Manchester City have shown that they mean business in order to try and prove they remain the best in the business.
Txiki Begiristain, Ferran Soriano and Pep Guardiola composed a masterpiece in Manchester, one of the best teams ever witnessed in the game that have broken records with achievements that may never be matched. But it was beginning to all fall down around them.
Guardiola's insistence that this squad had one last fight in them looked good up to September, and even after losing Rodri for the season they hit November as Premier League leaders and well-placed in the Champions League. The implosion of form and confidence has been spectacular though, and the feeling after waiting forlornly for an injury crisis to go away was that a rebuild was necessary.
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Julian Alvarez did not feel like a particularly big miss when he left, yet with all of City's creative sparks bar Erling Haaland misfiring, Omar Marmoush was headhunted to add variety to an attack that had gone stale. And finally, on deadline day after a 5-1 mauling at the Emirates, the position that City fans have been crying out for was strengthened as midfielder Nico Gonzalez arrived from Porto in a £50m deal.
City do not like doing business in the January window because you can be a hostage to the market conditions - paying more for players that aren't your first choice because the best targets aren't being sold in the middle of a season - but defeats to Arsenal and PSG made it look like the Premier League champions had been taken hostage and replaced by impostors. Those two deals are a statement of intent from owners who still believe they have a chance of winning another competition this campaign.
Then there are the two buys for the future, 20-year-old defender Abdukodir Khusanov and 18-year-old Vitor Reis. With Kyle Walker abandoning ship after his form had left him, and the fitness of each of City's four main centre-backs failing them, a changing of the guard is inevitable and necessary.
An even more significant handover is already under way as Begiristain prepares to leave at the end of the season. The sporting director that has been pivotal to the club's success needs this window to look good to protect his legacy, although there have already been signs in City's business that his replacement Hugo Viana has started work earlier than Sporting would have liked.
There are quibbles to be had over the treatment of James McAtee and Nico O'Reilly, but this has been a window where City have played through their pain to help steady Guardiola's ship for this season as well as fast-track plans for the future. Having shown that they mean business - with a confidence that indicates they haven't changed their feeling on the verdict of the Premier League charges they are facing - City now need their plans to pay off if they are to prove critics wrong about the end of their era of dominance.
