Nobody left early. Nobody stopped singing. Nobody grizzled or ­grumbled or booed or barracked. Ipswich Town have spent long enough out of the Premier League’s walled garden not to take its pleasures for granted, even if those pleasures occasionally include getting spanked 6-0 by the quadruple champions. Equally, this is a result for which the rest of the division will not necessarily thank them.

Since Sammie Szmodics sensationally squeezed them ahead at the ­Etihad Stadium in August, Ipswich have now given up 10 unanswered goals to Manchester City in 173 ­minutes of football. And if that was partly stage fright, here they were more complicit: a collapse up there with their worst performances of the season, perhaps even playing an edgy City back into some kind of form.

Related: Ipswich 0-6 Manchester City: Premier League reaction – live

And – oh, look – here they are, back in the top four, a month unbeaten, 20 goals scored in 19 days of ­January, against an admittedly mixed range of opponents. They are still ­worryingly open at times, still occasionally liable to getting cut right through the middle. But this Pep Guardiola team does at least look like a Pep Guardiola team again.

Guardiola smiled and nodded when asked whether this performance had been coming. “Quicker, faster, wiser in the decisions we had to take,” he said. “For a long time we have not performed in the way we wanted. But the most important thing was to realise that when we do this … OK, we can compete.”

More ominously, their big players are beginning to warm to the task. Kevin de Bruyne was indifferent for half an hour, but then after a slightly fortuitous assist looked hungrier and sharper than at any point since his injury. Erling Haaland missed an early one-on-one but eventually cele­brated the first goal bonus of his new decade-long contract. Then you have Phil Foden.

How City missed that Big Phil Energy during that turbulent autumn period. How different a prospect they now look with him back in form, prowling the edge of the penalty area, cutting in off the right, drifting and menacing. He scored the first goal, made the second for Mateo Kovacic, scored the third. “The biggest ­quality is around the area,” Guardiola said. “I feel the goal in his blood, in his bones, in his mind. We are really pleased that he is happy again.”

The ever-dangerous Jérémy Doku added a fourth and Haaland a fifth, before the 22-year-old James ­McAtee brought the bench to their feet with his first Premier League goal for City late on. For Ipswich, embroiled in a bruising game with Brighton on Thursday night, the legs failed them late on but arguably their heads went much earlier. By the second half, after a string of simple errors in ­possession, they were openly arguing on the pitch.

It was clever from Guardiola to relentlessly attack the Ipswich right flank, where Ben Johnson had a torrid game against Doku and Ben Godfrey alongside him, a new loan signing from Atalanta, was clearly still on Serie A time. The first four goals all came from that side: Foden bundling home De Bruyne’s deflected cross, then setting up Kovacic from 18 yards, and then converting De Bruyne’s cut‑back under the squirming hands of Christian Walton.

Three-nil at half-time, and pro­bably the moment at which Ipswich imploded. Up front Liam Delap was still making a nuisance of himself, still wriggling and wrestling into promising positions, but every time Ipswich lost the ball they looked vulnerable. Johnson and Omari Hutchinson were bawling at each other as an attack broke down, and still bawling at each other as Ipswich kicked off after Doku’s beautiful run and shuffle into the far corner.

Next it was Jack Clarke’s turn to err, ruining a sharp performance with a sideways pass straight to Doku, who kindly slipped in Haaland. “Ten more years,” the City fans sang. With one eye on the game against Paris in ­midweek, Guardiola rolled out the substitutes, which probably spared Ipswich a hall-of-fame level humiliation. But there was still time for McAtee to break his duck with a nicely-timed run and smart looping header.

Are City back? Paris will probably give us a better idea of that. Are Ipswich done? Absolutely not. “If you can’t hit the level, the game can completely get away from you,” Kieran McKenna admitted. But it wasn’t like our goal was absolutely peppered, or we couldn’t get out of our box. If we stick together, we can be in a much stronger position in a few weeks.”

This was a horrific afternoon, and Anfield next weekend is a ­devilishly tough place to bounce back. But they’re still fighting, still credible, still united. Nobody expects Ipswich to be here next season. But then nobody expected them to be breathing this air in the first place.