Powerless Guardiola gawps as his empire falls at the hands of Slot's meritocracy

Pep Guardiola kept holding up six fingers. The Liverpool fans were in delirium and the Liverpool players were jigging and jiving across the turf, and his own players had gone over to applaud the travelling support, which is really the least anyone deserves after attempting to travel across northern England on a Sunday.

- Jonathan Liew

Still Guardiola kept holding up six fingers: proudly, almost incredulously, as if discovering the concept of fingers for the very first time. What did it all mean? The number of defeats since they last won a game? The position in which they most desperately require reinforcements in January? The number of touches, over 90 minutes, that Erling Haaland had in the final third?

A new empire may yet rise, but this one is done. And before we talk what-nows and what-nexts, we should probably dwell a little on the sheer concussive speed of the collapse. A collapse that as recently as a fortnight ago was believed not just improbable but inconceivable.

Should we be more shocked that a dynasty this impregnable can basically implode in three weeks? Or more shocked at the feat of sustaining a dynasty this impregnable in a world where they can implode in three weeks?

Perhaps the measure of the standards Manchester City have set over the past four seasons was what happened when they briefly let those standards slip. Nobody noticed how fast the Titanic was going until it stopped. Nobody realised just how bloodthirsty the chasing pack was until it finally found something to devour. And on a riotous Anfield afternoon, it was Liverpool who came to eat.