Four fully competitive games into the post-Pep Guardiola era and everything is ... fine. If that seems an insubstantial takeaway from Manchester City's 2-0 win over Porto, well maybe that's the point. They've done the guy whose whims challenge your notions of how football might be played.
Now is the time to let the talent shine through. There was more than enough of that for Enzo Maresca's first Champions League tie in charge of City to end in a comfortable victory. Not until just before the hour did Porto get a shot away at Gianluigi Donnarumma's goal.
By then, Erling Haaland had delivered his 58th Champions League goal in 59 games, the precise full stop on a move of delicious interplay that flowed through each of the three attacking midfielders before the £125 million man Enzo Fernandez dropped a delivery on the head of his No. 9. His 59th cooled the nerves in added time. It wasn't thrilling; it ended in an unnecessarily tense fashion but in the aggregate the performance was largely effective.
That has been the story of City in the games that have really mattered since that heavy defeat in the Community Shield. Two out of three inferior domestic opponents were beaten in clunky fashion, the same again here. None of those matches have offered answers to the bigger questions that ailed Guardiola last season.
How do they stop themselves from getting burned on transitions, something which happened again even if Porto did not turn those openings into shots? What happens if Haaland stubs his toe, let alone anything worse? Why do they get so slack with their leads?
Even with all those questions unanswered, City did enough right. Maresca might only have coached six Champions League games but his base operating structure is pretty well suited for a talent advantage on the road in this competition. From the outset, his side were perfectly prepared to bide their time.
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