While City can hardly be characterised as a plucky underdog, they believe the club is seventh in the list of net spend in the Premier League over the past five years, less than half that of Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal but also trailing Tottenham, Newcastle and Aston Villa.

A substantial factor in bringing their figure down to £259m has been their ability to sell players such as Gabriel Jesus, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Riyad Mahrez, Aymeric Laporte and Cole Palmer for huge sums.

None of these players would be regarded as automatic first choices and while they are part of the City journey, without them they are closing on becoming the first side since the English league was created in 1888 to win the top flight four seasons in a row.

Guardiola says the thought was not in the forefront of City minds at the start of the season. But now it is close, an understanding of what the achievement would mean is beginning to take shape.

“In the beginning of the season we didn’t think about it,” he said. “But then we were in February, March and April, we were still there. After that it ignites something in all our heads.

“No team has done it. That shows how hard it is. Liverpool in the ’80s, Sir Alex Ferguson’s United in the ’90s. Chelsea with [Roman] Abramovich and Jose [Mourinho], Arsenal with [Arsene] Wenger didn’t do it.”