It turns out that you can buy class. In fact, this bewitching display by Manchester City, adorned with a Sergio Aguero hat-trick, 32 shots on goal and 77 per cent of possession, was so immaculately classy that it all but merited its own entry in Debrett’s. So much, then, for Jose Mourinho’s suggestion that the club were all money and no majesty. The riposte that Pep Guardiola engineered here against Huddersfield was so emphatic; it made his rival’s claims look like the last word in churlishness. There is a moment in All or Nothing, Amazon Prime’s lavish chronicle of Guardiola’s first title-winning season at City, where he harrumphs to his players: “I’m not perfect, guys.”
Except that perfection is precisely what he covets. His thunderstruck reaction to his defenders conceding from a long throw on Sunday told you as much. If his side had seemed to touch a ceiling of magnificence last season, with the Premier League’s first 100-point haul, then the sheer verve of this victory illustrated his intention to break clean through it. Mourinho was irked by the depiction of him in the City documentary, which included references to his “park the bus” style of play, as well as footage of a 2013 press conference in which he criticised then Chelsea player Kevin De Bruyne, now a sky-blue superstar. “If you are a rich club, you can buy top players,” he said. “You cannot buy class.” Guardiola, wary of antagonising the Manchester United manager this early in the campaign, was keen to douse the flames.
City might have been guilty of becoming predictable after previous Premier League triumphs, but Guardiola has already banished worries of the same stagnation occurring on his watch. The six goals that City put past the Terriers provide all the necessary confirmation that this City side can win by any means. Describing Sergio Aguero’s opener as ‘route one’ feels contemptuous but Ederson’s long, straight 70-yard pass shows that Guardiola considers the pinpoint punt a veritable facet of his armoury. After all, it was not far from being a carbon copy of the goal Aguero scored against Arsenal in the Carabao Cup final last season. The Argentine’s third, a deft-touch to convert Benjamin Mendy’s cross, is corroboration that City will hurt you from wide positions while Leroy Sane provided a stark reminder that City can run straight through you, should the need arise. Oh, and David Silva stroked in a free-kick effortlessly from 30 yards.
