Manchester City have seen the good, the bad and the ugly from their £33.5m January signing so far. But it depends on who you ask as to how good he really is.
Arriving amid a desperation for central defensive reinforcements, Abdukodir Khusanov was not a typical City signing. It felt more like a City Football Group addition - young, raw, full of potential. But ready for the Premier League straight away? Probably not.
But Pep Guardiola has bemoaned frequent injuries to his four senior centre-backs all season and has only had all of those available for one game all campaign. By half-time, Manu Akanji was off injured in that false dawn and John Stones has followed him with Ruben Dias then failing to make the next game.
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From four central defenders, plus Khusanov and Vitor Reis, City are back down to needing their new boys to step up.
Khusanov's start couldn't have gone much worse. A weak back-pass allowed Chelsea to score within two minutes of his daunting debut and he was carded 90 seconds later. His substitution just after half-time completed all the hallmarks of an all-timer of a nightmare debut.
But as the clips of the young Uzbek looking devastated circulated, so too did some flashes of the pace fans had got giddy over from his time at Lens. There was the raw potential amid the reminder that he was a young lad thrown into a huge game in a new country where he doesn't speak the language.
Scott Carson and Phil Foden have gravitated towards Khusanov as he looks to adapt. Guardiola has noted how shy and quiet he is. Any hopes City may have had of easing him in away from the spotlight have been dashed by four of the most difficult tests he could have been given in his opening five games.
Cole Palmer and co. on debut, Alexander Isak against Newcastle, Vinicius Jr and Kylian Mbappe in Madrid, and Liverpool's table-topping attack of Luis Diaz and Mo Salah. Even the best defenders around would struggle to go mistake free against that lot.
So of course there are dozens of clips of Khusanov chasing those world-class talents. In Madrid, Mbappe and Vinicius preyed on him as they dismantled City, and there were mistakes, too against Liverpool. He will struggle to shake the Chelsea error, even if Guardiola and his teammates have rallied around him.
But that tough start has seen another interesting phenomenon, particularly on social media.
At one point in Madrid, Khusanov held off Vinicius one-on-one to stop an attack. On Sunday, he sensed danger and raced from the edge of the box to the near post to slide in and block a goalbound shot. Guardiola praised him for keeping Isak anonymous while the manager also joked he was 'too aggressive' at times.
If you were to search his name on X, you would see clips and the superlative captions and believe Khusanov is the best defender City have ever signed.
He deserves immense credit, of course, for bouncing back from the first four minutes against Chelsea, and it's obvious to see why City signed him. Those flashes of pace, strength and recovery speak to his mentality to win every duel regardless of how the last one went. It's the same mindset that puts Erling Haaland apart from his peers.
He won possession more than anyone else in the Premier League this weekend, despite City's struggles vs Liverpool and Guardiola spoke of the young starting line up as the future of the club.
However to analyse Khusanov's start and ignore the struggles is just as unfair on the 20-year-old. It is equally fine to say he has struggled against some of the world's best forwards while pointing to the times where he has given as good as he has got. The mitigation is clear, too, with the fixture list, wider injury issues at City, and appreciation for the unexpected role he has had to play so soon.
"He's been really good for the short time in training, really good," Guardiola said on Friday. "He arrived and played against Chelsea, Newcastle, Madrid, Liverpool, tough and difficult schedules... he doesn’t speak English fluently so the impact is good."
Not just that - Khusanov has had three centre-back partners across four central appearances, plus his first ever outing at right-back in the most difficult arena in world football. The fact that he has emerged from these five games as he has is a testament to his resolve.
Some fans online reckon Khusanov has been City's best defender since he arrived. Others have got annoyed that his struggles are being airbrushed out.
The early signs are very good, given all that, and Guardiola's opinion is the most important. But to brush aside the errors is not a fair representation of his first month in Manchester.
What will impress Guardiola most is how the quiet lad who can't speak English has recovered from those tough moments. As for his overall performance, it is probably somewhere between those extreme Twitter compilations - a good start in difficult circumstances with plenty to build on.
