During a week in which potential billionaire takeovers of first Liverpool and then Manchester United threatened to disrupt the equilibrium of the top six (now seven with the rise of Newcastle), Manchester City brilliantly trumped everyone with the announcement of another two-year extension for Pep Guardiola.
If both sides pick up the almost inevitable options, it will take Pep to nine years at the club and provide a further benchmark for the chasing pack. Paying many billions for Liverpool and United suddenly becomes not quite so attractive a proposition as they go up against the greatest manager on the planet until 2025 at least.
When you boil it all down, Pep was never going anywhere else. A sabbatical maybe. Perhaps, one day, a top National team. But City continue to give him the total power and control that no other club side in the world would grant him.
The best financial packages for the best players is a given. No purchase is out of reach.The forward planning, like the lengthy pursuit of Haaland, is meticulous, relentless and inevitable. Bellingham will be firmly in their sights after this World Cup. Maybe Saka, too. And, of course, everyone wants to play for Pep.
Most of all, the remarkable support and loyal back-up of City CEO, Ferran Soriano, and Director of Football, Txiki Begiristain, guarantees Pep the best of the best in world football. It is a formidable and unbreakable triumvirate. Firm friends, first and foremost.
When they arrived at City in August 2012, Pep was on their radar from day one even though it took another four years to secure the services of a man with whom they had achieved so much success at Barcelona some time before.The pursuit was calculated to perfection over several seasons.
The signing of a fifth quality international central defender in Akanji so close to the transfer deadline was a last minute necessity for Pep when Ake was injured at Newcastle, and at a time when Laporte was still struggling back from surgery.
Pep didn’t want to go into a tough autumn schedule with just Dias and the injury-prone Stones. And management didn’t let him down. It wouldn’t have happened so swiftly and seamlessly at any other club.
And, even more recently, the dressing room firmly won his heart when they fought so brilliantly for sixty-four minutes with ten men to finally overcome Fulham. His soldiers did him proud that day. And it was obvious to him that they were up for the many battles ahead.
A magnificent treble act, with Pep the focal point, that will dominate world football for some time yet.