Despite their heavy spending in the last 14 years, Manchester City have never truly gone in for marquee signings. The purchase of Robinho in the first flush of the takeover in 2008 was something of an exception, a statement move to announce that the Blues were about to arrive as a force in English and European football.
Arguably, the arrival of Carlos Tevez a year later was along the same lines, but even he was not a global superstar, despite winning a couple of league titles and a Champions League with Manchester United. Since then, City have gone for players who, while top professionals, hardly made a ripple in terms of being icons: Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Ederson, Ruben Dias. It explains why, until they splashed a £100million British record on Jack Grealish, they did not figure in the top 30 of most expensive signings of all time.
While others targeted huge names like Neymar, Kylian Mbappe and Eden Hazard, City shopped at the next level down, and built an impressive squad by doing so.
