Ederson’s performances for Manchester City in their pre-season tour of the USA, have left Pep Guardiola hoping he finally has some reliability between the sticks.
Guardiola’s first season at the Emirates saw a litany of errors from Claudio Bravo, as City’s hopes of challenging for the Premier League quickly receded.
Ederson, brought from Benfica earlier in the transfer window, has wasted little time in impressing the Spaniard.
Speaking to ESPN Guardiola said, “I never had doubts about the quality of Claudio, but we decided to buy Ederson”.
“He has shown us amazing things in this period [in the US], not just the goal kicks, but also he saves a lot of balls and quickly closes down the space for the strikers”, continued Guardiola.
With the Premier League just a fortnight away, Ederson looks to be winning the battle to become City’s No1 choice between the sticks.
Joe Hart was allowed to leave for Torino and now West Ham on loan, having failed to impress Guardiola with his distribution.
Yet Ederson’s footwork so far has impressed Guardiola. “He has this quality, in the goal kicks. 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”.
“Guardiola continued, “When I was at Bayern Munich we played Benfica in the Champions League and Ederson was there. When we tried to analyse them, we saw it [his kicking] 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.”