Pep started Joško Gvardiol at center-back (alongside Ruben Dias) Wednesday night in Manchester City’s 2-0 victory over Leicester City. Does that mean Gvardiol will permanently move from LB to CB? Does it mean Dalić will follow suit in World Cup qualifying this year? Who knows. It’s definitely too early to tell. But here is what the pundits had to say about Gvardiol’s move back home — to the center-back position:
Manchester Evening News: 7/10 “A rare outing in the middle and this looks like Gvardiol in his element, knowing where everything is and in complete control”
Goal.com: 6/10 “Not as threatening as usual due to playing in the middle of the defence, but showed he is still a classy operator at centre-back, the position in which he made his name.”
Sporstkeeda 7.5/10 “The Croatian defender completed 111 of 112 passes, created one chance, and made two recoveries.”
I get the feeling that people in charge are dicking Joško around with his career development and it’s confusing him
I hope he sticks true to himself and stays strong
https://www.manchestercity.news/pep-guardiola-says-this-season-wouldve-been-so-much-worse-for-man-city-if-it-werent-for-78m-player/
High praise from Pep.
Khusanov is not in squad..otherwise it will be dias and khusanov as CB..difficult to displace both of them. Khusanov got feb player of the month.
We can put bradaric as LB. Sosa is benched for past few months. No other options. If not robert ljubicic.
Yes how has bradaric season gone? I thought it was going well earlier?
He starts for Verona (a mid-table Serie A team).
He plays the left flank in a 3-5-2 so he’s probably less defensive and would be similar to what we have in Borna Sosa.
Robert Ljubičić was good in that role at Dinamo, but he’s been playing exclusively as a CAM for AEK, so it’s unlikely he even gets called up to the repka
We might be fine with Gvardiol at LB for now.
Gvardiol played really well in our France quarterfinal games. We also have a lot of capable CBs right now, and guys like Sosa and Bradaric are moreso offensive-oriented wingbacks that you would use in a 3-5-2.
With Luka Vuskovic very likely to be called up to the senior team soon, we’re probably going to stick to 4 at the back with a potential lineup of Gvardiol/Vuskovic/Sutalo/Stanisic (which is a very intriguing back four).
Pep only puts him there once in a while, he’ll be moved back to LB by the next game as they have no LB backup and will just run Gvardiol through the ground like they already have been doing.