The raw potential of Abdukodir Khusanov signals the start of Manchester City’s rebuild (2025)

Meet Abdukodir Khusanov, the 20-year-old Uzbekistan defender who is set to be Manchester City’s first reinforcement of this busy transfer window.

The Athletic revealed on Friday that City have reached an agreement with Lens to sign the defender in a deal worth €40million (£34m) plus bonuses, and Khusanov is poised to join on a four-and-a-half year contract that includes an option to extend by 12 months.

You may have seen the sequence below, plastered across social media, helping to sum up Khusanov’s aggressive approach to defending.

Then there is this one, taken from the same recent game against Paris Saint-Germain, which really rams the point home.

City have acted swiftly in the market so far. Talks have begun with Eintracht Frankfurt for the Egyptian forward Omar Marmoush, there are links with another young centre-back, Vitor Reis of Palmeiras, and there may be others to follow.

City fans will hope that this is the case, given that none of the names above would address the glaring issue with the team this season, which is the lack of physicality and mobility in midfield.

But at least Khusanov loves tackling and is extremely fast, which would make him useful for sweeping up the various attacks that have been surging through the City ranks over the past few months.

Khusanov stayed in his homeland, Uzbekistan, until the age of 18, but his career has moved quickly since. He joined Belarusian club Energetik-BGU in 2022 and less than 18 months later he moved to Lens for just €100,000. Now comes a considerably more expensive move to the Premier League champions, looking to reclaim their crown if not this season then next.

The Lens website described him as “a big build with certain potential to be polished in the long term”, when they signed him, and that is more or less the case today, considering the progress he has made in Ligue 1 but the inevitable steps he will have to take given the far higher demands of playing at home and abroad for City.

Le 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒑 ̶d̶'̶é̶p̶a̶u̶l̶e̶ 𝒅𝒆 𝒋𝒖𝒔 ⚡️ d'Abdukodir Khusanov est l'Action électrique du mois de septembre by @Nexans_ 👇 pic.twitter.com/5lRt96TLSw

— Racing Club de Lens (@RCLens) September 30, 2024

Khusanov’s aggression certainly does stand out, and his style in that sense can be likened to Ruben Dias. Dias is often seen hounding opposition strikers all the way back towards their own goal; if the ball is cleared up towards them, the Portuguese will be right there in their back, and snapping at any loose ball, even if that takes him up near the corner flag.

Khusanov is very similar, and because Lens players have licence to pursue their man, in certain matches at least, it led to this rather remarkable example from a different recent game against PSG where he begins at centre-back and ends up committing a foul on the right wing.

He starts off spotting Ousmane Dembele free in the middle, so he jumps on to him, forces him back and follows him across the pitch, but by frame five of the GIF below he spots another free man, so he presses and barges him over after the ball has gone.

The game goes on, though, and with a midfielder now free and ready to receive the ball, Khusanov checks to see if he has defensive cover and goes again, chasing his opponent down towards the corner. When the left-back bursts forward, Khusanov jumps in and gets booked.

He appeared particularly fired up in that game because here he spots Dembele charging through the middle and decides to step up and engage — and does impressively well.

The next example perhaps highlights how his game could do with some improvement; after initially winning a header, he makes the quick decision to chase the ball down into the channel and help out his left-back. By doing so he leaves a man completely free in the middle (keep an eye on the goalkeeper in the final images) and he doubles down on his decision to chase the ball, at one point even going around his left-back to try, but fail, to win the ball.

Khusanov does some of his best work covering the channels — as the first two introductory GIFs suggest — because he reads the game well and has impressive speed, which helps him out even if he sometimes takes a split-second to spot the danger.

That applies on both sides, because he has been used on the right and left of a back three and as the left centre-back in a traditional back four in the past few weeks.

He is generally impressive in the air, although it is easy to imagine seasoned Premier League strikers giving him a hard time as he settles into life in England. He is generally good at dealing with high balls and crosses, although in the recent PSG cup match he was beaten easily in the build-up to the Parisians’ equaliser.

Earlier in Pep Guardiola’s managerial career he liked to work with defenders who are ball-players first and defenders second, but he achieved great success with four ‘proper’ centre-backs as City won the treble in 2023 and Khusanov is definitely a defender first and foremost.

Not just because of his physicality, aggression and reading of the game but because his work on the ball will have to improve significantly during his time at City.

It is important to note Lens do not seem especially keen to build up with passes through the middle, so while Khusanov will find himself with the ball at the back, he will often just play a fairly simple pass to his full-back, or to his centre-back partner so he can pass to the full-back on his side.

The full-backs then try to work the ball up the line, so it is not exactly Khusanov’s fault that it is rare to see him play a ball through the lines to a defensive midfielder, let alone a more attacking option.

Below, he does have two good options in midfield, and one of his team-mates is openly gesturing for the pass, but he elects to pass to the left-back, who launches one down the line.

One of the things that Nathan Ake said he was taught when he joined City was to wait for an opponent to approach him before passing the ball, to try to disrupt the opposition’s shape, and this is something Khusanov will have to adapt to.

Guardiola has also told Josko Gvardiol to keep things simple at the back and leave the creating to the forwards, so City’s defenders do not need to be artists, but it must be said that at present Khusanov does not appear especially refined in possession, for a couple of reasons, and will arrive with a couple of rough edges to smooth off.

Again, this will be partly influenced by Lens’ desire to get the ball forward, but it means that when the ball drops to him at the back, he will simply clear the ball as far away as possible rather than to find a team-mate. That would stand out a mile at City.

Here you can see his team-mates running away rather than offering a short option, but at the same time the ball forward is an agricultural hoof which goes back to Reims (and is immediately booted back).

This time he gets the ball back under no immediate pressure (the three closest opponents jog away) but when he gets closed down he pumps it into the centre circle, again losing possession.

In that game against Reims he did attempt more adventurous passes than in other matches of late, including one with the outside of his foot intended to be played in behind to the striker, but these were cut out at the first attempt.

In the PSG league match he shows aggression and a good ability to read the game by nipping in to win a challenge, but the pass is wayward and when the ball drops to him again and he tries to play it out to the other wing, it is cut out en route.

All in all, Lens’ style means that he did not see a lot of the ball in the opposition half, so that is a big change he will have to get used to at City before considering improvement in the actual execution.

There are some examples which offer some hope: here he drags the ball away from an opponent and almost loses it to another, but is able to flick it around him and style things out well.

And against PSG he showed the kind of pass which may not be expected of a City defender these days — the kind that Aymeric Laporte used to play — but it is promising to know that it is in the locker and can be developed.

It is clear that City rate Khusanov extremely highly and by making a move for him now, as they look to get their season back on track and build their next all-conquering side, they are obviously confident that he can be moulded into somebody who, perhaps like Dias, does not have to be especially expansive in possession but is comfortable holding onto the ball under pressure and picking the right short-range option.

The defensive side of the game is certainly there and while there are likely to be teething problems in the interim, particularly if he is thrown into the current dysfunctional outfit, Khusanov comes with a growing reputation and is being chosen as somebody to lead City into a new era.

(Header photo: Jean Catuffe/Getty Images)

Sam Lee is the Manchester City correspondent for The Athletic. The 2020-21 campaign will be his sixth following the club, having previously held other positions with Goal and the BBC, and freelancing in South America. Follow Sam on Twitter @SamLee