chelsea but was not seen again for a month because of a mystery illness. England fans have been accustomed to not seeing the best of Foden but the struggles for his country have seeped into his club form this season. He toiled badly at the Euros for England, with whom he has never quite seemed totally comfortable, and those challenges have followed him into this campaign.
“Maybe last season he arrived at the peak in terms of the best player in the Premier League,” Guardiola said. “He won the Premier League [for us] in the last games. He will be back.”
He surely will but it has been hard watching a player this talented, this good retreating into his shell.
