Thrills aplenty in the Premier League’s great sportswashing derby

Pep Guardiola was agitated. He stalked the touchline, hands on hips, brooding. He gestured at Bernardo Silva and, during a break for an injury, gave him lengthy instructions. Manchester City were 1-0 up and creating chances, but Guardiola often serves as his own canary in the mine, his agitation indicating long before it becomes apparent in concrete actions that something is amiss.

When Ilkay Gündogan put City ahead in the fifth minute, the assumption was that Eddie Howe was on his way to an 11th defeat in 11 games against Guardiola. Everybody knows the drill: Guardiola praises Howe for the football his side plays, all that passing and so little of that nasty tackling, all that space and so little of that closing down, and then helps himself to a comfortable win: the cumulative goal-difference between the two before kick-off was 31-4 in Guardiola’s favour.

But Guardiola was right. Something had gone awry. The game was surprisingly open; there was little of the control City so privilege. Newcastle landed blow after blow, City landed blow after blow. There was brilliant football, an extraordinary finish from the outside of Callum Wilson’s foot, an exquisite pass from Kevin De Bruyne; there was a breathless physicality to it all, men at it all over the place, something aided – for good or for ill, depending whether you were kicker or kickee – by the willingness of the Australian referee Jarred Gillett to let the game flow, which culminated in his VAR-aided decision to overturn the red card he had shown to Kieran Trippier for a cynical knee-high challenge on a flying De Bruyne.

This was, by some margin, the greatest sportswashing derby the Premier League has known. It may have sold its soul to nation states with questionable