The 2023 finalists, both winners of consecutive league titles last term, currently ranked first and third in the world in the Opta Power Rankings, we’re told games like this on matchday one of the all-new Champions League make later clashes for Manchester City against Sparta Prague and Slovan Bratislava worth their inevitable futility. Hmmm.
The TNT Sports pundits did their best to ramp up the jeopardy ahead of the game, claiming Inter would want “revenge” after defeat in the final two years ago while City “will want to get off to a good start”, but at the risk of coming across as old hacks set in their ways, we couldn’t help but feel underwhelmed by a game that – when it comes down to it – probably won’t matter; a feeling supported by Inter’s captain and talisman Lautaro Martinez starting on the bench ahead of the Milan derby on Sunday and City’s somewhat aloof performance on an opening night of supposed increased magnitude.
City never truly got into their stride. Inter provided the greater threat in the first half with summer signing Piotr Zielinski combining well with Nicolo Barella in midfield as Rodri looked uncharacteristically sluggish and uncertain after the big build up ahead of his first start of the season.
Mehdi Taremi was causing problems for City in transition in a front two with Marcus Thuram, who spurned a good chance from a ball pulled back to him on the penalty spot, while left wing-back Carlos Augusto hit a shot straight at Ederson and Matteo Darmian had an effort cleared by Josko Gvardiol when the City goalkeeper was caught floundering away from his goal. It felt as though Simone Inzaghi had outmanoeuvred Pep Guardiola.
Erling Haaland, in search of his 100th City goal, dragged one shot wide of the post and had a header comfortably saved, but that was the extent of Yann Summer’s work in a first half that saw City struggle to find joy through Inter’s solid centre, while their blindside runs and cutbacks reaped no reward through a combination of excellent defending, poor delivery and a couple of air shots.
Guardiola’s mood at half-time won’t have been helped by another injury to Kevin De Bruyne, who missed 41 games for club and country last season.
What you won’t have seen much of through that absence was mass social media bemoaning of City’s misfortune, inexplicably morphing with conspiracy theories of varying degrees of insanity over The Man’s desperate quest to deny them wins and titles, the like of which we’ve endured on Arsenal X in the nine days that’s felt like half a season since Martin Odegaard hobbled off for Norway against Austria.
City are undoubtedly better equipped to brush off an injury to their creator-in-chief than Arsenal are. They won 19 of their 26 games without De Bruyne last season and he was replaced here by Ilkay Gundogan, while Phil Foden also came on at half-time for Savinho, as Mateo Kovacic and Matheus Nunes remained on the bench.
But there also won’t be such fervent disregard for reality on the back of De Bruyne’s injury as has been displayed by what seems like most Arsenal fans, but almost certainly – hopefully – actually isn’t the majority, with an injury hiccup peddled as a crisis by media outlets (of which we are one) preying on the clicks of the irrational subset of Gooners.
Come kick-off on Sunday, Arsenal will be without two players that would reasonably have expected to start – Odegaard and Merino – along with Oleksandr Zinchenko, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Kieran Tierney, who definitely wouldn’t have. Manchester City will be without De Bruyne, assuming his injury is significant enough, Nathan Ake and Oscar Bobb. There’s not much between their respective crises, if we’re dead set on referring to them as such.
