City signed Nunes in a £53 million deal from Wolves in the summer and the Portugal international was handed his first Premier League start for the champions in the 2-0 win over Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
Nunes has been on City’s radar for a while and after their 5-0 win over Sporting CP in the Champions League in February 2022, Guardiola said of the midfielder: ‘I would say that Matheus Nunes is one of the best players in the world today.’
But when reminded of his comments after City’s win over Forest, Guardiola said: ‘Maybe I over-exaggerated a little bit. He’s not.
‘He’s a really good player but sometimes… maybe I said this comment after a 5-0. But he’s an exceptional player. Exceptional, exceptional player.’
But despite backtracking over his previous comments, Guardiola says he has been impressed with Nunes’ start to life at City.
‘Really good,’ Guardiola said.
‘Sometimes I say stay more calm in the position [but he is] dynamic. In the game today he’d get the ball, dribble and drop the opponents down.
‘He looks like he is never tired because his actions are 15, 20 metres, but we knew it at Sporting Lisbon, has done it as well at Wolves. We asked [Julen] Lopetegui, who is a friend of ours, how is he and all the opinions were really, really good and he’s special as a runner, has good finishing, defensively, can play in two or three positions.
‘So yeah, the last two games played against Red Bull and today was a key point, was really, really important.’
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