This season, Fernandinho has demonstrated his versatility at the Etihad.
Aymeric Laporte, who's integral to Manchester City, suffered a severe injury earlier in the campaign, forcing the Brazilian into Pep Guardiola's plans.
Fernandinho has since accumulated around 2,000 minutes in the Premier League as a centre-back and unsurprisingly, he appears to be interpreting the role from the perspective of a midfielder.
The large majority of central defenders opt to play simple, allowing their teammates higher up the field to take risks on the ball.
However, due to Fernandinho's midfield roots, his on-ball actions don't seem to have changed despite his new deeper role as part of the last line of Guardiola's defence.
The 34-year-old is doing more with the ball than most of his central defensive peers, and that can be captured using the numbers.
Some 58 central defenders have amassed over 1,000 minutes in the Premier League this season, with the City man performing well in a number of areas.
Regarding feeding players ahead of him, Fernandinho's contribution is unrivalled in England.
He places top for completed passes to the final third per 90 with an average of 10.4, which is an impressive figure and is almost four passes more than second-placed Virgil van Dijk who's posting 6.5 per 90.
Once expanding the search to Europe's top five leagues, the only centre-back who's averaging more passes to the final third per 90 this season is Bayern Munich's David Alaba.
In regard to progressive passes, Fernandinho again tops the Premier League ahead of Romain Saiss and Joe Gomez with roughly 13.4 hit per 90.
A progressive pass is loosely defined as a pass that moves the ball considerably forwards, indicating that the Brazilian is assisting greatly with advancing his team up the field by finding the feet of players such as Kevin De Bruyne, David Silva and Raheem Sterling.
In terms of long passes, Fernandinho is completing 3.85 per 90, placing him 13th from the sample of 58, and he's 9th for through passes per 90.
He's ultimately one of the best possession-based centre-backs in England's top-flight, and he's displaying that from week-to-week by interpreting his new role as though he's still a midfielder.
