Jesus has given City fans hope of what is to come (Photo: PA)
It was a bit early for a bout of badge-thumping but you could not blame him.
Gabriel Jesus, as nailed-on a local and global star of the future as you could possibly find.
Smart and smiley, fast and friendly, a natural-born footballer, a young man who has pasted a grin back on to the face of Manchester City.
The misery had spread from Pep Guardiola, the tortured one, beating himself on the bench for the unravelling of his plans.
It reached a self-analytical peak with pantomime defeat at Goodison Park but Jesus was waiting in the wings.
And City’s season of contrasts has been given renewed impetus by a player whose £27million transfer fee is already blinding value.
Keeping this boy away from the Spanish superpowers has been one of the modern City board’s and Guardiola’s most notable achievements.
It is not just that his added-time tap-in meant Guardiola avoided a draw that would probably have pained him as much as any throwaway result this season.
It is that Jesus, in harness with the likes of Leroy Sane and Raheem Sterling, has given the club a different dynamic, an alternative feel, an aura for the future not just for now.
More One Direction than Take That hits to look forward to rather than occasional, glorious blasts from the past.
Jesus, 19. Sane, 21. Sterling, 22. Stones, 22. De Bruyne, 25.
They were slightly fortunate here, these gilded youths, easing so far off the gas, Swansea could even have slammed them into reverse.
But the blending of such a spicy mix of talent will take patience and time.
When perfected, it will pour excitement into every nook and cranny of the Etihad.
Jesus will be its key ingredient.
This was not a flamboyant contribution, this was no Brazilian caricature. His first goal was all about awareness and reaction, anticipating the spillage from a Sterling-Martin Olsson tangle and finishing with in-stepped, elegant precision.
His winning goal – after Gylfi Sigurdsson had drilled in an equaliser from 20 yards that was cool but aided by some indifferent Gael Clichy and Stones defending – was all about a classic centre-forward’s drift between defenders and the presence of mind to insure against keeper, Lukasz Fabianski’s initial save. Never mind the skill that showed itself in one sublime flick to David Silva, he clearly has a knack.
His combination play with Sane and Sterling will only improve and become more reliable than it was as this contest wore on.
If it’s the youthfulness that excites, though, it’s the seasoned splendour of Silva that should satisfy in the here and now.
Into his fourth decade, he was one crayon-ringed as a likely casualty of Guardiola’s regime but instead has become his talisman.
Watching Silva in his workplace, smuggling himself between two defensive banks, is a joy.
He loves the code-finding challenge. Like a safecracker with his ear to the dial, he will turn and probe until he finds the right combination.
It looked like he got lucky when getting through Federico Fernandez in the build-up to the Jesus opener – he didn’t. It was a deliberate wall-pass with a shin-pad. There was certainly nothing fortunate about his assist for the Jesus winner, a ball crafted not crossed.
It left a bitter taste on Swansea boss, Paul Clement’s palate, complaining of a wrongly-awarded, wrongly-taken free-kick in City’s half in the build-up to the build-up.
He might have had a semblance of a point but he never mentioned Sterling’s harsh booking for a penalty-box dive or that there may have been an offside query about the equaliser.
Neither did Guardiola, to be fair. He was far too consumed giving Jesus the credit he deserved.
Repeatedly, he stressed his player’s age.
Repeatedly, unusually for Guardiola, he smiled.
He knows he has pulled off a coup, he knows the happy future of his club belongs to Gabriel Jesus.
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