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Manchester City are heading for a tactical shake-up after the signing of Gianluigi Donnarumma. But then Pep Guardiola has been here before.
It's very easy to cast Pep Guardiola as a tactical ideologue sticking rigidly to his principles come hell or high water. The architect of tiki taka (a phrase he hated) still obsessed with his team putting together "a thousand, million boring passes" a game, as he joked before the international break. At least I think it was a joke.
But this characterisation is wide of the mark. Guardiola is far too savvy to be pigeonholed, even if he still is by people who usually use the Catalan as a convenient shorthand for the possession-dominant game that has ruled the last 15 years of modern football.
If Guardiola was only about possession and control, then his methods would never have stood the test of time. What a lot of Guardiola clones in modern management don't realise is just how adaptable he is. For that, you only have to look at the development of his Manchester City teams.
We've gone from a diminutive striker in Sergio Aguero, to a period of false nines, to the most complete No. 9 in the world in Erling Haaland. From wingers playing on their natural sides and looking for those cut back goals in Leroy Sane to Raheem Sterling, to a more narrow wide player who likes to cut in.
Defensively, there have been inverted full-backs, centre-backs moving into midfield and a treble-winning season that often featured a back four made up entirely of central defenders. So Guardiola can clearly adapt, even if many of the principles remain the same.
Of all those changes, perhaps the biggest came when City signed Haaland from Borussia Dortmund for £51million. Having achieved so much success playing without a striker, to suddenly accommodate a ruthless goalscorer who offered little in build-up play felt like a seismic tactical evolution.
But then Haaland scored 52 goals in 53 games in his first season at the club, helping City win the treble, and all those questions were answered. The Norwegian now has 88 goals in 100 Premier League appearances, and nobody really wonders why he was signed and how he fits into Guardiola's City vision anymore.
That example might be relevant to another eye-catching Guardiola development: the decision to replace Ederson with Gianluigi Donnarumma. These are two goalkeepers who operate at very different ends of the spectrum.
Ederson was almost the lab version of a Guardiola goalkeeper. So comfortable with the ball at his feet that it was often a source of debate as to whether he could play in midfield. He was capable of receiving it under pressure and playing short passes to open up space, but he was also capable of launching long and accurate passes downfield to stretch the pitch.
Rather than replace the Brazilian with another footballing goalkeeper, Guardiola has turned to Donnarumma. The 26-year-old has just been jettisoned by Paris St-Germain because he doesn't fit with Luis Enrique's vision of total football, despite his saves proving vital in the Champions League success last season.
Now we wait to see how Guardiola fits Donnarumma into his City side. Do they continue to try to build from the back? Will the Italian be happy to receive the ball from defenders under the type of pressure Ederson was used to?
And what about that high line? It worked so often for City because of Ederson's starting position. Now there is a risk that a defence without much pace will be operating a high line in front of a goalkeeper with a much deeper starting position.
Whenever Donnarumma makes his debut, which will surely be at some point next week against Manchester United, Napoli, or Arsenal, it will be fascinating to see how this plays out and what City change to accommodate their new goalkeeper. But is there a chance that all of us are overanalysing this?
Guardiola has changed before, and he will change again. On paper, this looks like a significant tactical shift, but so did bringing Haaland in, and that worked out pretty well. And when it comes to goalkeeping, there aren't many better than Donnarumma.
"He's a brilliant, brilliant goalkeeper, and we've seen it many times," former City goalkeeper Nicky Weaver told the MEN last week.
"He covers the goal. His shoulders are huge. He's 6 '7". He's just a big, big man. And forget with your feet and everything, pound for pound, he is probably the best goalkeeper in the world, and I don't think too many people would disagree with that."
Why wouldn't you want the best goalkeeper in the world in your goal? Just like the question three years ago should have been, why wouldn't you want the best striker in the world in your team?
Guardiola got the balance right between City adapting to Haaland and vice versa. He has proven he is capable of change, and over the next few months, he could show it again as the Blues get used to a very different goalkeeper.
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