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N-N-N-N Nineteen. A New Record For The King Of Centre Backs

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Followers of my columns will recall that a couple of weeks ago I posted an article about Aymeric Laporte having solved the Kompany conundrum at the Etihad.

At times when Manchester City seem to post records of all kinds almost as regularly as the famous Glasgow newspaper, Aymeric Laporte has now become the centre back who has broken the record for starting the most consecutive undefeated matches in the history of the Premier League. Eat your heart out Mr Van Dijk.

City fans were probably looking for Aguero’s 150th goal, but instead, it was the unassuming, close to perfect centre-back who survived the Wembley debacle on the playing surface from hell to notch yet another win for City with a display that, while not without errors, was simply excellent.

Laporte had been on Guardiola’s radar long before he rolled into town last January to claim his title-winners medal. And practically unknown to the Blue Mooners, the faithful were wondering what the fuss was about having hoped to prise VVD out of Klopp’s clutches. On reflection, who would you rather have?

Not only have we seen stellar performances from Laporte but also a significant improvement, once again in John Stones, playing in a similar mode. Both have excellent skills in terms of reading the game and both have differing distribution skills with Laporte’s trade-mark cross-field pass reaping as much benefit as Stones early ball Fernadinho or Silva. Not only that. City have now played 6-in-a-row without conceding, with Ederson, last night, showing true class in the saves he made as well as the attacking play he started, one of which ended in the winning goal.

The defensive end of the City line-up looks every bit as strong as what there is in front of it. As for Aymeric Laporte, well the number 19 rears its head again.

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