So Tevez was not at St Mary's, and on the evidence of the opening quarter, nor were most of his team-mates. The tireless Javi Garcia aside, they were second to the ball too often, too easily hounded out of possession.
Roberto Mancini's team selection had certainly suggested a certain bullishness. He had gambled, selecting his only two fit strikers in Dzeko and Sergio Aguero. Carlos Tevez, somewhat mysteriously, was absent owing to what were described as "family issues".
So Tevez was not at St Mary's, and on the evidence of the opening quarter, nor were most of his team-mates. The tireless Javi Garcia aside, they were second to the ball too often, too easily hounded out of possession.
Southampton began with gusto, harrying the visitors with their high-energy pressing game, attempting to starve Dzeko and Aguero of service. It was relentless pressure on the ball-carrier that led to the opening goal.
That man was Gareth Barry. He tarried too long on the ball just inside his own half, allowing Puncheon to relieve him of it. Southampton poured forward, with three men on two. Puncheon laid the ball left to Jay Rodriguez, putting him clean through.
Rodriguez greeted his moment of truth with an expression approaching mild terror. He shuffled diffidently towards goal, taking two touches too many, placing his shot straight at Hart. But the ball rebounded to Puncheon, who had time for one touch only, and used it to tuck the ball under Hart's body and in. Puncheon's celebration, a reference to his unscheduled toilet break against Everton last month, is one best left to the imagination.
The outstanding Puncheon had a hand in the second goal, too. Rickie Lambert brought down a long diagonal ball on the right wing and swivelled inside Gael Clichy, buying him just enough time to curl the ball left-footed at goal. Hart, a former schoolboy cricketer, lined the shot up like a slip fielder ready to pounce on a simple edge.
Instead, inexplicably, the catch was grassed, trickling between his legs and across goal. The advancing Davis threw out a left shoe, getting to the ball a fraction before Pablo Zabaleta. If the home fans had scented an upset after the first goal, this was when hope turned into expectation.
Indeed, Rodriguez should have made it 3-0, volleying wide from eight yards out when a fiercely-struck shot was what Hart would have been most dreading. Then, just as City were defending a corner on their left, they sprang from the ropes and landed a lightning blow to the solar plexus. Dzeko headed the corner away to Aguero, who played it back into the path of his fellow striker. The ball went inside to David Silva, who chipped it beautifully into the path of Zabaleta, crossing low to Dzeko, whose scuffed finish past a despairing Artur Boruc was the only ugly part of the entire move. In five passes and around 15 seconds, City had shown why they were champions.
What a rip-roaring game we had in prospect now. Mere feet from each other on the touchline, Pochettino and Mancini tried to drown each other out with their exhortations. Puncheon lashed a volley wide from 20 yards.
Southampton claimed a penalty when the returning Yaya Toure clumsily brought down Rodriguez on the very edge of the penalty area. Referee Martin Atkinson paused theatrically before signalling a corner.
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