Manchester City defenders Aymeric Laporte and Ruben Dias both made Garth Crooks’ BBC Team of the Week.
City kept another clean sheet in Saturday’s 1-0 victory over Chelsea and have only conceded once this season.
At the heart of the City performance at Stamford Bridge was the duo of Laporte and Dias, who kept Romelu Lukaku and Timo Werner quiet for the majority of the game.
The home side were restricted to five shots at Ederson’s goal and none of them hit the target.
And although Bernardo Silva stole the plaudits for his goal, Crooks opted to draw attention to the defence with his picks.
On Laporte, Crooks told the BBC: “This was a very impressive defensive display by Manchester City. I've often thought you can cause City problems, especially on the counter-attack, but the combination of Aymeric Laporte and Ruben Dias looked quite impregnable against Chelsea.
“I know both players are comfortable on the ball but I have never been totally convinced about either player's ability to cope with the physical aspects of the Premier League.
“Well if anyone is going to test your commitment to a football match then it's going to be Romelu Lukaku. The Chelsea striker put them both to the test and got very little out of either.”
Crooks highlighted the crucial block Dias made on Chelsea’s Mateo Kovacic
He said: “The block on Mateo Kovacic said it all. The way Dias flew across the penalty area at a crucial point in the game to block what looked like a certain goal was immense.
“The Portugal defender was superb and looked like he was back to his best against Chelsea.”
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