Brendan Rodgers will receive less if sacked than people think

But Srivaddhanaprabha will surely be weighing this risk up against the potential £150 million that relegation to the Championship could cost. Dropping down a division could even be more costly than that.

On paper, City’s squad looks like one that is stacked with quality, and of which any suggestion that it could get itself embroiled in a relegation battle is quickly talked down. However, the longer the bad results persist, and the more demoralised the playing staff look with every passing game, demotion to the second tier becomes a more frightening and tangible possibility for supporters.

There have been many suggestions that the squad is strong enough to compete for Europe, as it has done in recent years with the two fifth place finishes and an FA Cup triumph, but the pool of players Rodgers has to choose from is virtually the same, even minus Fofana and Ben Chilwell.

The squad might not have got any worse, but it would be difficult to claim that there’s more quality there now than 18 months ago, and the Premier League is a highly-competitive space that if a club stands still for a window or two, the chances are that it will be left behind.