The 2023 finalists, both winners of back-to-back league titles last season, currently sit first and third in the Opta Power Rankings world rankings. We hear that games like this on matchday one of the brand-new Champions League will make Manchester City’s later clashes with Sparta Prague and Slovan Bratislava worth their inevitable pointlessness. Hmmm.

The TNT Sports analysts did their best to build up the tension before the game, claiming that Inter were looking to take “revenge” after their final defeat two years ago, while City were looking to “get off to a good start”. But at the risk of sounding like old farts stuck in their ways, we couldn’t help but be disappointed by a game that – when it comes down to it – probably won’t matter; a feeling that was reinforced by Inter’s captain and talisman Lautaro Martinez starting on the bench for Sunday’s Milan derby and City’s somewhat aloof performance on an opening night of supposedly greater magnitude.

City never really got going. Inter were the main threat in the first half with summer signing Piotr Zielinski combining well with Nicolo Barella in midfield, while Rodri looked unusually slow and uncertain after the great construction for his first start of the season.

Mehdi Taremi caused City problems in transition up front with Marcus Thuram wasting a good chance after a ball was pulled back to him on the penalty spot, while left-back Carlos Augusto fired a shot straight at Ederson and Matteo Darmian saw an effort cleared by Josko Gvardiol when the City keeper was caught running away from his goal. It felt as if Simone Inzaghi had outclassed Pep Guardiola.

Erling Haaland, chasing his 100th City goal, once missed the post and saw a header easily saved, but that was all Yann Summer managed in a first half that saw City struggle to find joy in Inter’s solid centre, their blind runs and cutbacks unfruitful due to a combination of excellent defending, poor crosses and a few shots through the air.

Guardiola’s mood at half-time will not have been improved by a fresh injury to Kevin De Bruyne, who missed 41 games for club and country last season.

What you didn’t see much of in that absence was the mass lament on social media over City’s misfortune, which inexplicably devolved into conspiracy theories of varying degrees of lunacy about The Man’s desperate attempt to deny them victories and titles. The sort of thing we’ve had to endure at Arsenal X in the nine days that feel like half a season since Martin Odegaard hobbled off the pitch for Norway against Austria.

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City are undoubtedly better equipped to shrug off an injury to their captain-in-chief than Arsenal. They won 19 of their 26 games without De Bruyne last season and he was replaced here by Ilkay Gundogan, while Phil Foden also came on for Savinho at half-time as Mateo Kovacic and Matheus Nunes remained on the bench.

But there also won’t be such a fiery disregard for reality as a result of De Bruyne’s injury, as most Arsenal fans have shown, but probably – hopefully – that’s not the majority either, with an injury problem presented as a crisis by the media (of which we are one) who prey on the clicks of the irrational subgroup of Gooners.

When kick-off on Sunday, Arsenal will be without two players who might reasonably have been expected to start – Odegaard and Merino – along with Oleksandr Zinchenko, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Kieran Tierney, who absolutely would not. Manchester City will be without De Bruyne, assuming his injury is serious enough, Nathan Ake and Oscar Bobb. There is not much difference between their respective crises, if we want to call them that.

Foden had a couple of chances when he came on, and his best shot was straight at Sommer after good work from Jack Grealish and Gundogan. Gundogan, however, missed City’s best chances in the 89th and 94th minutes. His first header found the Inter keeper’s gloves, but he was unable to stop the second, which flew over the bar.

They were the more dangerous side in the second half, but Inter were still a threat on the counter-attack and Darmian had a glorious chance to win the game with a stunning move but inexplicably cut the ball back – Guti-to-Karim Benzema style in 2010 – when facing Ederson. But alas, Darmian is no Guti and his attempted brilliant assist fell victim to a City player.

The 0-0 draw will be no problem for City, who will surely find the five wins they need from their remaining seven games to secure automatic qualification for the knockout stages. And it is telling that the consequence of this clash between two of the top three teams in Europe, with no goals conceded and little quality, was an injury to De Bruyne, and even that is not a major talking point, its value mainly in preventing Arsenal fans from whining three days before a match that really matters.