Pep Guardiola hails 'incredible investment' made by Man City | OneFootball

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola is confident the reigning Premier League champions have made an "incredible investment" in Nico Gonzalez, who he likened to a "mini-Rodri" after the 4-0 win over Newcastle United.

City put behind them the disappointment of Tuesday night's Champions League defeat to Real Madrid, scoring a big home win over a Newcastle side in contention for a top-four Premier League finish.

Omar Marmoush stole the headlines, grabbing his first City goals in some style to record a hat-trick, before James McAtee added the gloss to what was a superb team performance.

Abdukodir Khusanov was successful in taming prolific Newcastle striker Alexander Isak, but it was the performance of Gonzalez that caught the eye of his manager. Guardiola was suitably impressed by what he saw from the 23-year-old, who joined from Porto for £50m, yet City's boss was entirely surprised at the levels offered up by the former Barcelona academy graduate.

"The presence from Nico help us a lot in the 50/50s," Guardiola said. "He wins seven and we can run. If he loses seven, they would run. The club made an incredible investment for the future. He was a player in the Barcelona academy, which is the best in the world to teach you things like body shape.

Abdukodir Khusanov also played well as City nullified Newcastle's threat / Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/GettyImages

“[Former Porto boss Sergio] Conceicao helped him a lot to improve being aggressive and smart and how to play different types of game.

“He’s 23, like a mini-Rodri. It’s a big compliment but he has a feeling with that presence. He wins the duels. He’s far away in other things because Rodri is the best."

Gonzalez had made his City debut in a combative FA Cup fourth round tie with Leyton Orient a week ago, but was unable to finish the game after picking up a knock inside 25 minutes.

Here, he completed 100 out of 103 passes attempted (97%), won all four ground duels that he contested, recovered possession four times and passed the ball into Newcastle's final third 15 times – a skill Rodri has perfected over the years to help transition City from defence into attack in the blink of an eye.