When Manuel Pellegrini bought Wilfried Bony from Swansea last month, Manchester City acquired their very own “special one”. This is how the champions’ new £25m striker, who should make his debut against Newcastle United on Saturday, was viewed at Vitesse Arnhem after joining from Sparta Prague in January 2011.

Bony is a flamboyant character who turned up on his first day at the Dutch team in a “long coat and big car” but whose talent and professionalism quickly impressed his new team-mates.

“I thought he was a special one in everything,” Marcus Pedersen, a Norway forward who joined Vitesse the summer before Bony, remembers. “He trained hard, he’s very strong mentally. I came three months before him, and you saw when he came he was a big striker and everybody talked about [how] he scored a lot at Prague. And you saw after the first training session he looked a very strong striker who can also score goals.

“Its difficult to find big [men] to score a lot of goals. So that was a surprise for me, when I saw him, that he was so good a finisher.”

Bony joins a City side in need of a striker who knows where the goal is despite the £88m investment in Sergio Agüero, Edin Dzeko and Stevan Jovetic. Before the 4-1 defeat of Stoke City last week the league tally of 47 goals was 21 fewer than on the same day of last term, albeit they had played one game more in 2013-14. Agüero’s two at the Britannia Stadium broke a personal duck that went back to 3 December; Dzeko, staggeringly, last scored for City on 27 September; Jovetic has only two goals in nearly three months.

No wonder Pellegrini decided to splash out on Bony who, as Pedersen says, is a fiercely powerful operator who is also an accomplished finisher. His record shows he is not fazed by moving up a level, which augurs well for City and suggests Bony can handle the incessant spotlight shone on the Etihad Stadium.

The Ivorian scored 22 in 59 league appearances for Sparta, after joining them in 2008 following a loan spell at their B team. In two and a half seasons at Vitesse, 46 in 65 was the count. And, over the next 18 months at Swansea, he managed nearly a goal every two league games (25 in 54).

Pellegrini will hope Bony’s arrival can boost City’s title defence – they are seven points behind Chelsea – and help the team find a way past Lionel Messi’s Barcelona in the last 16 of the Champions League, starting with Tuesday’s first leg at the Etihad.

Louis Saha, who won two Premier League crowns with Manchester United, believes Bony may make the difference. “He could. He’s a terrific player,” says the former France forward. “They have already some really good strikers, so any addition is always a threat for any competitors.”

Saha believes “his presence, his confidence to keep the ball and bring his team-mates [into play]” will help City. “With that quality they obviously have midfielders like Silva and Nasri that can definitely use his reference to go forward. And I think he is a good goalscorer as well.”

Bony has now completed a first week of training after arriving at City on Monday following the celebrations for the Ivory Coast’s Africa Cup of Nations triumph.

“It feels like a while since I signed the contract but finally I’m here, I’m really happy about that and now I’m just focusing on this Saturday’s game,” he says. “It’s not easy because I’ve just arrived from Africa and I will have had five days of training before we play Newcastle. I have to take it step by step and wait for the right opportunity to present itself.

“It is interesting training with my new team-mates and to see the way they play and they are also learning what my power and strengths are. Samir Nasri has already told me he doesn’t want to see me on the right or the left – just to stay in the box.”

Despite Nasri’s orders, Bony can play differing striking roles. Pedersen says: “In Holland lot of positions are rotated so, yeah, he was a deep striker, he came back to the midfield almost and he could hold the ball and turn.”

The 26-year-old is also a positive changing-room presence. “I thought so,” adds Pedersen of his colourful former team-mate. “Bony likes to express himself with nice clothes and cars but he’s a very nice guy so it doesn’t matter.”