Pep Guardiola used to have a stock answer when asked about Manchester City's heavy spending. Others had paid bigger fees for individual players, he would suggest. They weren't the record-breakers. Until they were, and in symbolic style. Jack Grealish became English football's first £100 million (S$178.6 million) man.

Four decades earlier, Trevor Francis became the first million-pound footballer. He soon scored the winner in the 1979 European Cup final for Nottingham Forest. If Grealish could yet have a similar impact, he has not so far.