Didn’t have room to put this in the article as it would’ve become something completely different but... it’s easy to roll eyes when you highlight a defender’s ability on the ball if they’re not actually defending, but it’s especially important to City at the moment

Guardiola’s said Ake and Dias are still adapting to the what’s needed and passing may be part of that. Dias made a very good pass in the build-up to the goal against Arsenal, so I looked at all of his passes v Leeds/Arsenal in case it made a good article. What I found was...

A lot of Dias’ more expansive passing has been inaccurate, especially crossfield balls. He’s obviously got the eye for it but the radar’s not quite working yet. I paid attention to it v Porto and it was similar, and obviously gave ball away for the goal. So room to improve

I’ve not looked at Ake’s in the same detail but I do remember Guardiola shouting at him a few times to get the ball wide quicker, and that’s something he’s been doing with all players for a while now. Get the ball moving and find people quicker.

With Laporte injured for most of the games, I genuinely believe Garcia has been City’s best passer out of defence this season. Was good against Porto and West Ham. The crossfield passes (which are very important for Pep, from Kolarov to Laporte) have been accurate

And he played the ball out wide quickly before Foden and Torres combined for the third goal against Porto. And against West Ham, while he gave a few away, his passes into midfield were often pretty sharp and got the attack moving quickly, but then it broke down later on.

I’m not saying he’s been perfect, but this is the fourth choice centre-back we’re talking about and I’m not sure anybody would they’re fully confident in Stones either (as the article says, Guardiola is very reluctant to play him). The passing is very important too

Their best ball-playing centre-back is injured, the new signings need time to adapt (and Ake injured anyway) and Garcia is pretty reliable in that respect. Stones is good at this too, but as we know he’s out of favour with Guardiola. All I’m saying is, Garcia’s got his uses