As soon as Aymeric Laporte crashed to the turf at Molineux in May, his season looked over. It was commendable that he was able not just to get up but also to stop a dangerous Wolves attack before giving in to the inevitable substitution, but that looked like that.
Four days later, incredibly, he was named in the starting XI at West Ham with some almighty strapping around his leg and then again a week later Laporte put his body through the wringer to get Manchester City over the line against Aston Villa. Such sacrifice cost him as he required surgery on his knee that forced him to miss the beginning of this season, but with John Stones, Ruben Dias and Kyle Walker injured at the time and Nathan Ake not fully fit it was one that Pep Guardiola and the player felt had to be made.
City had planned to go into this season with the same four centre-backs, but with Laporte still out and an injury to Ake early on they changed their plan and snapped up Manu Akanji from Dortmund in the final weeks of the transfer window. The player wanted to move and the Blues barely faced any competition for him with Leicester the only other Premier League club to show an interest.
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Akanji's move went under the radar at £15m - a third of the money City got for selling four untested academy players to Southampton - but he has made a terrific start to his career at the Etihad either side of a solid showing for Switzerland at the World Cup. That continued at Chelsea, where he had a pivotal role in the winning goal.
Riyad Mahrez and Jack Grealish will obviously get praise for their contributions but it was Akanji who set the move going. As he received the ball from Rodri close to his own penalty box, there was an easy pass available to John Stones to his right.
Instead he drilled it up to near the halfway line where Rico Lewis was waiting to turn and drive City forward. The reward for such forward thinking came in the fact that none of the six Chelsea players in the City half when the ball was played were anywhere close to their own goal when Mahrez tapped in Grealish's cross.
Laporte often plays such aggressive, direct balls forward through opposition lines but he was not available at Stamford Bridge because he was injured. Stones can play them as well but he was holding back to allow the nominal right-back Lewis to roam forward into midfield.
Last season there would have been nobody to play that ball in this situation, but as a result of City making a late change to their transfer plans in summer there was Akanji.
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