The numbers said maybe. The scouts said yes. City paid £116M.

Elliot Anderson wasn't supposed to be the answer. Not at first, anyway. When Manchester City's recruitment team began sifting through their pool of 650,000 players, the Nottingham Forest midfielder didn't leap off the page. He was on the longlist. He wasn't near the top of it.

Hugo Viana, the man overseeing City's rebuild at 43, has now explained how Anderson ended up costing £116M and wearing sky blue. The picture wasn't straightforward. Goals and assists were thin. The radar chart — defensive regains, duel success, line-breaking passes, aerial-duel success, defensive errors — needed serious contextual work before it told the truth about what Anderson could become.

What the raw numbers missed, the eyes caught. City's scouts watched him more closely as last season wore on, his metrics climbing steadily. The data was positive, Viana told BBC Sport's Sami Mokbel, but it was the human layer that sealed it.

"Elliot Anderson is a great example of how the process works. The data was positive for Elliot and gave us real confidence in his profile, but it was the insight from our scouts and wider performance team that helped us understand the player and his attributes and this proved our belief that he was the right fit for the club."

That process had to work overtime. City entered the summer knowing they needed at least one central midfielder. Bernardo Silva's move to Real Madrid had been coming for a while. Rodri's future and Nico Gonzalez's situation both carried uncertainty. Replacing Silva and Rodri like-for-like was never realistic, and the brief shifted: find someone who could play deep or push forward in Enzo Maresca's system.

Then Tijjani Reijnders' future grew murky. Enzo Fernandez emerged as the primary target to replace the Dutchman. Anderson, meanwhile, kept climbing City's internal rankings. When the fee eventually rose past what the club believed was his true market value, they paid it anyway. He'd stood up too well against their existing midfielders and the other names on the shortlist to walk away.

It looks a sound call now. Anderson, 23, has started all five of City's opening Premier League victories this season, anchoring a three-man midfield alongside Fernandez and Nico O'Reilly. The £116M tag hasn't weighed him down.

City return from the October international break with a trip to Liverpool on the 11th, then a home Champions League tie against holders Paris Saint-Germain three days later. Anderson will likely be central to both. The database flagged him. The scouts backed him. Viana signed the cheque. So far, the gamble is paying off.