Pep Guardiola has admitted that he was unsure whether a certain player Manchester City signed this summer would come good.
In the summer, City made numerous signings including the likes of Jeremy Doku, Mateo Kovacic, Josko Gvardiol and Matheus Nunes.
So far, their summer recruitment has been a mixed bag.
Usually, Pep Guardiola’s side smash it out of the park when it comes to signing players in the summer transfer window.
This time around, can one say City have made significant improvements to their squad from last season?
That is debatable.
Guardiola admitted he was unsure whether one Man City player would come good
For instance, Matheus Nunes has been a letdown for the Sky Blues so far.
The former Wolves midfielder has started in 15 games in the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League at the Etihad Stadium.
Considering Manchester City signed the Portuguese international for as much as £54 million, it’s fair to claim that the return on investment is yet to be significant.
Jeremy Doku and Mateo Kovacic have respectively shown their qualities.
However, it seems like Doku and Kovacic are yet to cement their places as established starters at the Etihad Stadium.
But for the most part, when either of the pair have started, they have fared well, as exemplified by Kovacic’s showing against Wolves recently.
Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has admitted that at some point, he did not have much confidence in Josko Gvardiol coming good for the club in the future.
“I would say more than weeks, I would say months already. It was a period I was so uncertain. It was not really, really good”, he said on BeanymanSports.
However, Pep Guardiola went on to praise Josko Gvardiol, saying, “I said before but it’s normal, first season, Premier League, demanding, challenge, skills, strength.”
“But we talked, we saw many of his performances and he got it. Can play central defender, can play left [back], just 20, 21 years old [22 years old]. So, he’s an unbelievably lovely guy, he is loved like you cannot imagine for his humility and we are really, really pleased.”
Gvardiol has had an impressive debut season for Guardiola and Co.
Considering Pep Guardiola cannot be called into question for his player profiling, the fact that Josko Gvardiol has proven him wrong in a sense is lovely to discover.
Not many players can disprove Guardiola.
But Gvardiol has, as barring a few errors, he looks like the most complete defensive profile in the game; due to being a world-class reader of the game, athlete, technician and incredibly versatile.
Gvardiol has exhibited these traits consistently during his debut season.
The fact that Pep Guardiola has somewhat done a 180 on Josko Gvardiol is an indicator of how well he has performed after all.
