Deep down we probably all knew this day was coming. Some of us just weren’t ready to admit it… Steven Fletcher is leaving Sunderland.

In other news, Pep Guardiola will be the Manchester City manager next season and the club has chosen to come out and confirm it now, you know, in case those pesky United fans got any fresh ideas. He’ll join on a three year contract, meaning that Manuel Pellegrini’s own contract will not be renewed. It was a badly kept secret that Pep wanted to test himself in England after laying waste to the footballing proletariat in Spain and Germany. It was only a matter of whether Man United or Chelsea could muster the last-minute sales pitches to keep him from donning a sky blue coloured scarf in the summer. Which they could not.

Two things that Pep Guardiola is known for: tiki taka footy and winning. A guy with his CV can get a job at any club in the world but he seems to have made up his mind that the English game is where it’s at. That’s where the TV money is going, it’s the biggest domestic competition on the planet and is notoriously difficult even for the top teams. It’s only natural that he would want to challenge himself there – especially with his reputation (pretty unfair) for sticking to the high roads with his management. “I’d like to see how he goes on a rainy night in Stoke” goes the standard refrain. As it happens, Stoke City are busy trying to do their best Guardiola impersonation these days but, all the same, Pep will get his chance to tackle the task known by many as ‘Wenger’s Bane’.

And, yes, it would have been fun to see him take, say, the Aston Villa job instead but then why would he? If you can get the Rolling Stones to play your school ball then you get the Rolling Stones to play your school ball. You don’t go getting Jimmy and the Bollix just because some smartarse called you a sellout.

Plus City are the logical choice. They tried to get him in 2012 when he left Barcelona and the word is that they really thought they were close. Even the statement suggested that with the “re-commencement of discussions” bit. This time they got their man.

The allure of the Etihad had to be pretty strong. Despite late interest from Man United, whoever takes over there will still be working in the considerable shadow of Sir Alex Ferguson. Plus maybe he didn’t fancy another gig at a club that Louis Van Gaal had previously shaped and moulded. Plus maybe Ed Woodward (is there another (‘Executive Vice’) Chairman as widely known as he?) perhaps is not the best at these sorts of things.

The same issue of pre-cast shadows would go for Arsenal and Arsene Wenger, should the old Frenchman decide he’s had enough – which doesn’t feel at all imminent. As for Chelsea, there’s no way Pep is ever doing Jose Mourinho’s laundry. No way Jose, so to speak. Mourinho’s made more than a few thinly-veiled digs at Guardiola in the past, stemming mostly from the fact that Pep got the Barca job when Jose wanted it, though it didn’t exactly cool off after they found themselves head to head in El Clasico. The only real shame of this is that (as it stands) they won’t get to renew that rivalry. Meanwhile Spurs are happy with the good thing they’ve got going and Liverpool have already committed to Jurgen Klopp. Nobody else would have even been in the conversation.

But it goes beyond that. City will apparently give him £150m to spend on players (and £15m a year in salary), as well as already having a squad worth catching Pep’s eyes. I mean, David Silva, Raheem Sterling, Sergio Aguero, Kevin De Bruyne… goddamn. They may have a few defensive issues these days but Pep’s got a way of working around that with his heavy possession ideals. Don’t be shocked if he starts playing Fernandinho there in the same way that he converted Javier Mascherano into a CB. Hey, Vincent Kompany was once a midfielder too, remember.

City are an unwritten book. They’re a club with great history but not nearly the legacy of their rivals. While recent years and oil money have turned them into a domestic powerhouse, they still aren’t competing in the Champions League like they ought to. Pep Guardiola has won that competition twice. A quality squad, lots of money, trophies on offer and the chance to become a defining name at the club… that’ll sell most folks.

So credit to the Citizens for doing what it took to get their man, because this campaign runs a lot deeper than most people realise. If you’ve gotten this far in this article - and clearly you have - then you’re aware of the 2012 push. See, they didn’t just send a few nice texts, they damn near paved the roads for him. First by appointing former Barca VP Ferran Soriano, who played a big part in getting Guardiola the manager’s job at Barcelona, as their new CEO. He’s still there and has had massive success, cutting their losses in half in his first season before actually leading them to a profit in 2015 for the first time since Sheikh Mansour and the Abu Dhabi United Group bought the club. Plus he’s overseen the global expansion of New York City FC and Melbourne City as part of their envisioned global family of clubs. Reminds you a fair bit of the old Catalonian model, doesn’t it? La Masia?

That was followed soon after with Txiki Begiristain being given a Director of Football role with City, a similar one to what he held at Barca before leaving when Club President Joan Laporta left – there’s a story worth looking into if you’ve got a little time. Nobody mixes politics and sports like the Spanish. Anyway, Begiristain happens to be one of Pep’s closest friends to this day and is expected to work closely with him as far as transfers go.

They missed out on Guardiola in 2012. There was never any doubt that they’d have sacked Roberto Mancini if Pep gave them the right signs. They sacked him anyway, even after Pep had committed to Bayern Munich instead (after his year in the wilderness). Three years later Manuel Pellegrini has won one Premier League with another perhaps in his sights (second place in the middle season) while Pep Guardiola is about to win a third straight Bundesliga. To say that Pellegrini has been hard done by in all this is a little like saying Mario Balotelli has a slight tendency towards his own concerns. Such is the business, poor Manny has been dealing with this his entire tenure. We all knew this was coming.

Pellegrini has another year on his contract but there’s a clause that either he or the club can void that final season, which is what will happen. No shocker that clause was probably there for this exact eventuality. It appears it was his idea to announce this now, he’s known how this one was turning out for a while.

“The club are not doing anything behind me, I knew this one month ago, but I don’t think it’s good to have rumour or speculation about these things, so I prefer to finish today, which I why I have told the players and I have told the press. I also spoke to the club two weeks ago and said that I would do it.” - MP

Hey and if he wants the Chelsea job, it’s probably his to lose. Unless he’d prefer the Aston Villa one…?

You can bet that City are gonna give their new boss a fair bit more support than they gave the last one. Hiring Guardiola isn’t only a staff addition but a declaration of intent: They are going to play the Guardiola way. But that’s a bit more complicated than it seems after he did a very impressive job of adapting his trademark style with Bayern by adding an extra sprinkle of directness to the usual mix. Part of that was a necessary pragmatism that came from not having Lionel Messi to work with, part was a natural evolution. Players like Thomas Muller, Douglas Costa, Robert Lewandowski and Xabi Alonso don’t seem to care. Not to mention wide forwards like Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben who would have had no place in Pep’s Barcelona team.

That experience is gonna be huge for City regime. He’s shown the malleability that he’s gonna need already, so ignore the keyboard battlers trying to shoot him down for what they misread as pretention. “He’ll need to change his ways if he’s going to last in England…” – yeah no kidding. And he will. There'll be a meeting somewhere in the middle between 2011 Barcelona and 2016 Manchester City (you can trust me on this one because the first thing I ever wrote for this website was a scorched earth attack on Barca arrogance). For sure you can expect a large volume of possession and high pressing, but not the 80% that his first team would strive for. He’ll probably find that the Premier League is better than most at countering that anyway – Andy Carroll only needs a second to score from a goal-mouth scramble, buddy.

While City’s new ‘holistic’ approach (as they called it when Mancini was flicked) mirrors Barcelona, the on-field stuff will probably be a lot closer to Munich Guardiola. Wing-play and fast counters, sounds about perfect for some of those attackers. You can expect a few new transfers to abet that too. What you shouldn’t hold your breath for is the apparently inevitable Barcelona and Bayern Munich expat rush because he only ever signed one Barca player at Bayern: Thiago Alcantara. He seems to care too much for his old teams to go raiding their cupboards. You can definitely write off any Lionel Messi chatter as well, there’s no way in hell that Barcelona are letting the best player in the world out of their grasp and it’s insane that that even needs to be stated.

There is one guy in this squad that played for him before though. And given how that went last time, and his sketchy form over the last two seasons (which is pleasantly on an upturn these days), Yaya Toure’s time in Manchester may be rounding the final bend.

Problem is, that really exposes a weakness in this team. Fernandinho can cut it, but Fernando and Fabian Delph (poor Fabian Delph) might not be so lucky. David Silva should continue on as a key player but the absence of any Xavi/Iniesta/Xabi Alonso type pass maestro in there is a blatant flaw. Wildcard theory: What if Samir Nasri had a run in deeper? Add in that the club has four first team fullbacks and all are in their 30s, that area will probably need some tweaking too. Sorry to say that Wilfried Bony’s tortured time there isn’t likely to be a long one – he needs to step down to a team like Southampton or Crystal Palace to flourish. Pep likes his nines to be false and Kelechi Iheanacho is fast overtaking him on the depth chart anyway.

I suppose the best way to end this is by reflecting on what a huge statement signing this really is. People are always gonna say that they bought their success but money doesn’t buy sustainability. That’s been earned through clever club management and healthy ambition. It took them four years of lobbying to get their man to sign a three year contract but in the process they’ve potentially set this club up for a generation. By contrast their crosstown rivals are showing what a lack of forward planning will get you and that’s the finest example any City fan could hope for. If there was any lingering doubt of their place among football’s big boys then there ain’t no more.