Maresca watched as his team took control in the second half of a thrilling match. From 2-2 at half-time, Madueke’s swift treble ensured we would leave the West Midlands with our first league win of the season. There was added satisfaction when Joao Felix completed the scoring on his second debut.

A social media post from Madueke in the build-up to the match saw him infuriate the home fans from the first minute, but he responded in the best possible way with his best performance in blue to date. Maresca assessed it afterwards.

“I can judge Noni’s performance, it was fantastic,” he said.

‘Not only in the second half, but also in the first half, he was always one-on-one for the first 10 or 15 minutes creating something.

“I’ve said from day one that he’s the kind of winger I really like. He works really well with us, but the best thing about Noni today wasn’t the hat-trick, it was the way he defended the counters for 90 minutes.

“That showed the right mentality that I ask of the players. It was for Noni, and it was for Christo Nkunku who played five minutes. Joao Felix was the same. If we want to build something, first of all you need the right mentality, and from all of them it was very good.”

We had been ahead twice in the first half, but when Maresca returned to the dressing room with his players, the score was already 2-2…

“I said in a delicate way that we had to be more precise. We started the first 15 minutes very well. We scored a goal and we had two or three more chances. Then we started losing easy balls, and when you lose easy balls you concede counterattacks, set pieces and you lose confidence. This happened the other day against Servette.

‘I just said that to play the way we want to play, we have to be a bit more precise. We can lose the ball if they press us very hard, but we can’t lose the ball by giving it away by making the wrong decision. The difference between the first half and the second half was that we had to be more precise.’

Cole Palmer had a hand in all six goals and opened his season ticket…

‘I’ve known Cole for four or five years. I had him for a season at City in the second team, then in the first team.

“He’s a special player, a special man, a special person. I’m not surprised at all by the goals he scored last year, the goal he scored today, the assists. He’s a top player.”