What’s going on? Manchester City and Inter deliver bad advertising for new world | Champions League

Well, Rodri was right about one thing. We definitely need fewer games like this. Welcome to UEFA’s new world of expansionism, a competition without structure that exists only to provide another roll of TV wallpaper and lacks any level of excitement or structure.

The most dramatic moment at the room-temperature Etihad Stadium came in the 78th minute. As Inter wasted one of several good chances of the evening, Simone Inzaghi, their thrillingly energetic manager, could literally be seen on his hands and knees in the cat stretch position, slapping his hands on the turf as if he were performing a steamy dance from a 1980s soft-rock music video, whipping his hair and pressing the knees of his smart dark suit into the grass.

In Italy, the story goes that Inzaghi is obsessed with the 2023 final between these two teams, fixated on revenge, on a correction, on getting back to that level. He is certainly a great, permanently angry spectacle on the sidelines. He was definitely more interesting than that game, more rewarding to watch, the physical expression of his alleged fixation on revenge at least provided a narrative arc, some dramatic tension.

Otherwise, this 0-0 draw was only interesting for the questions it raised. City wore their Definitely Maybe shirt for the occasion, a tribute (i.e. a corporate rip-off) to the 30th anniversary of that album. This is a sensible commercial swap. Oasis have cultural standing. City have money. Life is expensive.

But the actual home kit is a classic. Whereas this one looks like you’re wearing a faded orange bib with Comic Sans numbers on the back. It looks like something you’d find on the last clearance rack at TK Maxx, with a label saying it was made by Guido Ferrenti. If Definitely Maybe get their hands on this, just imagine what monstrosity they’ll come up with for Be Here Now and Heathen Chemistry.

Yet it was also fitting, as City delivered an hour of late-stage Oasis-style performance: derivative, complacent, familiar patterns with no real edge. In general, it was just another cold weekday fixture, another game after another just because you can pile on more games. For long stretches, the pitch was more or less silent. If you leave out the away fans, it would have been hard to tell that any kind of public spectacle was actually taking place.

Despite all of this, Inter looked like what they are: a very well organised team. If Marcus Thuram had been a better finisher, they would have been two goals ahead at half time. For City, the most interesting thing about this game was how porous they looked.

Normally, City’s midfield has an impenetrable geometry, the angles and the layers of sediment on top of each other leaving no space, no channels, no way out. Here, Inter were able to overcome the first challenge of finding ways to pass and run. Has any team in the last two years gotten through City’s midfield so easily?

The attacking line pressed so high and so flat. Inter deployed their left winger Piotr Zielinski wide and pinned Rico Lewis after a couple of early attacks, stopping City’s usual numerical superiority inside. Kevin De Bruyne and Rodri looked oddly isolated. At times Rodri seemed to be guarding his own huge central space. He looked rusty. Frankly, he looked like he could do with a few more games. Was he on strike already?

And yes, City will be good. They are getting better and better. We’ve seen that before. Erling Haaland had 14 touches. Jérémy Doku, who came on with 10 minutes to go, had 16. That’s good too. We’ve seen that before. It’s working. But it’s also a slightly different moment. How good is this late Haaland-focused team? It’s such a stripped-down entity now.

Guardiola’s City teams used to seem like an aesthetic statement, a pursuit of victory but also an intellectual exercise in how to get there. Nowadays it’s almost all about winning, which is an art in its own way. At its best, there’s something suffocating, suffocating about this late Pep version of City. Playing against them and losing must feel like being slowly put to sleep by a lethal injection.

Does it have to be like this? The most surprising thing here was the lack of creative ideas. Without Phil Foden on the pitch, City basically had only one reliable creative player. Jack Grealish was arguably their liveliest player. But once again, you wonder why Guardiola did this to Grealish, making him a sort of calming point, a defensive winger there to slow things down and keep control.

Grealish is a first in his own way, a winger who makes the crowd crouch when he gets the ball. Guardiola brought on Ilkay Gundogan and Foden at half-time and immediately improved his team. They will be back, perhaps as early as Sunday. But that was hardly a good advertisement for the new world.