Over the last 12 months, both West Ham and Manchester City have broken their transfer record on a French defender. Whilst Pep Guardiola snapped up Laporte back in January, Manuel Pellegrini moved to sign Issa Diop in the summer. Neither of these players are their respective club’s record signings anymore, but both held those titles and we’re about to compare the two.
AYMERIC LAPORTE
When Guardiola signed Laporte, it was a move that, somehow, wasn’t actually talked about very much. The Frenchman’s move from Atheltic Bilbao to Manchester City was overshadowed by Virgil van Dijk’s move from Southampton to Liverpool earlier in the January window, but now Laporte is being talked about for all the right reasons as he shows just why Guardiola was so desperate to sign him, and looked to him ahead of van Dijk.
This season has seen Laporte come in as arguably one of the best defenders in the Premier League and he’s only gone from strength, as he’s helped his side register clean sheets away at Liverpool, Tottenham and Arsenal. At the age of just 24, there is plenty of reason to get excited about Laporte as he could well mould himself into the best defender in the world, and if he can strike up a long-lasting partnership with John Stones then City will be set for the next ten years.
TT GRADE: A
ISSA DIOP
Issa Diop, like a number of foreign imports from Europe, was a name that not a lot of West Ham fans were familiar with. That didn’t stop them from getting excited over their 21-year-old centre-back and it turns out they were so right to be excited. The France U21 international has been capped six times at that level and could be set for a call-up to the national squad any day now as he continues to shine for The Hammers.
The 21-year-old netted his first goal for the club in the Carabao Cup when his side overcame Wimbledon 3-1 in the second round of the competition. If he keeps up his impressive form in the Premier League with the whole world watching then he could well be the man to keep Laporte out of the French national team, and with West Ham hardly being a club that will be in Europe anytime soon, Diop might be the next man to make a big money move, following in the footsteps of Laporte and van Dijk to have done so in 2018.
TT GRADE: A+
The Verdict
Aymeric Laporte is no doubt better than Issa Diop at the moment. But if you were to take Laporte out of the Manchester City team, Guardiola’s juggernaut would continue rolling teams over for fun. However, if you took Diop out of West Ham then Pellegrini’s side would struggle for defensive balance and would likely have continued on their poor start to the season in which they lost their first four games.
