Pep Guardiola hails Ruben Dias for filling Vincent Kompany role at Man City

Manchester City were left flailing when Vincent Kompany told them in 2019 he would be leaving.

The question of how to replace such an integral figure in the club's history was agonised over for more than a year, and after Txiki Begiristain refused to meet Leicester's £80m valuation for Harry Maguire there were some painful reminders of the gap in the backline. Pep Guardiola gave up on the pairing of John Stones and Nicolas Otamendi after a calamitous defeat at Norwich in September 2019, leaving Fernandinho forced to play out of position for the majority of a campaign where Liverpool streaked away with the title.

City were still not set on a Kompany replacement in the summer of 2020, and after strong interest in Napoli defender Kalidou Koulibaly, a 5-2 humbling at the hands of Leicester prompted them to snap up Ruben Dias - a defender available for less after Benfica's unexpected exit from the Champions League in qualifying. Dias had been picked as the man to fill those enormous boots from Kompany.

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It worked out better than anyone could have expected. Dias transformed a defence that had looked shaky and City waltzed their way to another Premier League title and made the Champions League final on the back of a mean backline that the Portugal international was at the heart of.

In the 18 months since, Dias could not match the extremely high standards he set. He was still an extremely good defender, but it no longer seemed indefensible to pick others, with John Stones, Aymeric Laporte, Manu Akanji and Nathan Ake all showing what they could do.

Now, Dias is undroppable again. City badly missed him while he was injured in the month after