Twenty-five minutes were on the clock and things could not have been going any better for Manchester City.
The Blues raced into a 4-0 lead against Leicester City on Boxing Day with a first-half performance among the very best ever produced under Pep Guardiola.
City were rampant in attack with Raheem Sterling, Riyad Mahrez and Kevin De Bruyne cutting hapless Leicester defenders to shreds in front of a delighted Etihad Stadium crowd. Strikes from De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan and penalties from Mahrez and Sterling put City out of sight before half-time, with minds already wandering to the midweek trip to Brentford in three days' time.
Absolutely no one, not least Leicester themselves, could have foreseen what happened after the interval.
In 10 chaotic second-half minutes City conceded three times, all through counter-attacks, and looked completely shaken.
The first, a well-worked counter finished by James Maddison, came about from an ill-timed slip from Aymeric Laporte. His misfortune left Ruben Dias and Joao Cancelo facing three attackers, so there can be no serious qualms about that goal.
What was telling was how City responded to that blip.
Normally, City would quickly squash and fight-back by reasserting control of proceedings - after all, if the other team doesn't have the ball then they can't win.
The best midfield trio for doing this is undoubtedly Rodri, Gundogan and Bernardo Silva. Rodri as absent from the matchday squad on Boxing Day so club captain Fernandinho deputised, joined the the centre of the pitch by Gundogan and De Bruyne.
It has been well documented this season that Fernandinho is no Rodri, and at 36 years of age, he can no longer do things he used to. Rodri's biggest traits are his passing and his ability to seemingly always find a way out of pressure, both essential to City's adventurous and risky style.
In the first half that didn't matter, as Oleksandr Zinchenko and Joao Cancelo tucked into midfield when City had the ball in order to provide multiple passing options and support for Fernandinho. This created lots of opportunities for City to pass through Leicester and escape their pressing.
After half time though, that didn't happen.
Credit has to go to Brendan Rodgers here, as his side appeared to cut off the passing lanes between Fernandinho, Zinchenko and Cancelo that allowed City to assert control early on. That meant that when City players received the ball in the middle third of the pitch, they had fewer passing options.
The second Leicester goal, another counter-attack this time finished off by Ademola Lookman, came about from Zinchenko trying to force a pass into the feet of an under-pressure Gundogan. The pass was intercepted and the visitors exploited the lack of pace and defensive cover in the centre of City's team.
Kelechi Iheanacho's goal came from Ederson failing to deal with a long-range Maddison effort, but overall City's ten-minute nightmare was created by them losing control in midfield.
While it seems too simplistic to attribute Rodri's absence as the crucial factor, it is hard to imagine that City would have given up possession so easily had he been on the field.
It was no coincidence that Guardiola introduced Phil Foden from the bench with the scoreline standing at 5-3. He wanted to make sure City didn't concede control again, so he brought on one of his best passers and ball-keepers.
In the end City rode out 6-3 winners, a result that puts them six points clear at the top of the Premier League table after Liverpool's meeting with Leeds was postponed.
But despite their attacking brilliance, Guardiola will likely have learned more from his team's failures. Of course, he already knows of Rodri's importance, but now he knows he needs to have a plan of action for the next time his Spanish midfielder is absent.
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