Same question, new face
The question arrives on day one, and it does not wait for the season to start. Every manager who takes the City job is asked it, usually before they have even unpacked: what can you actually do in year one?
Enzo Maresca is the latest to hear it. He is now in his first season in the City dugout, and the same old interrogation has already begun.
A club with no pattern
If the new manager looks to history for comfort, he will not find a consistent answer. The range of outcomes at this club is enormous. Some men have walked in and won things immediately. Trophies, title challenges, the lot. Others have needed time, or simply never got going.
The spread is so wide that precedent offers little guidance.
History says the range of outcomes at this club is enormous.
So where does he land?
The honest answer is that nobody knows yet. Maresca's debut campaign will be judged against a very wide range of precedents, and the only certainty is that the question will keep coming until he answers it himself.
Somewhere between immediate silverware and a slow start, the truth of this era will emerge.