For all the hundreds of millions he has spent on attacking talent to score goals and full-backs to prevent them, Pep Guardiola’s biggest headache has been in finding a No.1, writes Steve Bates in Nashville.
He inherited England’s first choice keeper in Joe Hart when he arrived at Manchester City last summer but didn’t fancy him and made it clear from the start that Hart was surplus to requirements.
He suffered ridicule when he brought in Claudio Bravo with the intention for him to be a sweeper-keeper in the style of the man he left behind in Munich, Manuel Neuer.
As Bravo’s mistakes and strained attempts to adapt to the English game unravelled, Guardiola started looking again in the market.
A world record fee for a goalkeeper followed when he shelled out £35m on Ederson, who has been settling in nicely on City’s pre-season tour of America.
And now Guardiola has revealed that not only is he impressed by Ederson’s goalkeeping ability but that he intends to deploy him as a secret weapon in attack as well, piling more pressure on Bravo’s position as the top choice at the Etihad.
Ederson kept a clean sheet in City’s 3-0 destruction of Tottenham in Nashville on Saturday – with Guardiola singing his praises afterwards.
“He has this quality with his huge goal kicks,” says Guardiola.
“When the opposition makes high pressing and it’s complicated, now we have the chance to put the ball in the other box, and of course we have a little bit more space in the middle of the pitch.
“When I was at Bayern Munich we played Benfica in the Champions League and he was there, and when we tried to analyse them we saw it four or five times and we organised a meeting to say ‘Guys, what’s the matter? What is that?’
“We tried to work about that because he has this quality to put the ball in the other box and it’s not offside. We spread out the opponents and we can have more space in the middle.”
Chilean keeper Bravo returns to pre-season training on Monday after missing City’s tour due to playing in the Confederations Cup in Russia.
Bravo helped Chile reach the final – won by Germany – and was given extra time off while City were in America.
But now he’s back – and trying to recover lost ground after Brazilian keeper Ederson’s impressive pre-season performances in the States.
“I have never had doubts about the quality of Claudio, but we decide now to buy Ederson. And he shows us amazing things in this period, not just the goal kicks but also he saves a lot of balls with how quickly he closes the space for the strikers.
“And always with his feet he decides well, with the long and the short, he reads the decisions well, that’s why I wanted him because to compete at the high level we need two excellent goalkeepers, if we don’t have that, we can’t.
“Claudio is still our keeper - he will be with us, get fit and after I will decide. Like last season sometimes I played Willy and then I played Claudio and then I played Willy and after it was Claudio.
“I will see what is going to happen. I do not say what is going to happen, I learn from my nine years as a manager. I have an idea, and after I go to the training sessions and I have a look, I watch my players.”