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It doesn’t feel like January up in the North West. Spending millions on two ready-made stars to influence their season is not a traditional winter window for Manchester City.
It is one that has now definitively marked the changing of the guard upstairs in a much more dramatic fashion than business over the summer.
With Antoine Semenyo through the doors from a Bournemouth and now holding it open for Marc Guehi, new director of football Hugo Viana has sent a significant statement of intent of how he wants to do business.
Semenyo feels opportunistic, beating rivals to the punch for somebody whose ceiling has appeared to nudge higher and higher with each passing performance under Andoni Iraola.
With Savinho’s stock not what it was and Oscar Bobb’s potential departure – Borussia Dortmund are keen on the Norway international – the bold capture of Semenyo is to raise standards in the wide areas.
Marc Guehi is expected to have a medical on Sunday before securing a switch to Manchester City from Crystal Palace
Guehi lifted the FA Cup in May after beating City 1-0 in the final and clearly made a positive impression
Guehi is City’s second major addition in January after they signed Antoine Semenyo (centre) from Bournemouth. Semenyo has hit the ground running with two goals in two games
His two goals in two games, some at City joking that it was actually three given VAR’s now infamous involvement at Newcastle, suggests the £62.5million should prove to be money well spent.
That transfer was a sculpturing of Pep Guardiola’s squad, part of the ongoing rebuild. A summer transfer in January. Not the City way under Txiki Begiristain but seemingly different now Viana is in the chair.
Once Ruben Dias and Josko Gvardiol were both stricken by injury during the draw against Chelsea a fortnight ago, City accelerated interest in Guehi – which is more in line with last January, signings to cover fitness issues and gaping holes in the squad.
The England international almost secured a move to Liverpool on deadline day of course – the assumption being that sewing up a free transfer when the defender’s contract expired was a mere formality – and City needed to get through serious groundwork to alter that eventuality.
Viana has managed that, with Bayern Munich also hopeful of persuading the 25-year-old. There will be a considerable signing-on fee for a player who could’ve have commanded eight figures for himself on a Bosman.
Guehi is expected to have a medical on Sunday before securing the switch from Crystal Palace – taking spending in the last 12 months close to £450m, with a verdict on their case with the Premier League still not announced.
England international Guehi can have an instant impact at City, who suffered injuries to key defenders Ruben Dias and Josko Gvardiol earlier this month
The signing of Guehi is a major statement of intent from Hugo Viana (left) about how he wants to do business
His capture has seen them steal a march and the replacement for the outgoing John Stones and Nathan Ake, the pair expected to leave at the end of the season, has arrived early.
What these two signings in the space of a week mean is that City clearly view this title race as open, that the crown is there to be snatched from Arsenal’s grasp.
Even with Viana’s different way of working, both might have been more unlikely had Arsenal stretched out into a truly enviable lead.
Clearly, City feel that the pair of them are key pieces to a charge at a seventh title. To get them done so quickly, and who they beat to the signatures, indicates City mean business.
