Pep Guardiola speaks to the press after Manchester City's 3-3 draw with Feyenoord in the Champions League on November 26. 2024
If a team is said to be made in their manager's image, then a battered and bruised Pep Guardiola was the personification of Manchester City's recent problems on Tuesday night. It looked for all the world as though a shocking regression was about to be halted when City took a three-goal lead against Feyenoord at the Etihad, only to collapse in the final 15 minutes and see the Eredivisie side emerge with a Champions League point.
A run of five successive defeats was at least brought to an end, but you're still thinking about the bad news aren't you, Pep? Guardiola emerged from the sanctity of the dressing room after that game with a cut visible above his nose and a number of scratch marks emblazoned across his forehead.
His less-than-tactful attempt to explain away the wounds as joking self-harm led to a statement being released apologising on his official social media channels on Wednesday, but it would be churlish to rake the City boss over the coals too much for that poor attempt at deploying a defence mechanism.
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It does at least show how intense and passionate the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss still is about events on the pitch, but it was also an intriguing snapshot in to just how stressed and stretched things are at the Etihad just now. The fact he was asked about the marks is proof of just how evident it all was to those at the game earlier this week.
What is more pertinent for those of a City persuasion is just how confidence-shot they all look at present. Injuries have bitten down hard but for arguably the wealthiest club in world football, that cannot be reached for as genuine mitigation. Using it as a defence only underlines the fact that City's recruitment has not been on point for a couple of years, the capture of Erling Haaland aside.
It's instructive to just how tough City are finding things right now that a five-game sequence of largely shock defeats was brought to an end on Tuesday night and the situation was still somehow inflamed further by the manner of how they did it.
And what might just have led to a further scratching of a Guardiola head already full of angry welts was the fact that the side who inflicted the late and dramatic crumbling at the Etihad were singing the name of the current Liverpool boss by full time.
Arne Slot paid tribute to those Feyenoord supporters who still worship him over that mark of respect, saying he had to turn the television up from his home to hear just how "special" the moment was and while it was a heartwarming message reserved for their former boss, it will not have been lost on Guardiola either, who may just be forced to hear it again on Sunday, only this time in a louder, more Scouse twang.
"We have always had respect," an embattled Guardiola said on Friday. "Like in the past, fighting the biggest battles ever against Liverpool, always a big consideration for this football club. Nothing changes, they have lost one game in all competitions. That means they are so stable and that is really good because we will learn from that.
"Always (against Liverpool) it has been the toughest. But now in the last years have been Arsenal, but over the years Liverpool has been the toughest one, definitely."
Sunday presents the chance for Slot and his team to turn the pressure up to 11 as they go in search of a barely believable double-figure lead in the Premier League over their great rivals.
City, of course, have the ability to go on the kind of run that makes all their struggles look like the minor blip it would be for most other clubs in the coming weeks and months, but right now, they are wounded, both figuratively and literally.
It's the sort of situation that Liverpool, as a side who are being labelled by some as Europe's best on current form, simply must take advantage of. To do so might even be terminal for City's hopes of defending their championship once more. This type of circumstance may not come around again for Slot at Liverpool, so the Reds must bruise their visitors up further.
Make no mistake, the very last place Guardiola wants to visit this weekend, while knee deep in the worst run of his coaching career, is Anfield; the venue he has so often talked up as one of the most difficult and intimidating in world football. City are without a win in front of a paying crowd there since 2003, so they need this game like a hole in the head right now. Or should that be a big red scratch mark instead?