On becoming City manager last year, Guardiola effectively dispensed with the club's first-choice keeper for most of the last decade, Joe Hart - sending him out on loan to Torino last season and to West Ham ahead of this - and signed Claudio Bravo from Barcelona.
Bravo ultimately came up short in the shot-stopping department and now looks likely to be sold, but when he was bought Guardiola saw him as a "sweeper-keeper" who could tackle opposing teams' forwards - effectively an extra centre-back - and intitiate attacks with long passes to his own.
The "sweeper-keeper" role was invented in contintental Europe in the 1950's before becoming popular in South America, but has often been seen as a somewhat risky tactic here. Jonathan Wilson in his book The Outsider: A History of the Goalkeeper says of the 1953 match at Wembley in which Hungary beat England 6-3, "[Hungarian goalkeeper] Grosics charged out to the edge of the box and, with impeccable timing, volleyed the ball clear. 'Unorthordox but effective,' said an uncertain Kenneth Wolstenhome in commentary, seemingly not quite sure whether he should approve of this sort of thing."
I guess Guardiola sees Reina both as an experienced back-up keeper for the young Brazilian no. 1 Ederson and as someone who can play as a "sweeper-keeper" and stop a shot.
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