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Centre Back... Who do we go for?
- Thread starter Macern
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Just glad we didn't sign Boateng. The state of him this season. 
Koulibaly. 
He'll cost 80-100m though. The point that those who agreed with Ed refusing to pay a lot for a defender is that sooner or later we'll be forced to.
He'll cost 80-100m though. The point that those who agreed with Ed refusing to pay a lot for a defender is that sooner or later we'll be forced to.I fundamentally don't trust Jose's judgement in the market on the records of his transfers so far. Particularly in this area.
If he wanted to buy two center backs why did he extend that useless hack Rojo?
Skriniar is young so thats good. But this season Pezella & Hugo from Fiorentina have been among the best CBs so far and those 2 have not been as impressive.
Either of those would have been very good purchases. Shame we decided they weren't value
https://readchelsea.com/2018/10/04/cahill-holds-talks-over-manchester-united-move/
I fecking hate Cahill, for me he's a fraud. Take Terry away and he's the nothing player he's always been.
I fecking hate Cahill, for me he's a fraud. Take Terry away and he's the nothing player he's always been.
Whos to say thats what happened? Maybe they werent interested, or their clubs didnt make them available
Looking at how Barcelona yesterday and Real ( against liverpool) beat the press , i came to realize how backwards we are in terms of football strategy and technique ..we need to buy defenders who are not scared of the press .. and who can play .. City spent money on Laporte last year .. we need players like him on our team .. this is the type of players we need to look for ..right now if anybody presses us, we hoof or pass it to De Gea who hoofs ..
But if Woodward could delay it for a year, it allows him to save money, for that financial year.Koulibaly.
Remember, think of this as a business, trying to save money by not spending. The longer you can go without spending (or spending little), the better your financials will look.
Get off your high horse. He had every right not to approve any more CB signings, when Jose bought two who are fecking shite
Availability and cost are the same in football within reason. I think it's unlikely both would have said no to us but maybe that's biased.
Very. And a bit disrespectful to their current clubs too. If they sold them to us who on earth are they going to replace them with? So of course its easier to keep them.
That was most likely to be Woody's decision, so he can 'protect' his transfer fee.
As has been said numerous times, our poor transfer records and ongoing issues go much deeper than Mourinho.
That was Woodward to get something from his transfer. He was heavily liked with Everton for 25m before they checked it on Yerry Mina.
He'll be forced to approve it next summer, whether he wants to spend or not, and I expect those who were saying we shouldn't spend 70m on a non Varane defendee will be contradicting themselves when the next manager asks for a defender who will be even more expensive. It'll be fun.
If that's the situation he should have immediately appointed a DoF who would have just agreed that both of these targets are of the required standard.
Given that he still hasn't appointed a DoF he's either doubly incompetent or it wasn't about the managers judgement at all.
I like Skriniar a lot, koulibaly would be also way better option than the trainwreck lindelof, but it is always hard to break the record fee for a certain players, we have the money but we shouldn't be seen as willing to overpay, setting patterns like that is not a good thing, in this particular case we could have invested in one of them the same way Liverpool did, obviously not after lindelof transfer becasue that is already two centerback fails by Jose and splashing 100m for another one form a manager who will not be here next season would be insane. Let's wait for another manager and who he identifies,unless our scouts have some great player on a plate
This. Obviously the likes of Varane, Umititi and Laporte would be favored over those two, but theyre unrealistic and play regularly in better clubs so. But I'd definetly get rid of Jones and Rojo. Maybe keep Smalling as backup.
Plenty of clubs try to sign their players to new contracts to make sure they dont leave for peanuts.
But footballers have ups and downs. Unfortunately for us Rojo was completely useless last season so few people would suggest he'd improve their team. If he had played okay he would have had enough interest for us to get a decent offer for him. He didnt. Who's fault is that?
Koulibaly was great last night. Completely bullied Salah.
He'd be a cracking signing for someone.
He'd be a cracking signing for someone.
Whats funny about that is that Smalling is statistically the 10th best CB at the top clubs this seaso. Even though we have troubles defensively, are playing the worst of those teams, are the worst to watch and are sat lowest in the league.
City have 4 statistically better performing CBs. I'm not sure anyone would make the argument they'd want Smalling or would start him.
Liverpool have 2 statistically better performing CBs. One was extremely expensive but is probably the best all round CB in the league, and the other is a young player doing extremely well and probably the best young CB in the league this season. I guess you could make an argument that Smalling would bring experience, but if Liverpool needed that they have Lovren. So I'm not sure anyone would make the argument that Liverpool would want Smalling or would start him.
However, those are the only 2 clubs that have 2 or better performing CBs than Smalling this season.
Whats my point? My point is, why on earth would Chris Smalling want to sit around as a backup while someone who has been a much worse CB for us in Bailly and someone else next to him, starts all the matches?
Arsenal have 1, Spurs have 1, Chelsea have 1 CB who is outperforming Smalling even with his scuffed stats due to the embarrassment going on around him. If we're playing Bailly and someone new every week expect Chris Smalling to have a much better offer for first team football. So you'd probably have Jones or Lindelof as your backup to Bailly +1.
You got some good points @Ekeke, I just dont feel like hes a topclass CB tbh. And when it comes to Bailly, hes much young than Smalling and got a huge potential. Remember hes been benched many matches in a row. I wouldnt keep Jones as back up, hes just too injuryprone. Lindelof is still young, but really not sure if he got what it takes. But yea I'd keep him over Rojo and Jones thats for sure.
Absolutely fair points yourself. Bailly has more time on his side, but also a lot more to prove.
As for potential new CBs we might look at, I liked the look of Manuel Akanji from what I saw of him for Dortmund this week. Looks like he can get into the thick of the action and also handle having plenty of the ball at his feet.
One to keep an eye on and see how he does over the entire season. He also played against us for Basel last season helping them to finish 2nd in our CL group.
He signed for Dortmund in Jan for 21.5 million euros
One to keep an eye on and see how he does over the entire season. He also played against us for Basel last season helping them to finish 2nd in our CL group.
He signed for Dortmund in Jan for 21.5 million euros
I'm fairly confident that we received reasonable offers for Rojo last summer, but because we sold Blind and didn't manage to bring in a new CB so we decided to keep Rojo for now.
It's easy to blame Jose for the mess, but what's the point giving him a new contract early in the year if Woody don't trust him?
Mourinho? Because he did trust him. He trusted him to get more out of all that money we've spent already. Else he'd have been gone in the summer.
So you don't agree Woody should take responsibility in the mess we're in now since SAF had resigned?
Like I have said, these on-going issues isn't just purely down to Mourinho, its much deeper than that but people would just happily and easily point fingers at Jose and think once we get a new manager in we will be back in winning ways.
Doesnt matter.
Any CB we target in the summer will cost £100m. Because Woodward has now told everyone we are willing to part with that amount for the right CB. The fecking imbecile.
Any CB we target in the summer will cost £100m. Because Woodward has now told everyone we are willing to part with that amount for the right CB. The fecking imbecile.
I think he's been part of the problem, which I thought was the case back when he fluffed things in Moyes first summer with us paying so much for Fellaini when he had a cheaper buyout earlier in the summer and Moyes specifically saying he didnt want Fellaini to be the big name signing, but they failed with the other players so thats what ended up happening.
I think hes got better in terms of splashing the cash and getting players in, although not in terms of value since then. But not worse.
I couldn't agree more with not spending £70 million on the likes of Toby and Maguire - although the latter has started the season very well other than against us. Although if the plan to spend mega money on Varane instead had gone through I wouldn't be agreeing.
I think another manager could quite easily do a few basic things due to how badly Mourinho is currently doing these things :
1) Get the team playing like a team with a more positive atmosphere.
2) Improve the entertainment side of our football.
Results might not improve straight away but the team playing like they know each other and us playing exciting football are easy fixes without that part
KOU-LI-BALY...the guy is a BEAST!
Even though getting any cb now will cost ridiculous amounts, Koulibaly would be worth it. It would be an absurd fee but the guys a monster every time I’ve seen him play.
Akanji actually has improved so much from last year, I watched him a couple time last year but he seemed shaky and nervous, this season he's been pretty great and much more composed
So all that talk about him wanting an experienced CB the likes of Toby, Boateng, Godin was bs.
Maguire, Skriniar, Koulibaly don't fit the older, experienced CB description at all.
Maguire, Skriniar, Koulibaly don't fit the older, experienced CB description at all.
Koulibaly is the dream.
The two we were supposedly wanting are both very good but there was stories that we'd already offered £60M for Skrinniar back in January and Koulibaly will cost even more due to the Napoli president, I don't think getting both is feasible......I'm just going to ignore the Cahill stories and hope they go away. 
Nathan Ake is playing very well for borenmouth, left footed centre half who is composed on the ball and always looks to pass the ball forward. Now aged 23 he has a good amount of premier league experience and should be attainable.
De Ligt, Koudibally, Skriniar
Both, get both. We need both