OPINION
Pep Guardiola is so wrong.
Aymeric Laporte can’t hold a candle to Virgil van Dijk.
The Manchester City manager waxed lyrical about the French centre-back as he addressed at the media on Monday ahead of his club’s Tuesday night Champions League clash away to Shakhtar Donetsk.
Claiming that it is inevitable Laporte will soon be handed his international debut, Guardiola said “it is difficult to find a better left central defender than him in the world”.
PEP: Sooner or later @Laporte will be selected for France because it is difficult to find a better left central defender than him in the world. But of course it is good for the team for some of our players that are not selected for their countries to get rest. #fcsdvcity
— Manchester City (@ManCity) October 22, 2018
Not that difficult. The City boss need only take a short journey down the East Lancashire road to find one.
The Premier League champions were strongly linked with signing Van Dijk in January but chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak subsequently admitted they pulled out of the running because they felt Southampton were demanding too much money.
Liverpool signed the Holland international for an initial £70million plus add-ons, while City triggered the £58.5million release clause in Laporte’s Athletic Bilbao contract in the same window.
Laporte, who stands at 6ft 3in (source: Transfermarkt) is a fine centre-back who is starting to establish himself as a regular at City in the face of intense competition from John Stones, Vincent Kompany and Nicolas Otamendi.
He has started all nine of the champions’ league matches this season as well as both of their Champions League fixtures and has been rock solid, including in the goalless draw against Liverpool.
But Laporte is not in the France side because he’s below the level of Raphael Varane, Samuel Umtiti and company. They are superior centre-backs.
By contrast, Van Dijk, who always plays on the left side of Liverpool’s central defence, looks the best centre-back on the planet.
He has transformed Liverpool’s back line since his arrival and looks the complete defender. Dominant in the air, fast enough to keep up with speed machine forwards, positionally superb, communicative, technically brilliant, he’s got the lot.
City made a blunder by under-rating Van Dijk and no bigging-up of Laporte will change that.