Pep Guardiola hopes to end the hunt for true No 9 with Erling Haaland

A question: when will a Manchester City No 9 truly be a No 9 and not a false one, as when Pep Guardiola fields Bernardo Silva, Raheem Sterling, Jack Grealish, or Gabriel Jesus to “lead” the line? Answer: when Erling Haaland or another recognised centre-forward targeted by the manager is signed in the summer.

Those named above in Guardiola’s current squad operate as the supposed lone striker, but in his carousel of revolving positions any attack-minded player is informed to float into an advanced central berth and dizzy opponents. In this mode City are the piquant entertainers who claimed last term’s Premier League with no natural No 9 for most of the campaign and whose title defence this season will not feature one at all.

City are the leaders, by a point from Liverpool, with nine matches left. They are at Southampton on Sunday in the FA Cup quarter-finals and were drawn against Atlético Madrid on Friday in the Champions League last eight as they chase a Treble he believes is possible if particularly tough to achieve.

Yet Guardiola’s striker-less wonders still require an elite one, he insists, so when the next window opens the club will resume a chase that failed last summer to land Harry Kane.

The new head of the list is Haaland. After Monday’s stumble at Crystal Palace – 0-0, chances spurned – Guardiola can expect a) to be posed more questions about the Borussia Dortmund man; and b) to hear from the told-you-so brigade about how trying to be champions again with no 20-goal-a-season marksman was always going to be folly.

Guardiola, a shrewd operator, has already preempted these scenarios, saying he gets “killed” for the latter whenever points are dropped and, regarding the former, via a mantra heard in several media