During the weekend's Manchester derby, Martin Tyler and Gary Neville could only sit back and think of England.
This was in contrast to virtually everybody else.
The Premier League has become such an absurd television event that now there is hype concerning the amount of hype created around games, with many of the introductions to the derby focussing on how this is the 'most-hyped Manchester derby of all time'. Sky pulled out all the stops: designing their own bespoke 'Derby Day' graphic for the big occasion, with host Simon Thomas triumphantly proclaiming that this was the most expensive Premier League game of all time, giving each player's transfer cost while listing the team line-ups pre-game.
The lunchtime kick-off, the BBC told us, was to cater for a global audience: from the early-risers in the States to those burning the midnight oil Down Under. This was global entertainment curated by Sky Sports that happened to take place in England: of the 22 starting players, only five were English.
The fact that the biggest game in the English league features very few Englishmen is no longer something worthy of news: the league has long since strayed from its notional founding value of benefitting the English national team, and is now essentially a void in which global billionaires can fling money into.
The league exists beyond England, and Sky are largely responsible for it: it is they who have pumped the league with the money to make the league a global fascination, and allowed it import the best coaches and some of the best players across Europe. Such an outward-looking attitude has brought it with a remarkable level of education, with concepts like a 'false nine', 'full court press' and regista staples of the football fan's vernaculars, earning a place alongside tabloid reliables like 'derisory'.
The derby itself was utterly bewitching, and was part of a superb weekend of football. The world paid attention to Sky Sports: presumably another victory for the broadcaster.
But Sky's commentary box, Gary Neville could only think of England.
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Claudio Bravo - he with the brazen gumption of being comfortable with the ball on his feet - has replaced England's brave Joe Hart in City's goal, and Neville used it to cling misty-eyed to the traditional characteristics of English football that his employers have made seem antiquated. The idea of 'getting the ball in the mixer' is painted by the English as their unique invention, but now that Pep has arrived, it's just no good.
When Bravo dropped a cross to allow Zlatan score a magnificent goal, and Neville used it to Make England Great Again. There was a certain level of knowing scorn poured upon Bravo's error by Neville, saying that it was the "one mistake that he [Pep] didn't want", going on to wonder aloud whether "Joe Hart is smiling in Turin". Neville went on to say that "we know you can pass, but can you catch", before turning into a sociologist in diagnosing Bravo's first mistake in "this league", undone as he was by a "Premier League Cross" while under "Premier League Pressure". Whatever the hell that means.
(As an aside, the dropping of a cross seems to be English football's method of immigration control. Perhaps it is an idea for the post-Brexit UK to screen for foreigners by tossing a ball high in the air at Passport Control to see if it can be caught).
The graphics department got on board with this great schadenfreude of Bravo coming over here, with all of his silly passing ideals:
Martin Tyler later said that he can side-foot the ball from the back, but could he handle the ball? Tyler later harrumphed about the effectiveness of a 'long ball through the middle', referencing City's opener.
This was quite poor analysis: little was said about England's John Stones' role in getting in the way of his goalkeeper, and the fact that 'Premier League Crosses' were ineffective for Manchester United in the final quarter as they chased the game.
Instead, Bravo's passing from the back was one reason why City remained so utterly deadly on the counter.
Also, it's not as if Englishmen don't drop crosses.
But Neville's commentary was not analysis.
Neville is among the game's best analysts, so this piece of commentary felt like a lament for the lost soul of English football. Long hoofed balls will retain a certain nostalgic mystique in English football, but Sky's money has allowed Pep Guardiola - probably the greatest coach of his generation - come to England to educate the masses of his importance of passing from the back. The reality is that Neville's employers have allowed this to happen.
All has been changed utterly, and try as Neville might, the elite of English domestic football has never been further from the nation's idea of football. Proust wrote in In search of Lost Time that the great fright of scientific advance is not technological but intellectual: it gives us an idea that the human mind will always advance beyond our own; that we are all ultimately going to end up obsolete.
Sky have done that to English football: filled it with riches beyond anyone's imagination to make it exist outside of geography.
What do they know of England who only England know?
All too much.
Football Punditry's Advice of the Week
Dion Dublin on Homes Under the Hammer.
Garth Crooks Corner
If there is one Englishman unafraid of bold team formations, it's Garth Crooks. It's another mad Team of the Week on the BBC website.
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