Pep Guardiola hailed Manuel Akanji's aggression and reading of the game after the centre-back shone on his Premier League debut for Manchester City.
The summer signing has made three successive starts since his £15million move from Borussia Dortmund, but this was his first appearance in domestic competition.
He helped City to a clean sheet in the 3-0 success at Wolves and has found himself more involved than expected, with John Stones repurposed at right-back and Aymeric Laporte out injured.
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Guardiola was delighted with Akanji's first experience of Premier League football and the aggression and intelligence he showed alongside Ruben Dias.
“More than exceptional, win all the duels in the build-up, read perfectly when play short or long, he is so, so clever and when he goes, he goes, but he doesn’t go too much to give away penalties or fouls," he said.
“He is so aggressive to go close to the opponent but then has the tempo to control the situation. Really, really good, from day one we felt he gets it.
“John again in the full-back was brilliant, happy he can play two games in a row, we need him. Very good things for us, after the Champions League, 12.30pm away is so dangerous, the pitch was dry, our rhythm was a bit slow.
“We were in all the situations fortunate, to score so early, the second one quite early as well, red card but the game was dangerous in the second half because they were better than us. After we score the third and after the game was over.”
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