I mean, we could talk all morning about what went wrong in the first 15 minutes and ruminate on why City turned up 15 minutes late for kick-off but let’s instead focus on what went right between minutes 16 and 94.

First things first … I’m not sure the NCFC classes of 2021-22, 2022-23, and 2023-24 had it in them to recover from two-goal deficits. There may be examples – albeit one doesn’t spring to mind – but after last night’s horror start, we ended the game disappointed not to have won it. T

And that says something about the journey this group is on under Johannes Hoff Thorup.

We know that they are technically proficient, or at least aim to be, as it’s that which underpins this Hoff-ball revolution, but until last night, their ability to dig deep and scrape out a result from a seemingly impossible situation had not been tested.
But it was. And they did.

In all honesty, it wasn’t City’s best night with the ball – even from minutes 16 to 94 – and nice football in the defensive and attacking thirds was all too often let down by a lack of incision in the final third, but what was impressive was the relentless way they plugged away in search of a way back into the game.

That Shane Duffy, our enfant terrible for most of the summer and early autumn, popped up with a quite brilliant equaliser added another layer of surreality to what was a weird old night.

Yet that equaliser was nothing ...