Jack Grealish can finally help Pep Guardiola end Lionel Messi hoodoo at Man City

Pep Guardiola knows a thing or two about working with famous number 10s and the important decision he made over Jack Grealish coming up two years ago might finally help the Manchester City manager end one last-standing hoodoo in his record-breaking coaching career.

With countless pots and pans in the trophy cabinet, Guardiola has nothing left to prove in the dugout and the way in which he has won has helped to revolutionise the modern game. However, there is always one dissenter waiting to drive home their agenda based on a weighted, or irrelevant, point.

It defies logic that Guardiola has not won the Champions League for 12 years - yet that is the truth and the Catalan has still to clasp his hands on the biggest prize in Europe without a certain Lionel Messi in his ranks. For the record, Messi won it once pre- and post-Guardiola while at Barcelona.

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City are two matches away from winning a historic treble this season and, no matter what else he has to his name, Guardiola will no doubt see that as the crowing glory. It will certainly silence any lingering doubters.

Erling Haaland and his goal-den touch has been fundamental to that ongoing charge, but the upturn and increased importance placed on Grealish cannot be discounted. He will forever carry the £100million tag, but two further wins and the England playmaker might well seem a bargain in the grand scheme.

Guardiola and Grealish - as well as the entire City squad - are potentially 180 minutes away from immortality and it would be impossible not to draw on trends between now and their last Champions League showpiece appearance. On that occasion, it was not meant to be as City turned to the chequebook to drown out their