Football transfers can often be about playing the man rather than the occasion.
Manchester City learned a hard lesson last summer that, whatever Harry Kane and his representatives might have thought, when Daniel Levy says no he means it.
The fact that bluffing and posturing is a part of negotiations means that you can often never be certain, but while Txiki Begiristain generally has his own red lines that he does not cross, it is generally better to be safe than sorry.
That is the situation City find themselves in now with Dortmund and Erling Haaland.
Dortmund's chief executive Hans Joachim-Watzke has said that the future of their star striker will be decided in the next six weeks, enabling them to find a clear replacement if, as expected, he decides to leave.
Having seen Haaland was unavailable last summer and then failed to land Kane, City are even more determined to land the Norwegian this time, but face stiff competition from Real Madrid and potentially Paris Saint-Germain.
Pep Guardiola has already seen the Dortmund starlet breeze past Ruben Dias when the two sides met in the Champions League last year, and the manager remains a huge fan of his talents.
And while the Blues do not usually react well to being set deadlines, they only have to look at United's attempts to sign Jadon Sancho to see that it is not worth trying to see if Dortmund are bluffing.
Back in 2020, Sancho was a priority target for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and the Bundesliga club were willing to sell — at £108m and by August 10.
United sources let it be known that they were relaxed about this deadline and were not worried when the day came and went, only to find that Dortmund had in fact been serious and they had missed the window to sign their man.
Another year passed before they were able to sign him, and in the end Solskjaer would only get a few months with a talent he had coveted for years.
City cannot afford to suffer the same fate, especially after the ignominy of not landing a striker last summer. Their form has suggested that they do not need a marquee centre-forward to compete for all competitions, but at the same time not only would the presence of one make things easier it is also desired by Guardiola, who has always enjoyed working with prolific forwards.
Sergio Aguero still needs replacing, so even though it may be against their general playbook, if they want Haaland they are going to have to play by Dortmund's rules.
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