Man City already have the gamechanger they want to sign in January

Manchester City might not be searching for a hero just yet, but they are in need of a leader. At a club where the entire first-team squad seems to have hit a run of poor form together, they need someone to put their hand up and find a way out of the pit of despair.

Ideally, they need someone who can carry the rest on their shoulders, but that is a burden too big for anyone after a run of one win in 13 games. Instead, they need someone close to a maverick, a free spirit who can find his feet while his teammates are struggling, who can play his way in to form in a team in the kind of rhythm last seen on the dancefloor of those office Christmas parties.

Step forward Phil Foden? He looked the most likely to make something happen on Boxing Day and a couple of creative first-half moments deserved better from Bernardo Silva and Erling Haaland. That is the problem when you are in the kind of rut that City are and finding two players on the same wavelength becomes increasingly difficult.

It has been difficult to name a single player currently playing well for City and in a team as structured and cohesive as Guardiola's, it has looked like the collective malaise has dragged down every individual.

Jeremy Doku and Savinho have the unpredictably to offer that kind of threat, and Savinho was better against Everton, producing a bright performance from the right wing and winning the penalty that Haaland missed, but they lack the end product to really deliver on a regular basis. Instead, the player most capable of changing the story for City is Foden.

He did just that last season, driving City on to the title with a campaign that earned him a tranche of individual honours. Form and fitness have been harder to come by this time around