Most expensive defender in history? Gvardiol is not justifying €90m fee so far

Sam McGuire

• Updated: 19 Dec 2023 09:42 GMT
• 4 min read

Fans, media and pundits are usually eager to declare a big-money signing a flop. Everything they do on the pitch is put under a microscope, context is ignored and hottakes galore are offered. Yet, for some reason, Josko Gvardiol is managing to go under the radar following his €90 million summer move to Manchester City.

It made him the most expensive centre-back in history.

Pep Guardiola made the bold call to part ways with the injury prone Aymeric Laporte, a key figure for City over past seasons, and replace him with the Croatia international.

With 17 Premier League games played in the 2023/24 campaign, City find themselves in fourth position, five points off the top. The reigning champions have conceded 20 goals in 17 matches in the English top-flight. For most clubs, this would be viewed as a remarkable defensive record. For City, though, this is an issue. At their current rate, they’re on course to concede 45 goals.

It would be the highest number of goals conceded by City under Pep Guardiola, surpassing the 39 they allowed during his debut campaign in charge at the Etihad. In fact, it would be the first time they would’ve conceded over 40 goals under the Catalan-born coach.

This leaky backline isn’t necessarily solely down to the arrival of Gvardiol, but he’s hardly justifying the price tag right now, is he?

City haven’t kept a clean sheet with the 21-year-old in the starting XI since October. In his last six starts for the Citizens, they have conceded 13 times. This includes a 4-4 draw with Chelsea and a 3-3 draw with Spurs. Those results weren’t down to him, with City having uncharacteristically poor games. However, the No24 was perhaps at fault for the Aston Villa winner.

He followed Leon Bailey into the middle third before easily allowing the Villa forward to turn onto his favoured left foot and drive into space.

Gvardiol does well to keep pace with the winger but he’s easily taken out of the game when the former Bayer Leverkusen attacker cuts back onto his right foot. He isn’t close enough and Bailey is able to set himself before getting a shot off. Now, it takes a heavy deflection off Ruben Dias and wrong-foots Ederson for the only goal of the game.

Is it harsh to criticise Gvardiol for this? Perhaps. But as the world’s most expensive defender, you expect better, don’t you? You can’t allow someone like Bailey the space and time to carry the ball from the halfway line to the edge of the penalty area.

This showing arrived just weeks after Guardiola claimed Gvardiol had settled.

Ahead of the match against Young Boys in the Champions League, Guardiola praised the young defender:

“He has settled perfectly,” Guardiola declared.

“We knew he was an incredible person. That is what I look for first. He can play centre back, We decided to play him in a back four and play at full-back offensively and defensively. He has experience already. He has played in the World Cup, the European Cup.

“Leipzig play to win and he won two Pokals (German Cups) there. He is a regular for Croatia. “He has a lot of experience for a 21-year-old. He is incredibly open minded to see what we want to do. At every training session he is an incredible professional. (We are) Really pleased.”

While he may have settled, it doesn’t necessarily mean he has adapted to life in the Premier League. It may take some time, as it has with countless others, but Gvardiol is benefitting from not having everything he does microanalysed.

He’s been afforded the freedom to make mistakes. Few in the Premier League get this sort of opportunity. Sooner or later though, people are going to look at City’s defensive record and look for reasons as to why. With Gvardiol being the new player, he’ll take the brunt of it.