When Pep Guardiola was focusing on the little details that helped Manchester City win the treble last season, Nathan Ake's name was never far from the tip of his tongue.
“He has been fundamental,” Guardiola said after City wrapped up the Premier League title in May. “I learned this season when you play against (Bukayo) Saka, Vinicius (Junior), (Gabriel) Martinelli, (Mohamed) Salah or (Sadio) Mane in the past, you need a proper defender to win duels one v one, and Nathan gave us that boost that I didn't have in the past.”
Before the Champions League final, Guardiola puffed out his cheeks in admiration when he recalled how Ake can “control any right winger we face” thanks to his defensive ability.
So it should come as no surprise that one of the cornerstones of City's latest great team has been rewarded with a four-year contract extension, taking him up to 2029.
It could have been a different year for Ake, 28: last summer a move to Chelsea was on the cards because, after two years at City, he had managed just 19 Premier League starts out of 76.
He was not desperate to leave, Chelsea merely offered him the chance to be a more permanent fixture in their new project. Ultimately, he did not want any talks to become a distraction during pre-season so he decided to stay at City, where he was more than happy to keep trying to establish himself.
It has worked out pretty well.
“There were some things in the air last summer,” he said this week during City's pre-season tour of Asia, “but in the end, it didn't happen — that's football, suddenly it doesn't happen and boom, the season goes like this.”
What he means by “like this” is winning the treble. “I'm so, so happy and to be to be with these players every day, with the manager every day, there's nowhere else where you can be at the moment.”
Ake with Guardiola and Bernardo Silva (Photo: IAN KINGTON/IKIMAGES/AFP via Getty Images)
Ake is part of an ever-growing club: new City signings that show their best form after the first season under Guardiola.
“Obviously in the first year I wasn't at my best and everyone knows that,” Ake says. “The second and third seasons have been so much better and I have enjoyed it.”
In his first season, he was beset by a persistent hamstring injury but there were several factors that stopped him from showing his best following a £40million ($51.5m) move from Bournemouth.
“Everything really,” he says. “I came from a little bit of a smaller club so the whole situation is a bit different when you come to the club like this. It was injuries then after coming back in and maybe not playing at the same level as I did before and then my confidence dropped a little bit. It's difficult then to get that back while you're not having too many games.”
He says all he could do was talk with friends, family and City's group of physios to help get him through the harder moments. “They make sure you keep the confidence if things don't go well.
But there was advice from Guardiola regarding on-pitch matters.
“Tactically, it was very different,” Ake says. “At City, we have much, much more of the ball (than at Bournemouth).
“An example is that, in my first season, we played against Leicester at home and we lost 5-2. We had a lot of possession but I didn't really do anything with it.
“I just thought we had to keep the ball and keep it moving. I thought I had done OK and then the manager called me into his office and showed me clips.
“He said, 'If you're just going to pass to the left and right and don't commit the strikers then you don't join the structure and it's difficult for our attackers to attack.'
“That's what the manager is like: he wants to keep improving players and the team as well.
“Those are the things that make you think and make you improve. The second season I was much better, and last season I was better again, but there are still improvements to be had.”
Ake does not leave those improvements to chance. The Athletic highlighted in March that the Dutchman studies his game at length — even if he is named man of the match, he will get hold of clips from the game and look for situations where he could have done better.
(Photo: Alex Livesey – Danehouse/Getty Images)
There is an app on his phone that he uses to study his game and players he is likely to come up against in the next match to give him an edge in any individual battle.
“After the game, I try to see and analyse where I can improve,” he says. “If things don't go well I think, 'What could I have done better?'. I will watch clips of the attacker and myself to see what I could have done better.
“Before every game, I try to watch little clips of the winger I might be facing, or the strikers.”
There are also meetings with the club's analysts: “They are trying to help you tactically. There will be certain ways they want to attack or certain ways I have to be mindful of defending. They will call you into the office and show you a few clips.”
So how does he improve to face top players like Saka and Salah?
“They have certain attributes,” he says. “They love to come inside, they love to shoot. But top, top quality players like that can also go outside. It means you can't predict what they are going to do.
“That's what makes it very hard and difficult sometimes to see what they will do — but that's the challenge for defenders like myself.
“To be able to handle that is my job. Some days it goes better than other days, but you have to acknowledge that you are up against top players and it isn't always going to go your way.
“You have to be ready to face anything. There are always improvements to be made — but defending is one of my attributes.”
Although he had been one of the leading figures to get City to the brink of their treble, an injury sustained at the start of May ruled him out of the final weeks of the season, meaning he only returned to the pitch in the final minutes of the FA Cup final.
It was during Ake's absence that Guardiola raved about his importance, so it should have come as no surprise that once he was fit enough to start again that he would be thrown straight back into the team — even if it was for the Champions League final against Inter Milan.
“The only thing the doctors wanted was to be ready for the finals and I knew I could make them,” he says, “but to play then depends on the manager and so that's why I was excited that I got to play in the final, to get that call to start in the final was a huge boost for me and I am grateful for that, for sure, to the manager.”
Ake had probably been, throughout the season, City's most reliable and consistent defender, whether he had been playing at centre-back or on the left. And pitchside in Istanbul, Guardiola returned to the theme of “proper” defenders. “Now we enjoy defending,” the Catalan said, “and even if we make mistakes, I have the feeling that we are defenders.”
That suits Ake perfectly.
“I like defending,” he says. “That's one of my attributes that I love. Normally I am a centre-back, so at left-back you have different kinds of duels.
“There are more one-v-one duels with much more space to cover. I like these kinds of challenges. Every week, it doesn't matter which team you play, you are always against a top winger with pace.
“Every week is a new challenge but it means there is always something to learn.”
You get the feeling that that is exactly how he likes it.
(Photo: PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images)
Peaceking1234
202
Nathan Ake is a Rock💪🔥, Saka's one and only boss💯