'It depends' - Pep Guardiola warns Man City over breaking January transfer rule

Pep Guardiola said 'special circumstances' could lead to Manchester City breaking their transfer rule of avoiding January business - but warned they would not find an easy solution.

The Blues have only signed one player in the January window in the eight that the manager has been in place, preferring to do their work in summer and never having enough regrets over the state of the squad that they have felt the need to act. However, they have never lost as many games in short succession as they have done in the last two months and with no sign of an end to their injury crisis talks have been held between club power brokers over potential signings next month.

City's sole January signing was a club record deal for Aymeric Laporte, so that does prove that it is possible to find a long-term buy that is good value in the winter window. However, that involved a release clause and a player the club knew wanted a move and could improve the starting XI and squad, which has become a harder task over the years without even taking in extra negotiations with clubs.

Guardiola insists that the squad he currently has - when free of injuries - is good enough to carry them through the campaign and challenge for silverware. However, with Rodri out for the whole year and a recurring cycle of problems in the defence, City are contemplating heading into a market they do not like to act in however difficult the pitfalls of even a short-term boost are.

"It is not easy to do that. Teams don’t sell, maybe it has to be players who don’t play. They don’t want to sell and they are so expensive," he said.

"It depends on the market and we’ll see. It’s simple: get players back. Except Rodri. We have the squad there and after that maybe we’ll have the