Manchester City need work in the summer transfer window, but their effort needs to start in Manchester well before then.
Manchester City's trip to Liverpool earlier this season was momentous: it was the first time in nearly seven years they hadn't been favourites to win a Premier League game.
That was all the way back in April 2017, when champions-elect Chelsea won 2-1 at Stamford Bridge to justify the odds and highlight the gap Pep Guardiola had to bridge if he wanted to conquer English football. It would also be the last league match the Blues lost for nine months, and while the Centurions deserve most of the credit for that, the work started before the transfer window opened.
City won six and drew two of their remaining eight league games in the 2016/17 season, scoring 22 goals and conceding just five as they cemented a top-three finish that meant they avoided Champions League qualifying for the following season. More importantly, Guardiola used that time to nail down exactly who he could count on as part of the big rebuild and whose time at the club had run out.
There were some ruthless decisions, such as benching Leroy Sane and Raheem Sterling at Middlesbrough in favour of Gael Clichy and Jesus Navas to make a point about the defensive work the manager wanted and needed from his wingers. It also took until the final game of the season, after two goals in a 5-0 win at Watford, for Guardiola to confirm that he definitely wanted Sergio Aguero to stay after spending the year cajoling him to do more of what rookie Gabriel Jesus did off the ball.
However, four straight victories to end the season were enough for City to take momentum into the summer and a clearer vision of exactly what was needed to take them to the next level. Eight years on, after Liverpool have done the double over Guardiola for the first time on their way to dethroning his team as champions, a similar approach is needed.
The manager praised the performances against both Newcastle and Liverpool as 'brilliant' and those games have shown the future of the team with the help of January arrivals. Omar Marmoush (26), Nico Gonzalez (23) and Abdukodir Khusanov (20) have all adapted quickly to the Premier League and dragged the average age of the team down, making Erling Haaland (24), Josko Gvardiol (23) and Phil Foden (24) look less isolated.
In his first season in English football and aged just 20, Savinho has been one of City's best players for the last few months while Jeremy Doku (22) and Rico Lewis (20) both have age on their side to prove their worth. Throw in Oscar Bobb (22) and Vitor Reis (19) and many of the pieces that the Blues will need to get back to the top are already there.
A winning framework, complementing the best of these players with the more experienced stars in the squad who are still capable of contributing, has to be found between now and the end of this season to give City their best chance of proving that the club's era of winning is not over. There are 13 winnable league games left between Wednesday and the end of May where any experimenting for next season should not cost City a top-five finish that will guarantee them a place in next season's Champions League.
If the last week has shown what a task City have in summer, they have three months to get a headstart on their work.