No De Bruyne? I see you and raise with no Saka. No Rodri? Again, I see and raise with no Partey. No Stones until late on? Get bent. We went without Martinelli for that first half. The less said about Kovačić, the better. We can all agree that he should have been sent off for that foul on Ødegaard, and if not for that one, then surely for the second one on RIce. You know what, though? None of this matters because we put one past you lot. A little bit of a smash-and-grab, eh? As in Martinelli smashed the ball into Aké’s face and we grabbed all three points. As for managers, the pupil punished the master.

Mateo Kovačić did his level best to replace Rodri and conjured up awful memories of injuries to Abou Diaby, Eduardo, and Aaron Ramsey with one ankle-snapper of a foul on Ødegaard for which he was merely booked. Just five minutes later, he slid in from behind on Rice for what should have been a second yellow. Doesn’t matter. Martinelli deflected his shot in off of Aké’s face to wrong-foot Ederson after Havertz won the ball and laid it off for him. It’s been since December 2015 since we’ve won, and this one feels like the kind of result that can define as season. We’ll have to revisit this one in a more in-depth post later. For now, let’s get to the poll to rate the lads!