Former Manchester City skipper and club legend Vincent Kompany (35) made 360 appearances over 11 seasons for Manchester City, winning four Premier League titles and six domestic cups.
After scoring one of the most iconic goals in Premier League history with a 25-yard screamer against Leicester City, setting up the last of those title wins, the Belgian departed the club in 2019 and currently manages Anderlecht in his home country.
Now, the Premier League icon has gone into detail on how some analysis sessions led by him helped to turn City's defence into a formidable unit back in the Roberto Mancini era.
"It was under Mancini. Chelsea had the best defence at the time - under [José] Mourinho with [John] Terry and so on and we were conceding goals a bit too easily. What I did is I think us defenders, we're left on our own."
This won't come as a surprise to those familiar with Kompany's personality.
The ex-Belgium captain has long since held a reputation for extreme dedication to improving himself and his team on and off the pitch, and his fascination with the tactical side of the game feels now like a natural precursor to his managerial career.
"You watch Match of the Day, they scored, we conceded and the pictures already painted, but I said 'no, we have to solve this', and I got the four defenders in and we started reviewing every game.
"We took a video analyst guy, sat in a room and then for three seasons in a row we actually had the best defence in the league."
Under Mancini, City were transformed from a sixth-place outfit to Premier League and FA Cup winners in the space of just three years.
However, Kompany may be misremembering events slightly as neither of Mourinho's spells at Chelsea ever actually overlapped with the Mancini era in Manchester.
Last season, Kompany guided Anderlecht to a much-improved third-place finish in the regular season of the Belgian Pro League, but failed to qualify for European football through their 'Championship Round'.
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