Manchester City went down to ten men in Sunday's derby and Erling Haaland still finished the day rewriting the club's scoring history, dragging City through a rout that should have been a rescue mission. A VAR call so contested it will get replayed on Sky Sports well into next season sent a City player for an early shower, and City won anyway, which is the least Pep Guardiola sentence of the decade and also, apparently, just Tuesday. Arsenal did their part for symmetry two days later, beating Sunderland 2-0 to stay perfect through the opening weeks after Sunderland had the nerve to hold them 2-2 the last time out. Two unbeaten starts, one city, same postcode for the title race nobody else in London or Manchester has been invited to yet.

Here's the number that actually explains why City can shrug off a red card and a contested VAR call before the sponsors even finish their coffee: City's ownership, Abu Dhabi's City Football Group, doesn't run one club, it runs thirteen, from Mumbai City to New York City to Yokohama, a portfolio built specifically so no single Sunday, no single sending-off, no single refereeing controversy ever threatens the asset. Haaland's derby heroics are the product on matchday. The multi-club network is the balance sheet underneath it, and it doesn't care who gets shown red.