He is not the sort to leave much to chance, Pep Guardiola, so it hard to categorise the sheer volume of left-footers in Manchester City’s ranks as some sort of quirk.

The cultured left-footer certainly lends himself quite naturally to the prototype of a Pep player, with that emphasis on balance, poise, incision and quick feet. Lefties, of course, have no monopoly on such skill-sets, but there is something particularly arresting about watching the best left-footed attackers, with their perfect weight distribution, dancing around the pitch.

Guardiola had the ultimate example of that, the king of left-footers, at Barcelona in Lionel Messi, but he isn’t doing too badly for them in Manchester. Six lefties started this exercise in nerve management against a most determined, in-form Leicester but, in truth, the eye kept being drawn to one in particular.

Whether City win this title or not, and they have put themselves in pole position to complete the job at Brighton on Sunday, it will not be for anything Bernardo Silva struggled to do. The player of the year awards may have gone to his City team-mate, Raheem Sterling, and Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk, but, in a season when Guardiola has been robbed of Kevin De Bruyne for much of the campaign, and watched David Silva wrestle with injuries of his own and inconsistent form, Bernardo has carried the mantle time and time again.