"It doesn’t matter."

What Manchester City need in the January transfer window has become an increasingly popular topic of conversation since the form of the team fell off a cliff, and Pep Guardiola himself has admitted they need bodies in a depleted squad. But the January window has always been difficult to do business in and is even harder this year, so if the manager could pick one position to strengthen which would he be?

It could have been a way into where Guardiola thinks the squad needs most work, but those three words that he began his answer with told their own story. City's coach is less bothered about who is coming in as he is about those who are already here.

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It is the current group that occupy his mind every day: how does he get more out of them? How does he return them to their previous standards? What isn't working that used to work and how can he change that to get the team back to winning ways?

There is still a belief from Guardiola that he can, that a team who lifted their fourth consecutive league title in May and were top of the table as late as November can challenge for trophies again without major surgery. That isn't to rule out improvements, but the focus is on the mass of players who are underperforming rather than anyone that can come in to punish that.

"What I want is the players are fit, get the best level of them, because I said to them many times that I know their level," said Guardiola. "I was there with them every three days for eight years and I know their level. We need that level and we haven’t had that level. That’s why it’s important they are fit.

"And after that if there is a market where one player can help us… we’ve had a lot of injuries. Again and again. It’s why we have to take a look but the market is not easy."

City's recruitment team and Txiki Begiristain will have to act decisively this month in a window that they would rather have stayed out of. The January market is not one they like to shop around in because sellers can smell the desperation of buyers.

The Blues know that - it's why there is so much in public about maybe not buying or needing to buy - yet it is Begiristain's job to know what Guardiola can and cannot do with his current group. It's why there was so much money spent in 2016 and 2017 to create a squad capable of winning things for the manager, and why spending has been reined in since as those recruits delivered again and again and again.

Begiristain needs to be focused on how to help Guardiola in the transfer market, but the coach's focus is on the pitch that he sees in front of him.