Where will Ilkay Gundogan fit in at Manchester City? The answer is simple: at the very heart of the team.

Gundogan is Pep Guardiola's first City signing for a reason. And there is a reason the club pushed through a deal early, even though he is recovering from a dislocated knee cap.

Guardiola has decided to overhaul the squad he will inherit from Manuel Pellegrini, and what better way to start than by signing somebody capable of dictating the pace and rhythm of matches? All that before the new coach even takes up office.

Alongside Julian Weigl, the prodigiously talented 20-year-old who has also caught Guardiola's eye, Gundogan sits at the back of the Borussia Dortmund midfield and controls their high-energy game.

Only Bayern played more passes in last season's Bundesliga than Dortmund, and only Mats Hummels and Julian Weigl made more passes for Dortmund than Gundogan - and both men played more minutes (501 and 254, respectively).

Gundogan was the Bundesliga's seventh most prolific passer. When his agent was snapped meeting Txiki Begiristain, the City sporting director, at the start of March, he ranked top of the pile, but missed seven of the final 10 league games through injury, and therefore slipped down the list.

That fact may raise a few eyebrows. There are concerns among some City fans that Gundogan may be injury prone, but that does not appear to be the case. Whereas Blues stalwarts Vincent Kompany and David Silva, for example, have repeatedly struggled with the same injuries this season, Gundogan's woes have not been obviously linked.

Having recovered from the back injury which kept him out of the 2013-14 season and the start of the following campaign, the only thing that sidelined him in recent weeks was a bruised foot and, currently, that dislocated knee cap. The latter injury is unlucky, certainly, but should not cause too much concern once he has recovered.

Indeed, City are not too worried. In an ideal world, Gundogan would have been on the training pitch this summer, teaching the current City players, their youngsters and any other new signings how to play the Pep way.

During Guardiola's time at Barcelona, new arrivals Javier Mascherano and David Villa closely studied Sergio Busquets and Pedro. Despite being several years their junior, it was not age that was important, it was the way the two La Masia graduates played the game. Likewise at Bayern Munich, Thiago was brought to the club to show his new team-mates exactly what was required of a Guardiola midfielder. Xabi Alonso followed a year later and the Munich's transformation into a passing team ramped up another notch.

That is what City fans can expect from Gundogan and the rest of the players who will arrive this summer.

Guardiola and Begiristain have been busy identifying and pursuing players that will make the new coach's summer as smooth as possible.

And while Gundogan will not directly contribute to pre-season, City could not really afford to look elsewhere. The club hope to make four or five big-name signings this summer, but prising somebody of the Germany international's quality, for such a low price, would have been close to impossible. 

Thiago would be of interest again, but only signed a new deal at Bayern last season, and Dortmund would not want to let go of Weigl without a fight. Busquets himself semi-hinted at a move to City earlier this year, but his buy-out clause is upwards of £100m.

Gundogan, then, is just about as close to the perfect City signing as possible at this moment in time. Guardiola's summer business is only just getting started, but if his new squad is to be made up of players of Gundogan's class, the Blues will be playing a very different brand of football next season.