It might not be today, tomorrow or next week but be sure it is approaching. At some point soon, Pep Guardiola will have to make a firm decision on his Manchester City future.
The decision is his and his alone. City would happily allow Guardiola, the most decorated manager in their history, to stay beyond the next eight months. Obviously they would. But the autonomy afforded him makes this situation, continuing to bubble under, delicate.
Guardiola claimed his contract will not impact on performances but some of the squad have been left wondering who they will be playing under next season. The clocks have gone back, winter is drawing near, and nobody in the City Football Academy offices is any the wiser whether Guardiola will be in charge next summer.
If he does not plan to stick around — and nobody would blame the Catalan for that after five years in a hugely demanding job — then the club need to press ahead with sorting a successor.
Only two men really spring to mind. Mauricio Pochettino, a name that has done the rounds since his sacking by Tottenham. And RB Leipzig's 33-year-old Julian Nagelsmann, whose reputation is soaring and is at Old Trafford in the Champions League on Wednesday. City like the look of both. They will not be the only club in Europe who do.
So time might be of the essence, even if City are only five games into this Premier League season that has started shakily. In fact, it's their worst start since 2014.
There is mitigation: an injury list that is refusing to shorten after no pre-season preparation and three games a week.
Sergio Aguero's hamstring problem sustained at West Ham is a case in point with the Argentine fatigued from starting the previous two matches after coming back from a knee injury sustained in June. He will have further tests on Monday.
Even when he was on the pitch, City toiled in attack. 'We have to have the right movements, we are fighting for this,' Guardiola said. 'We didn't play bad.' They certainly did not play well, either.
It is interesting that Guardiola pinpoints movements, because you might imagine that relies on instinct rather than fitness and rhythm. Oddly, despite scoring 102 goals last year, they struggled with creating chances then as well.
Another quirk was that Guardiola named an unchanged team for the first time since October 2017 at a time when his squad are exhausted but Phil Foden said: 'We're not a team that sulks. We'll get over it by tomorrow.'
Foden, who came on for the Aguero, was excellent, scoring the equaliser and offering additional energy and imagination.
But this was another good result for West Ham and for a while it looked like Michail Antonio's early spectacular overhead volley might bring a bigger reward than a point.
Manager David Moyes felt the team were 'going in the right direction' and praised Antonio, saying: 'All good teams need a good centre forward and we have a good centre forward at the moment.'
BoiledSweetPotato
535
I think pep needs to change his strategy a bit. I mean, pep believes in perfect pass and movement and leaves very little space for individual talent. But I mean that is our strength too, right? the team work. I think we need good finishers, that's all.
Kkrexuke
459
To be fair MC and Utd both started preseason late. Whereas man utd have majority of the whole squad fit and still able to introduce pogba, VDB, cavani and telles, MC have alot of key injuries. Aguero is just back and not at his best yet. But when both click into gear, I believe they will be in a better league position just as utd are warming up well, less mispasses, better possession and movement among most players past 3 matches. Actually if MC and man utd play their game on hand, they will only be 2,3 points behind the leader. So it is not something like a crisis just catch up.