Sunday’s dispiriting second trip to Manchester in as many weeks didn’t deliver the result we’d hoped for, but City’s crack tunnel cam team did — Chelsea, even more dispiritingly, don’t tend to produce tunnel cams for losses. Tunnel cams are for winners, apparently. Chelsea did grace us with a Re-Seen over the weekend, which you can see at the bottom. It includes highlights from the U18s demolition of Fulham, which are worth the price of admission, and then some.
In any case, back to the City tunnel cam.
Before we get started, have you ever noticed how many sets of staircases City have at their place? All the tunnel cam shots from Sunday’s match are up stairs, down stairs, up some more stairs, down a final flight of stairs. Why do they bother with warm-ups on the pitch? Their legs are shot just get getting to the dressing room.
There is one piece of useful information from this video. N’Golo Kante is seen entering the stadium at 00:16 into the video and — you guessed it — going up some stairs. Which means the reports that he stayed on the bus were wrong. He may have gone back out for a sleep, but you can see that he’s ambulatory, if not exactly all smiles.
If you’ve ever wanted a glimpse Michael Oliver in his socks, this is your chance. At 3:55 the door opens to the ref’s room for their meeting with the captains and there he is in all of his unshod glory. My goodness he looks young, though. In fact, so many of the players look young, especially Kevin De Bruyne.
I feel old. Check that, I am old.
I think we have to give a name to this business of all the Spanish players in the Premier League meeting pre- and post-match. Let’s call it the Spanish bro-hug. First it’s Cesc and Silva (2:17), then Silva and Azpi (3:48), then Silva, Pedro, Alonso and Morata post-match (12:44). Spanish bro-hugs all around. And one kiss on Silva’s bald head (12:10) from Txiki Begiristain, their Director of Football. What’s that all about?
You want shirt swaps, we got shirt swaps. Silva with Pedro (12:44) and De Bruyne with Giroud (13:27).
All in all another fine effort by City’s excellent social media staff.
And yet... disappointing from Pep. He failed to give us the same show he put on for fine people of Wigan. No handbags in the tunnel. Boo. No Spanish bro-hug for you.