Yet if there was a possibility of that being the case, we presumably wouldn’t have just bought two young defenders. There must now be serious doubts as to what the aforementioned can deliver in the remainder of their respective contracts, and we also have question marks over the continued fitness of Dias and Akanji. Guardiola has now had 26 games to arrive at a solution, and it increasingly looks as if it lies outside of the Etihad.
Irrespective of whether the solution arrives in this window, though, this forum will continue to resemble our midfield: all over the place.