When former Manchester United women’s team manager Casey Stoney said that Manchester City have struggled to score goals this season, the storm of criticism on social media was predictable.
The fact that she is associated with the Reds didn’t help, and the fact she is a female pundit no doubt coloured the thoughts of the more bigoted element of football fans.
On the face of it, it appeared a daft thing to say, as the Blues had just stuck five past both Norwich and Arsenal and six past RB Leipzig and Wycombe to record the highest-scoring start to a season in their history.
But Stoney was not given chance to expand on her point, and later did so on Twitter, making it plain that at certain times, City have felt the lack of a bona fide goalscoring striker in the early part of the campaign.
And she was dead right. They suffered in the Community Shield defeat by Leicester, again at Tottenham, and in the goalless draw with Southampton, because they had no-one making the right movements, no-one with a Sergio Aguero -style killer instinct, to get on the end of the brilliant build-up.
We saw it again at Anfield on Sunday, when City were outstanding in the first half but failed to score, with Jack Grealish simply filling a hole in the central attacking role, rather than presenting a real danger to the Liverpool goal, in the way Aguero used to do — or how Harry Kane would have done.
Guardiola has a weary resignation about the matter. He knows that every post-match conference when his team has failed to win, the lack of a striker will be flagged up; and when they score six it will be quietly forgotten.
Gary Neville said after the 2-2 draw at Liverpool that the title race would already be “done, finished” if City had landed Kane in the summer, while Alan Shearer — who knows a bit about scoring goals — said Kane would score 40-plus goals in this City team.
All of which has left the rest of football wondering why the Blues refused to stump up the asking price for Kane — believed to be around £160million — but blithely shelled out a British record £100million for Grealish, a player who adds quality to the squad but arguably in an area where it was least needed.
On current form, Grealish will be on the bench for City when the season resumes after this international break, with Phil Foden exceptional against Liverpool, and with Kevin De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva immovable from the central roles.
City have already won games this season through the excellence of their defence, notably the 1-0 wins at Leicester and Chelsea. That does not mean their back four alone, but the 11-man defence they employ, pressing and harrying teams high up the pitch.
Do you think having no striker could yet impact on City's season? Have your say in our comments section here
That defence won them the title last season, along with the fact that the 83 goals they did score — their lowest total since Guardiola’s difficult first season — were shared out with equality that bordered on socialism.
In the end, the Blues won the league comfortably, but how much that was down to their own brilliance, which brought a breathtaking 21-match winning streak in all competitions from December until March, and how much to the failures of their would-be rivals, is up for debate.
Liverpool were hit hard by injury problems to their central defence, Manchester United proved flaky at crucial moments and Chelsea only came alive after Thomas Tuchel had taken the reins.
Heading into this campaign, all three of those clubs have addressed their issues, with Virgil Van Dijk and Joe Gomes returning, United adding Jadon Sancho, Raphael Varane and Cristiano Ronaldo, and Chelsea doing what City could not, buying a big-money striker with a goalscoring pedigree in Romelu Lukaku
Whether City have enough in their locker to withstand a reinforced challenge from the other contenders remains to be seen.
But after seven games — including trips to Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham and Leicester — they have conceded just three goals, an indication that they are as tight as ever at the back.
But there are still plenty of City fans who feel the Blues will come to regret not going all out for Kane.
City were quietly confident that Kane would be able to get himself out of a contract that has three years left to run.
Kane had made it plain that he had a “gentleman’s agreement” with Spurs chairman Daniel Levy that he would be released if another club put in a big bid for his services.
And that is why City’s move fell down, in a nutshell. Grealish’s agent had insisted on a release clause of £100million when he signed his last deal, so when City stumped up the required amount, there was no haggling to be done.
Kane’s situation was too vague, and with nothing on paper, and the player’s blatant attempts to either shame or strong-arm the stubborn Levy into honouring the “gentleman's agreement”, all three parties became firmly entrenched.
The strength of the agreement between Kane and Levy depends on which side you listen to. The player felt it was a firm commitment that he would not be obstructed if Tottenham continued to fail to land Champions League football, and a decent offer was made.
But sources close to Levy reckon it was simply an acknowledgement that they would listen to offers if Kane’s ambitions continued to be thwarted, nothing more.
Kane started to agitate for the move last season, principally through his infamous TV interview with Neville, in which he made it plain that he needed a move away from White Hart Lane to fulfil his ambitions of winning trophies, and unsubtly named De Bruyne as the player he would most like to play with.
The stakes were raised when he turned up late for Spurs’ pre-season training, although he cited a mix-up in the planning - he was fined two weeks’ wages anyway.
That clearly angered Levy, a hard-bitten negotiator at the best of times, and he dug in his heels and refused to countenance.
Even when City were reported to have made an offer worth £100million in June — later revised to £75million plus £25million add-ons — Levy was unmoved.
The reports of a bid were strongly denied by both clubs, which is probably a reflection of the fact that Levy’s refusal to even countenance it meant a formal offer was never actually made.
City had been prepared to go higher, but the word leaking out of Spurs was that if they did not reach around £160million, it was a non-starter.
Levy refused to talk at the figures City were quoting, feeling that if they had to sell Kane, it would be better doing so 12 months down the line, when the constrictions placed on the transfer market by the financial impact of the pandemic, should have eased.
Contrary to the myth of the Blues being an “oil club” with bottomless wells of money to spend, they actually make a careful budget for every transfer window; that was part of the owner’s business model for City from before financial fair play rules made it a hurried necessity.
It has been seen in some quarters that City went for Grealish instead of Kane, or that they spent money on another wide attacking player that could have been used to boost the bid for Kane.
But these days City carefully place their own value on a player, and have steadfastly refused to go beyond that valuation.
That has seen them walk away from potential deals for Fred, Alexis Sanchez, Harry Maguire Virgil Van Dijk,Jorginho and Riyad Mahrez — although of course they snapped up the latter six months later, when the asking price plummeted from £95million to a £60million fee that City thought was more realistic.
What their ceiling was on their valuation of Kane, we may never know, but reliable sources say it was probably around £120million, which — given his age, balanced against his higher profile and greater necessity — measures up against the Grealish figure
There was incredulity in some quarters that City were prepared to spend around £220million in a transfer window when other clubs across Europe were struggling to keep their heads above water.
But the fact is that if they had pulled off both deals, they would have still spent less than Chelsea did last summer, albeit on just two players, so it was a reasonable financial fit, especially as they had raised nearly £40million from the sales of Angelino, Jack Harrison and Lukas Nmecha, and cleared Aguero’s huge salary from the wage bill.
So the purchase of Grealish had no bearing on the failure to land Kane - even if they had not bought the Aston Villa man, City would probably not have gone above their valuation on the England skipper.
They have worked hard to shed the “soft touch” image they had in the early years after the takeover, although to be fair to Brian Marwood — who was the football director in all but name — there was always going to be a premium to pay when City were in the market for a player, as they were desperate to challenge for honours quickly, and everyone knew it.
In the last eight or nine years, City have established themselves, and that air of desperation has gone.
They knew that, with or without Kane - or any of the other transfer near-misses listed above — they would remain in the running for silverware, so there was no pressure to lump extra wads of cash onto the pile on offer.
So by the time Kane tweeted his intention to stay at Tottenham, the deal had been dead in the water for weeks.
There was mild interest from City when they were offered the chance of Cristiano Ronaldo and they would have considered it as an option if they thought they could land him on a free transfer.
It quickly became apparent that the Portugues star’s agent Jorge Mendes had cleverly used the Blues as bait in a trap for United, who were Ronaldo’s choice for a move.
There was no Plan B for a striker once Kane became a hopeless case, and Guardiola was told that he simply needed to repeat the feat of last season, and win trophies without a recognised goalscorer.
And so City go into the season without one, perhaps for the first time in their history, although Aguero’s injury problems last season meant they effectively did so last year.
The fact that they not only won the league, but added the Carabao Cup and reached the Champions League final tells you that City remain strong contenders for all the trophies on offer.
A swoop for a striker in the January window is not likely, unless an irresistible opportunity presents itself, so the likelihood is that next summer the Blues will be back on the hunt for that final piece of the jigsaw.
Although by then — unless one of their fine academy prospects takes the step up — they will probably also need another defensive midfielder and left back.
Kane remains a possibility, but it seems that while Levy’s valuation is set to rise in a market expected to be more buoyant, City’s will, if anything, fall for a player who turns 29 next summer.
And of course, City maintain a strong interest in Erling Haaland, whose astonishing goalscoring form shows no sign of abating, with 11 in his eight games for Borussia Dortmund this season already.
At the age of 21, and with the strong family connection with City through his dad Alf Inge Haaland, he is a tempting prospect.
He was not a possibility this summer because Dortmund were adamant that they would not sell more than one of their young stars, and the departure of Sancho to United eased their financial problems.
Haaland made no fuss, he simply got on with the task of banging in the goals, but next summer City will almost certainly test out the water for a deal, regardless of whether their striker-less team has had a successful season or not.
Sign up to our City newsletter so you never miss an update from the Etihad Stadium this s eason.
