Never make decisions on a Monday.

That's the mantra of Manchester City's moneyman to ensure that unlike, for example, Arsenal, the Blues are obsessed with not getting obsessed about a particular moment, victory or defeat to the point that the emotions affect the reason. Over nearly a decade, it has helped Ferran Soriano to oversee record prosperity at the Etihad and filled the trophy cabinet.

City have to make decisions this Monday though, having already made decisions this month that they didn't want to. The club wanted to start the rebuild of the team last summer but Pep Guardiola was convinced that his squad had one last fight in them and, not expecting the manager to still be at the club for the 2025/26 season, they held off.

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The first 20 minutes at home to Arsenal in September appeared to prove Guardiola's point, with the hosts steamrollering their biggest title challenger for the last two years with a furious intensity and quality. Then came the Rodri injury and the rest, and City were spending over £120m in a winter window that they usually enjoy staying quiet in because it does not make for good business.

City have made the best of their hand, signing Omar Marmoush to have an immediate impact and expecting a quick adjustment from Abdukodir Khusanov while also placing the two with Vitor Reis as long-term purchases for the future. The question Soriano and City must answer this Monday is if their chances of more silverware this season rely on pushing forward plans to sign another midfielder.

There has been a reluctance to do so, in part because of the difficulty of getting it right. Kalvin Phillips, Mateo Kovacic and Matheus Nunes have all been signed in the last three years for nearly £125m to take the midfield on and none have managed it; Rodri's shadow looms large over anyone thinking about joining.

Then there is the problem of January. Atalanta's Ederson is admired but the Italian club have no incentive to sell when they are aiming high in Serie A and the Champions League.

If City do not want to pay over the odds for a player who isn't seen as the best option, it would make sense for them to wait and suck up what they have for the rest of the season: long-term gain trumps short-term pain. However, there comes a point where something new has to stop the bleeding, just as in 2020 when a 5-2 embarrassment at home to Leicester was the straw that broke a club-record deal for Ruben Dias and transformed the team.

City have been unwilling to meet the €60m release clause for Porto midfielder Nico Gonzalez but could the shambles of the last 20 minutes at the Emirates on Sunday - only the second time Guardiola's City have conceded five - be the catalyst for Soriano to bump up the price and get Gonzalez over the line? An imperfect solution can still bring a marked improvement.

It has felt in recent days like the manager is asking for that help, from warning off Rodri returning this season to blasting the players at Arsenal for straying from what has brought the team so much success. At the same time, he has been the loudest champion of the current squad and expects to have more players back in a few weeks in time for Real Madrid.

Whether or not City sign Gonzalez, and a full-back for that matter, and why will say a lot about how club bosses view the rest of this season.