Gary Neville believes Aymeric Laporte, who Manchester City sold to Al-Nassr this summer was a superior player to Josko Gvardiol.
The pundit made this comment about Laporte on Sky Sports (17/12/2023) after emphasising how his exit, alongside the likes of Ilkay Gundogan and Riyad Mahrez has impacted City this season.
Gary Neville says Aymeric Laporte was a “better player” than Josko Gvardiol
After the Sky Blues’ latest 2-2 draw against Crystal Palace, Janusz Michallik claimed that he remains unconvinced about Josko Gvardiol as a quality left-back.
Since signing for City, the Croatian international has been utilised in this makeshift position by Pep Guardiola.
Now, Gary Neville has emphasised that the sale of Aymeric Laporte, who he believes is a “better player” than Josko Gvardiol amongst other key stalwarts has impacted Manchester City so far.
“There is a thing about City that they’re just not as good as last season because of [İlkay] Gundogan, how important, how good, great a player he was and is”, he said on Sky Sports.
“Then you’ve got [Riyad] Mahrez, an unbelievable performer on that right-wing and they’ve not really sorted that out. And then obviously, you’ve got [Aymeric] Laporte, who to be fair didn’t play a lot last season but I still think Laporte’s a better player than [Josko] Gvardiol.”
Neville added, “So, three players that have been left, I don’t think they’ve been replaced with players that are as good as them. Now, obviously, I think City will still have an incredibly strong season, they could win the league by 10 points.”
“But there is an element of just looking at them and thinking, they aren’t as good as last year because of the three players they’ve lost. They were fantastic players, those players.”
Aymeric Laporte would have struggled in the Croatian’s position
Sure, Gary Neville may be right about Aymeric Laporte being better than Josko Gvardiol with his wealth of experience at the highest level.
But the reason why the Spanish international lost his place to Nathan Ake last season is due to how much he struggles to defend as a wide centre-back.
As a result, even if Laporte had stayed at City, he would either have been benched for the most part or looked uncomfortable in Gvardiol’s position.
Furthermore, Josko Gvardiol is yet to have been tested in his natural position at centre-back in the Premier League this campaign.
Only when that occurs can one make a fair judgement about Gvardiol as a signing.
With that in mind, whether Aymeric Laporte is a better defender than Josko Gvardiol is somewhat of a futile discussion.
