Pep Guardiola and the £92m transfer that nearly changed Man City future

One of the biggest red flags for Pep Guardiola in his first season in charge of Manchester City came at Monaco. Their form had been too inconsistent to challenge for the Premier League against Antonio Conte’s relentless Chelsea side but there were still faint hopes of European glory in the hands of a man whose worst Champions League finish was a semi-final exit.

City were favourites as they headed to Monaco for the second leg of their last-16 clash after a football feast at the Etihad ended in a 5-3 win. All the Blues had to do was protect their two-goal lead and they would be through.

Except, this being Guardiola, his idea of protecting the lead was to take the game to Monaco and impose their football on their opponents to see out the game. This felt uncomfortable for many in the City team when first thoughts for defending a two-goal lead were to defend.

In the end, they did neither and lost 3-1 to go out on away goals. That game helped to cement Guardiola’s belief that huge changes were needed in the summer of 2017.

They came, with no small help from Monaco. Bernardo Silva and Benjamin Mendy arrived at the Etihad for close to £100 as part of a dismantling of the Ligue 1 champions that totalled nearly £300m; Kylian Mbappe was the headline sale, although most of the money would come from the Premier League and help transform that league.

City spent more than £200m in total that summer but were willing to go closer to £300m as deadline day approached. They had made clear all summer that they were interested in signing Alexis Sanchez from Arsenal, and pushed hard in the final hours to get the job done.