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.
