Its Champions League ban lifted by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Manchester City can begin planning properly for next season. It’s easy now for Pep Guardiola to say he wouldn’t have left even if Man City found itself in League Two, and perhaps that is true, but even with a Premier League investigation into alleged breaches of Financial Fair Play regulation ongoing, Man City can be confident he will remain and also that various key players whose futures had begun to look uncertain–notably Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling–will also stay.
But that isn’t to say that there isn’t serious work to be done if Man City is to close the gap on Liverpool.