“I always tell the Gareth Barry story,” says Brian Marwood, as his mind drifts back to June 2009 and what were still the early days of overseeing the recruitment process for Manchester City’s new Abu Dhabi owners.

“Gareth had been courted by Liverpool the summer before and, for whatever reason, they didn’t get him but that summer they came back in for him and were actually offering him more money than we were. People probably still don’t realise that because everybody was saying, ‘Oh, he’s going to City for the money’. Anyway, I picked him up from The Grove in Watford, where he was with the England squad, to take him for his medical.

“We’re in the car and TalkSport is on the radio and Adrian Durham and Ian Wright were absolutely caning him. ‘He’s only going there for the money. Plastic club, plastic owners, what are they ever going to win, I thought more of Gareth Barry than that, he’s lost my respect’. I looked at Gareth and said, ‘Do you want me to turn this off?’ And he turned and said, ‘No, I want to listen to it.’ But why? ‘Because I am going to prove them wrong. Because I know what I’ve bought into here.’”