[Sports]Josko Gvardiol transfer news: Who is Manchester City's £85m target from RB Leipzig?

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Josko Gvardiol scored against Manchester City in the Champions League this season

 

Gvardiol, who is 6ft 1in tall, is a left-sided central defender, and City feel he could feature in a back three or in a four-man defence.

With Guardiola's management it is hard to always gauge what might happen. Gvardiol is primarily a centre-back, who has also played at left-back on occasion.

John Stones, Nathan Ake and Manuel Akanji were considered to be central defenders too - but Ake and Akanji played some of last season at full-back and Stones ended the campaign in a hybrid midfield role.

Gvardiol's statistics in the Bundesliga last season are comparable to City's current centre-back contingent. His passing accuracy is slightly lower, but he made more interventions and won possession more often.

How Gvardiol and City defenders compared last season in the league (per 90 minutes)
Gvardiol    Laporte    Stones    Akanji    Ake    Dias
Touches    100.5    95.3    83.3    88.9    95.5    102.1
Passes    88.7    85.8    73.6    79.6    81.8    93.4
Passing accuracy    89.3%    93.1%    93.3%    93.3%    91.1%    92.7%
Interceptions    1.4    0.3    0.4    0.6    1    0.8
Possession won    6.9    5    4.4    5.4    4.6    4.5
Tackles    1    1    1.1    1.4    1.3    1
In Europe's top five leagues, only four defenders touched the ball more times per 90 minutes than Gvardiol.

City's Ruben Dias topped the list, while Benjamin Pavard, Jordi Alba and Dayot Upamecano - from Guardiola's old teams Bayern Munich and Barcelona - were also above Gvardiol.

One of Gvardiol's five goals for Leipzig was a header against City in the Champions League last 16 first leg this year.

"He's fast, intense, dynamic, really good at changing directions and really good at transitioning from attack and defence and vice versa," said Baba.

"He's a really good, agile defender and his strength is in passing while he's in possession - even under pressure he still finds solutions to play it forward.

"John Stones has been pushed into more of a midfielder - I can see that happening with Gvardiol too.

"It's kind of a no-brainer why someone like Pep Guardiola would want him. He really is a dream prospect at his young age."

 

Who is Gvardiol and is he a proven winner?

 

Gvardiol played for Dinamo Zagreb at Manchester City in the Uefa Youth League in October 2019

 

The defender already has four years of first-team experience with Dinamo Zagreb and Leipzig and has won a domestic cup in each of the past three seasons - in 2021 in Croatia and in the 2022 and 2023 German Cups.

He was very close to joining Marcelo Bielsa's Leeds United in 2020 but moved to Leipzig instead.

"Gvardiol is the best central defender in the world. He's so mature. The way he plays, with the grace he controls the ball, it's amazing," said Croatia boss Zlatko Dalic last year.

Gvardiol helped Croatia reach the World Cup semi-finals and scored in their third-place play-off win over Morocco.

Only three players at the World Cup played more successful passes than Gvardiol's 463. City's Rodri led the way. Gvardiol ranked sixth for touches of the ball (612).

Gvardiol made more clearances than any other player in Qatar with 37, and he was joint second, level with recent City target Declan Rice, for interceptions with 11. He also ranked fifth for headed clearances (14).

 

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