Declan Rice, Man City and the £105m transfer that could decide the title race

chooses not to think about the ones who got away. Perhaps he prefers to concentrate on the players he does manage, rather than those he merely tried to sign. Perhaps it is just as well because, lengthy as the list of high-class players have bought is, it is still shorter than the catalogue of the transfer targets that, for various reasons, eluded them: from Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo to Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane via Paul Pogba, Alexis Sanchez, Harry Maguire, Lucas Paqueta, Marc Cucurella and Fred. It would occupy plenty of his time considering an alternative history