Aymeric Laporte has completed his move from Athletic Bilbao to Manchester City for a deal believed to be worth £57million.
Here, Press Association Sport looks at five things you may not know about Laporte.
Yet to win a senior cap
Linked with City before
By the time of that maiden call-up, 2016 had already been a notable year for Laporte. In March he sustained a fracture in his right leg while playing for France’s Under-21s, which ruled him out for the rest of the season. He was then strongly linked with City over the summer before Athletic announced in June that he had signed a new deal with them running to 2020, adding that the release clause for 2016-17 and this season would be 65 million euros (currently about £57m).
“It’s all about arriving at perfection”
Entrenamiento acabado. Mañana volvemos a @LaLiga donde nos espera un exigente duelo en Balaídos. Aupa Athletic! ??⚽️ #AL4 pic.twitter.com/pSWa9mdi8i
— Aymeric Laporte (@Laporte) November 4, 2017
Laporte gave an interview to FourFourTwo when he was 20 in which he came across very much as someone City boss Pep Guardiola might be interested in. “My position’s most important evolution has been in the sense of being more than a defender,” Laporte said. “A big part of my game is to bring the ball out from the back. Defenders do this more than ever before. It’s all about arriving at perfection. I spend as much time in training and matches working on starting attacks as I do stopping them.”
Superstition
Many footballers have superstitions, and Laporte revealed his in another FourFourTwo piece from 2015 – always trying to enter the pitch with his right foot first. “I don’t know why I do it,” he said. “It’s just something I’ve always done, I suppose.”
A former striker
