Nathan Ake (Close to signing for Man City, £40m fee)

[Lash]

He'll be a good signing for them. Very complimentary to laporte.

 

[RDCR07]

He'll be a good signing for them. Very complimentary to laporte.

They are both left footed though aren’t they?

 

[Brophs]

He’s Laporte’s backup, I reckon. They’ll go big on a centre half if they can shift Stones.

 

[saivet]

Personally, I think City will be in the market for another CB next summer. He's probably an improvement on what they have, but I don't think it's by much.

 

[TheGame]

He’s Laporte’s backup, I reckon. They’ll go big on a centre half if they can shift Stones.

Agree, they will buy someone to partner Laporte.

 

[Tom Van Persie]

They're buying Ake for squad depth imo. One of Stones or Otamendi are going. I expect to see them buy another centre back possibly Koulibaly.

 

[RDCR07]

They're buying Ake for squad depth imo. One of Stones or Otamendi are going. I expect to see them buy another centre back possibly Koulibaly.

Must be nice to spend big on the ONE area of the pitch that you need to strengthen in. Wish we could get to that place. We need reinforcements all over.

 

[Lash]

They are both left footed though aren’t they?

Yeah, that doesn't matter for most sides in the league, they have two right footers at CB. Ake is more athletic than laporte, but noticeably smaller.

 

[Ronaldo's Mum Eh?]

We should challenge them with a rival bid. Let's get him. Don't let him go to city

 

[pascell]

Wish we were in for him, I guess we'll be looking at Rodon from Swansea or Pau Torres from Villarreal who's name I've seen mentioned a few times on here.

 

[NinjaFletch]

I swear whenever it is a story about United everyone would be like "it's just the guardian"

Jamie Jackson who works for them and covers us is terrible. The paper on the whole is pretty reliable though. No idea about this journalist, mind.

 

[BenitoSTARR]

He has a worse aerial record than Lindelof... I’m fine him heading (or rather not heading based on stats) to City.

 

[Mr Smith]

Really surprised by this. I don't think Ake is anywhere near good enough for City. Will be interested to see how this goes.

 

[Klopper76]

Again I think he's average. Maybe he'll prove me wrong but I think United are smart to steer clear of him.

 

[Dan_F]

We should challenge them with a rival bid. Let's get him. Don't let him go to city

Definitely. And offer him a 5 year contract for £350k a week.

 

[Houdini]

good as a backup but not an upgrade.

 

[Gerald G]

He'll backup Laporte. He's not good enough to start regularly

 

[Giggsy13]

How do you know we're sitting on our hands?

Should we rush into deals for players?

We don't even know if we're going to be in the champions league at the moment.

Chelsea haven’t clinched champions league either.

 

[horsechoker]

Chelsea haven’t clinched champions league either.

Well fecking done to them then.

Ask yourself, do you really want Nathan Ake or do you just want to feel like something is being done even if those players aren't what we need?

 

[Canucantona20]

Think Mengi will turn out as a better player than Ake

 

[jymufc20]

That price would be doubled if we were in for him, I don't understand why clubs don't fleece city the way they do with us.

 

[Adnan]

Good back up player to Laporte and likely Koulibaly.

 

[Cheech Wizard]

Well if he's backup to Laporte and they do spend big on someone like Koulibaly I hope they turn out to be another Mangala. What a dud he was for them.

 

[Zen86]

That price would be doubled if we were in for him, I don't understand why clubs don't fleece city the way they do with us.

Assume there’s lots of backhanders involved in all of City’s transfers.

 

[lsd]

How can city be buying him when so many experts on here "heard " Ole tapping him up ?

 

[sammsky1]

Think Mengi will turn out as a better player than Ake

Still 2 or 3 years away, and that’s if he makes it.

 

[Ali Dia]

Smart signing for 35 but they’ll be back in the market for another CB and would be buying him as a squad player. It feels like we might not even go for a CB this summer so if we do I think we should be only looking to sign a player that can come in and improve us straight away.

 

[croadyman]

Wish we were in for him, I guess we'll be looking at Rodon from Swansea or Pau Torres from Villarreal who's name I've seen mentioned a few times on here.

Would prefer the second one as keep hearing that Rodon is too similar to Maguire

 

[Giggsy13]

Well fecking done to them then.

Ask yourself, do you really want Nathan Ake or do you just want to feel like something is being done even if those players aren't what we need?

Ake would walk into our starting 11 and offer more than Lindelof, so yes I’d absolutely have him at £35 million. Chelsea and city are better run from a transfer market standpoint and execute their plan with more authority in the market than we do. Chelsea have not clinched a champions league spot and can still blow it entirely by losing to both to the dippers and Wolves yet they’re on pace to get 3 class targets. What was it that Ed’s mouthpieces in the media had us believe again earlier this season when we were on pace for our worse season ever in the prem? Even if we missed out on champions league, the board would back Ole, there was a plan, list of targets etc. So if we have this long term plan, you’d assume there would be a few achievable targets. This summer is more than just about Sancho. On the evidence of last summer, Ed will drag it out again till the last few weeks while city and Chelsea will be well into integrating their new signings into their squads. We should expect more of our club in this rebuild.

 

[Pep's Suit]

So much for Koulibaly (unless of course they're spending 35m on a CB to sit on the bench?)

Yeah, I think he's Laporte's back-up. Sounds like Castles was once again right about City plans: a left-footed CB who can also cover LB + a big-name right-footed CB.

 

[Squeaky Bumtime]

Pep does love to buy CBs, doesn't he.

 

[Nevilles.Wear.Prada]

Just barge in and make a 50mil offer. He can't be worse than Jones and Rojo surely?
Also ket mancity pay a bit more. God damn it, if its us likely will be 60mil

 

[SATA]

Will Ole do a hijack on him? But i think if he’s really good, Chelsea would have bought him back and they will know first hand how good the player is being their former youth player. But they are going for Rice instead

 

[Havak]

If/when Bournemouth go down I think City will end up getting him on the cheap. He's not the only CB they're buying, it'll be Laporte, New CB, Ake, Garcia as their four. They'll probably try to sell both Otamendi & Stones with Fernandinho as a last resort, but I'm not sure if they'll manage to shift both this coming window. City will have to do some more squad management though, even with David Silva leaving and then Ake coming in they have their 17 players. Otamendi leaving would mean there's room for one other 'foreign' signing, anyone else would have to be British unless they sold other players I believe.

Edit: Actually, Ake is home grown which was a surprise to me, so he won't count.

 

[JoaquinJoaquin]

If that was United every target would suddenly double in price.

Yup, unfortunate but very true.

 

[Skills]

If that was United every target would suddenly double in price.

Tbh that's more to do with our transfer strategy. We overpaid for AWB and Maguire, but Bruno was definitely at market value (and he's gone and proved himself to be an even more value for money).

City also do overpay though - but as they're successful the failures get blended into the success. John Stones for 50m pre-Neymar was nuts

 

[Mcking]

Not the type of Centre Back I would be looking to spend on at any price.

 

[passing-wind]

He'll be a good signing for them. Very complimentary to laporte.

Definitely not for me I cannot see Pep playing two left footed defenders in central defence. The notion with the media is that he'll be a rotational option.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Well fecking done to them then.

Ask yourself, do you really want Nathan Ake or do you just want to feel like something is being done even if those players aren't what we need?

Nail on head, man.

 

[Lash]

Definitely not for me I cannot see Pep playing two left footed defenders in central defence. The notion with the media is that he'll be a rotational option.

Yeah, that's also a good point. I can't say I know pep's demands of his CBs very well, but I just think stylistically he'd be similar to having someone like Fernandinho playing there.