Pep Guardiola silences critics with £411m Man City transfer response

Pep Guardiola has achieved unprecedented success with Manchester City but to some critics he is just a chequebook manager.

Anyone could do what Guardiola has done with the amount of money he has spent, goes the improbable argument as trophy after trophy stacks up at the Etihad. The sneering has centred on defence, where more than £535m has been spent on the backline to transform the team that was inherited in 2016.

Nobody would deny that it is an eye-watering amount of money and nobody has, with Guardiola happy to accept the heavy lifting that spending has done. A look at the Euros goes to show just how well City have recruited in defence though.

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It has been a tournament to forget for many forwards, with Harry Kane, Cristiano Ronaldo and Romelu Lukaku among the leading stars struggling to make an impact. At the quarter-final stage, none of the biggest names have made their mark in Germany.

Defenders, never usually in the spotlight, will be doing their best to keep it that way and City are represented by six from the final eight teams: Ruben Dias, Joao Cancelo (both Portugal), Manu Akanji (Switzerland), Nathan Ake (|Netherlands), John Stones and Kyle Walker (both England) are all still in with a chance of winning it. Those six players represent more than half of Guardiola's total spend (£276.5m) on defenders across eight years.

Add in Josko Gvardiol, whose Croatia were knocked out in the group stage and the number goes up to 66 per cent (£354m). Remembering Aymeric Laporte, who was sold last summer but remains at the heart of the Spain defence taking on