Guardiola takes a closer look at Chelsea's potentially perfect £40m target on Manchester City cruise

Romeo Lavia has shown perfect technical ability for Manchester City, but also enough room for improvement to make Pep Guardiola salivate on a £40m comeback.

There is an obvious argument to be made for Liverpool, but the Premier League opponent to whom Pep Guardiola has felt most intrinsically linked since taking over as manager of Manchester City in the summer of 2016 could be Southampton.

They are the team against which Manchester City gained their Centurions status, the team which drew so much ire led by Spaniard Nathan Redmond, the club which raided the Etihad academy at the looking for talent to hone and eventually move on to last summer.

Such a gem could be returned to sender sooner than expected. Gavin Bazunu, Samuel Edozie and Juan Larios will eventually return to their respective levels, but Romeo Lavia has already proven that he belongs at least to such an esteemed company.

"I'm really impressed with what Romeo has done and what he is doing," Guardiola said before the champions started their weekend at St Mary's. "We had, and we have, an incredible opinion of him. We thought we'd keep him, but maybe he wouldn't get enough minutes like he has at Southampton."

It might be an overstatement to suggest that Manchester City regret selling the teenage midfielder, but Lavia has been an island of excellence in a sea of ​​general incompetence at Southampton. He is one of the few to come out of credit in this likely relegation season.

These Manchester City fingerprints can be seen on the Belgian in every game and at the start it was no different. The way he pauses and takes an extra moment to trace a pass through the swarm of opposition bodies blends beautifully with his ability to throw and direct his own counter presses. There were times when Guardiola's side really struggled to get close to him in the first half.

Predictably, that faded as the legs and the spirit - both individual and collective - began to toil against the towering tide of Manchester City. Lavia offered as little resistance as his teammates once Erling Haaland opened the scoring from first-half stoppage time.

Ruben Selles yelled at midfield for not giving Bazunu a passing angle at 2-0. Haaland made it three minutes later and less than a quarter of an hour later Lavia was taken off through injury as the score fell to 4-1.

That's the balance Southampton have had to try to strike with a 19-year-old whose physical development has yet to reach his technical promise. A hamstring problem sidelined Lavia in September and October and he has only completed a full 90 minutes in the Premier League five times since August.

There are still flaws to coax and coach beyond that. Selles and Nathan Jones have little in common, but both have taken Lavia's shortcomings to public notice this season. The latter stressed the need to "show more dominance in games, more dominance in possession and more leadership on the pitch if he wants to become what everyone says he is" in March, adding that: "I have no doubt he will be there, but he needs to take more steps and everyone around him needs to be calmed down." The manager then let him go for the loss to Brentford, sinking the nail.

Jones has come under fire for similar remarks about game control. In both cases, the understandable impulse was to try to temper expectations. The compliment was that they felt the need. And as effusive as Guardiola was in his praise, he didn't work as...