Saturday at 3pm

Joyful chaos (despite how it looks)

In many ways, normal services has resumed hasn’t it. A technology slip-up (our theory is that Michael Oliver didn’t have his watch set to vibrate), a fairly dour 0-0, a City (Kevin de Bruyne) masterclass and David Luiz playing as if controlled by a teenager wearing a headset, albeit a teenager wearing a headset that wasn’t plugged in to a console playing a game he or she had no idea how to play.

The League of Extraordinary Inconsistency

Just over a week ago, Macclesfield were 2-0 down at home to Oxford United and the referee had just blown for half time. About an hour later, they were celebrating a 3-2 win. Just over a week later, by contrast, the Silkmen were on the receiving end of a defeat – an abject one at that – in arguably the most winnable of their recent fixtures, away at Barnet.

Barnet had lost their last two matches, while Macc were playing well on the road. A lot of people point to Saturday’s result being indicative of the competitiveness of League Two – an argument often extended to lower league football, where there are no bankrolled behemoths and for some reason, spending big is just as likely to guarantee you a 10-point deduction as it is a promotion.