Manchester City's last game against Bournemouth was grim.
It may have appealed to those living for the tension of the Premier League title race or the chess-like tactical moves of the managers, but it was no fun to watch.
Eddie Howe, a coach that has rightfully won many plaudits for the enterprising football his teams play, set his side up so defensively that they didn't have a single shot.
Not just no shot on target, no shot until after they had gone behind in the 55th minute but no shot. At all. And yes, some of that is down to the impressive defence Pep Guardiola has coached but you have to be spectacularly dour to not even attempt one effort at goal over 90 minutes.
"It is difficult - you want to be competitive and that was the way for us to make the game tight, show toughness and mentally hang in," Howe offered afterwards as an explanation.
City have become used to teams changing their tactics to play them. Jurgen Klopp jokingly suggested that the best way to prepare for the champions was to have a match against them, while Kevin De Bruyne said earlier this month that "obviously teams are going to play differently, maybe even more defensively than they did" given the threats in this title-winning team are so well known.
However, in the last two seasons that has not come instantly. In the opening months of the campaign before the cold and the packed schedule set in for good, City have still found opponents willing to make a game of it.
With Graham Potter's Brighton, Norwich, Watford, Everton, Wolves, Palace and Villa to play before Halloween hits, there looks to be ample opportunity for the Blues to make some serious headway in their hunt for a third successive title.
But Bournemouth should prove a good indicator of just how difficult some of these teams will make it for the Blues. If Howe sets his team up as he did last season, at this point in the campaign where it is far too early for results to be talked about with serious significance for them, and having seen such negative tactics fail last season, it will suggest that De Bruyne's prediction was correct and that more teams than ever will be more defensive than ever from the outset.
