Josko Gvardiol popped up with another two goals for Manchester City against Fulham, leaving Phil Foden and Nathan Ake impressed.
The Croatia international has been increasingly prominent for City recently, and on Saturday he shone at Craven Cottage in a 4-0 win as City went top of the Premier League temporarily.
Gvardiol took some time to adapt to the Premier League. He came from RB Leipzig as a young player and was immediately shunted out to the left side by Pep Guardiola.
The £200,000-a-week star has taken his time to learn the position, and we are now seeing some top performances from the 22-year-old.
Saturday was up there with his best yet – and his teammates, Foden and Ake were both left impressed…
No words needed for Phil Foden and Nathan Ake as they react to brilliant Josko Gvardiol display v Fulham
Gvardiol was making his 39th appearance for City on Saturday – and he hasn’t had too many better outings.
As per Sofascore, Gvardiol completed 52/60 (87%) passes, and took his goals really well.
His first was a lovely interchange with Kevin De Bruyne, before he came inside and finished with his right foot into the bottom corner.
His second was a lovely ball over to the back post from Bernardo Silva, and Gvardiol was there to turn it in back across Bernd Leno.
Gvardiol is now up to five goals in City colours, with all of them coming in the space of just over a month.
After the game with Fulham, Gvardiol posted on social media to mark his brace, writing ‘Focusing till the end’. There were hundreds of comments from fans, and there also a couple of messages from his teammates.
Phil Foden, who got City’s second goal on Saturday, left two flame emojis and a handshake emoji. Gvardiol’s fellow defender Nathan Ake commented two flame emojis.
Gvardiol will explode next season
City fans are delighted to see Gvardiol really starting to shine now.
He has taken his time to get used to he left-back position, and he certainly looks so much more comfortable now compared to the start of the season. Micah Richards has said he has looked ‘absolutely brilliant’ over the last five games or so.
Who knows if Pep intends to keep him there long-term. But he has shown now he is, at the very least, a solid option to feature there.
It all bodes very well for the future.
Gvardiol now knows what the English top-flight is like and next season, he could genuinely take his game to a whole new level. He knows what to expect, and he has a strong idea now of the way City play and what Pep wants.
At £77 million, the club paid a lot of money to sign him. But we are starting to see why that was the case.