Man City transfer decision gives Pep Guardiola chance for ultimate reprieve this season

As is the norm, Manchester City won't be contributing very much at all to the excitement of transfer deadline day.

Their only major outgoing, Ferran Torres, was out of the door before January began and their only expected major incoming, Julian Alvarez, won't be arriving at the Etihad until summer at the earliest. For all the excitement around the Argentine coming from South America, he doesn't appear to be prominent in Pep Guardiola's thinking.

Guardiola would say, of course, that he is only interested in the next match. The City boss rarely likes reflecting on the past - an attitude that has made him and his team's serial winners as they are already thinking about their next victory.

That is why it was interesting to hear him admit recently that he messed up in the Champions League final. All previous questions over his infamous team selection in Porto or the match itself had been batted away, only for the manager to bring up his error unprompted in the press conference after City had just completed the league double over Chelsea.

"We were not good enough to attack them. I think I didn’t prepare well for the game. I thought for one game, it didn’t happen. I tried to learn from it and we learned from it."

For all the agony that the Champions League has caused City and Guardiola in recent years, three Premier League titles in four years have contented them - even if that has only added to the pain in another sense - that it is only the small details that have left European glory beyond their reach.

Topping a group that included Paris Saint-Germain and RB Leipzig was a confident response to their final heartbreak, and a last-16 clash with Sporting Lisbon should provide the platform for another run deep in the competition.