Now, I'm by no means a football purist.
Though I will admit to a healthy frustration with the dark arts like time-wasting and breaking up play, I am also quietly in admiration of those times when you just gotta do what you gotta do.
Celtic didn't beat Barcelona by having possession and Bigger Brother had to push Hypnodisc into the pit for a reason. Football is a sport of "win at all costs" and the only time people don't like The Big Sam's football (pre his stints at West Brom and Leeds) is when they get beaten by it. "Wouldn't wanna watch that every week..." (after Bolton had won 1-0 at Some Big Club by being good at set pieces and doing nothing else).
At the same time, though, Russell Crowe screamed "Are you not entertained?" for a reason. Partly was because it was in the Gladiator script and he was being paid to be on set, but there is also a message in there. Probably nothing to do with Premier League football, but look I'm clumsily forcing metaphors in for no reason so go with it.
Crowds don't go to things they don't enjoy. Winning is fun, so as long as you're winning you'll get away with a brand of football that doesn't produce many highlights. It's why people hate the 2006-07 Stuart Pearce era - City were bad, the football was dull AND they weren't getting results. If that style of football had earned a challenge for the European spots in the table (not sure how, just use your imagination for a second) then history would be a lot more forgiving to ol' Psycho. But it didn't, so it isn't.
Fast forward 15 years and City, by luck or by judgement, have transformed from have-nots into haves. In that "you gotta do what you gotta do" mindset, you can't blame any team - home or away - from killing the game from kick-off in an attempt to get something from it. In a world where Manchester City hold pretty much every positive Premier League record going, any team with a fraction of their resources would be certifiable to try anything other than ramming their backs so hard against the wall that it leaves a cartoon-style indentation into the brickwork.
Defend for your lives and accept the risk that, if it goes tits up, then you're probably not going to be able to get back into it. But at 0-0 and at 1-0, you're never out of it - and it's on City to bring out the powertools and get to work on dismantling that blockage to goal.
We spoke about this on this week's Blue Moon Podcast (quick plug there, think I got away with it). The days of Sané-Agüero-Sterling as your front three are gone and, at least in the foreseeable future, they're not coming back. End-to-end football might be entertaining to watch and that 2017-18 Guardiola side might be the most entertaining of any club the English league has ever seen, but it was a result of its circumstance.
Think how City were viewed at the beginning of that season. Think how YOU viewed City back then. Sure, there had been some big beatings handed out at the end of Guardiola's first year in charge, but there was still big scepticism over whether that fancy passing football could work in such a brutal league like the Premier League. Leicester and Everton had humbled City on the road that year, both scoring four past the ghost of Claudio Bravo - and there was an attitude that City were there to be got at.
What did that do? It left space, especially in the autumn where some teams got well and truly Hypnodisced (without being able to Bigger Brother City into the pit).
After winning a title in 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023, with a combined total of 466 points over those five seasons, teams feel less like they might be able to get something and more like they want to avoid City having out an evisceration to the point of turning their insides into a bobble hat and matching mittens. The discourse has moved on considerably from "if Pep thinks he can do that here then he's got another thing coming!" and has landed at "nobody can possibly stop City ever!" and it's been quite the journey.
Of course Sheffield United didn't want the ball and didn't leave their own half (apart from very specific opportunities). If they have the ball, they have to move forward. If they move forward and lose it, then City have space to attack - and the best way to stop City scoring is to make sure there's no space anywhere.
And this brings us to Jack Grealish, who - if you believe permanently online fans on Twitter/X - needs to "take on his man more". It's a nice idea in principle and the evidence seems to back it up from last Sunday (Erling Haaland scored when Grealish got to the by-line, past his man and crossed it) but the reality is a lot less simple.
When Grealish got past his man on Sunday, Sheffield United weren't set up to deal with him. For the majority of the game, there were extra defenders for Grealish to face up. When he got the ball, there were mainly two, but occasionally three, red-and-white striped shirts in his path - and running to the by-line there is a futile operation in an arena where the crowd is thriving off blocked crosses and good-old-fashioned-defending.
Instead, it's much better for City for him to hold the ball, draw those two or three players his way, and then move the ball back inside where one of the other Sheffield United players may have switched off or made a positional error for one of City's other attacking talents to exploit. Indeed, when Grealish got the space to attack the by-line and cross for Haaland to score, he was afforded that possibility because the players defending him didn't do what they were supposed to when the ball came his way.
On top of all of that, even as a less technical point, unpredictability makes players more difficult to play again. If Grealish goes to the by-line every time he gets the ball (instead of every time he has the right chance to) then the right chance will be even rarer. Change is the enemy of complacency, so slowing the game down and then attacking one side or the other side based on the situation will bear much more fruit than constantly taking on his man because it looks good.
And besides, Grealish cutting inside allowed him to play the pass through to Álvarez to win the penalty and allowed him to set up Rodri for a left-footer from the corner of the box, but we don't talk about those chances because they don't look as good (and because City missed).
These days, the majority of teams City face want to sit deep and they want to attack only when the time is right. In giving them fewer opportunities to break out, in beating the will out of them with sustained attack after attack, and in keeping the game in their final third, there are two main effects. One - City are more likely to score. Two - the opponent is less likely to create a chance.
It's not a perfect science and, of course, Sheffield United did score on the counter (and should have equalised at 2-1) but you don't get it all your own way at all times. Other teams are actually still pretty good, so let them have the fewest chances to create chances as possible - you don't do that by making it an end-to-end basketball game (even if such a thing was possible against a low block, I'm not convinced it is).
City were great on Sunday. Grealish was great on Sunday. Don't fall into the trap of thinking otherwise just because there was no explosive counter attacks, no solo dribbling past four players, and no shrapnel flying across the arena from a 20kg flywheel.