Josko Gvardiol transfer completes Man City's defensive revolution amid Pep Guardiola's war on full-backs

Back when he was coming through the ranks at boyhood club Dinamo Zagreb, Josko Gvardiol's team-mates would call him 'Little Pep' due to how similar his name sounds to Pep Guardiola's. His new manager even complimented him on his "beautiful" surname ahead of the transfer.

And now, the Croatian has linked up with the Catalan at Manchester City after completing a €90 million (£77.5m/$98m) move from RB Leipzig, making him the most expensive defender of all time (at least in terms of amount of Euros paid).

Gvardiol has all the attributes Guardiola values in a defender after the coach radically shifted how he wanted to set his team up halfway through last season, moving away from having wide, attacking full-backs and instead lining-up with four centre-backs.

Signing Gvardiol rather than a full-back to replace the likely departing Joao Cancelo shows that the shift is permanent, completing one of the coach's more intriguing tactical developments. And the arrival of the Croatia international, who was one of the best defenders in the 2022 World Cup and has had an outstanding two seasons in the Bundesliga, is set to make City's treble-winning defence even more formidable.