Virgil van Dijk

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DeBruyneWaterInMeEToilet said:
Honestly can't see past VVD, his signing makes so much sense for you guys. Pep has talked many times about how important is to have a physically imposing, & aerially dominant CB due to all the crosses/long balls in the PL. Or something along those lines, & said that they really didn't have that until Kompany was fit & playing. VVD epitomizes that & on the other end, he's one of the biggest threats from set-pieces in the league. His presence is huge. He's consistently been a top 3 CB since he joined Saints, & under two very different managers, with different systems at Saints. Is a top of the line ball-playing CB, can carry the ball to midfield aggressively like David Luiz, long passes for days that are crucial for switching play to isolate one of the wingers in a 1v1, comfortable with the ball when under pressure, etc. Ball-playing CB's with his tools are pretty rare, especially considering how relatively young he is.

He's got it all, & hasn't even hit the general prime for CB's. Would love to see what other facets of his game will improve further under Pep. Either way, money well worth it for this lad.
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Aren't we after a leftie?
 
70 million an awful big tag for someone who hasn't kicked a ball in anger since cruciate ligament surgery.
Big risk that.
Even at 50 it's a gamble...
 
Neville Kneville said:
Utter shite.

He was a bargain.
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Not disputing he's looking like being a bargain. The point is, nobody was sure enough he was going to be top class to buy him back then, hence him going to Southampton. For every one that improves and proves themselves to be of our required standard there's at least another handful that doesn't, (Denayer appears to be a perfect example) and that's not something City need to, or deem worth taking a risk on nor will any other team that wants to be challenging for everything possible. We're not feeding off scraps hoping to strike lucky anymore, we're at the big table, we're acting like it in the transfer market and some fans need to catch up.
 
Burtonblue said:
70 million an awful big tag for someone who hasn't kicked a ball in anger since cruciate ligament surgery.
Big risk that.
Even at 50 it's a gamble...
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I think we'll get in quick - £50m plus a few add on's - triple VVD's wages and hopefully - jobs a good un
 
Not for me. Too expensive, still recovering from ACL surgery, price being inflated because he has played here and people think he is a beast. Not sure we need a beast.

Too much. Waaaay too much.
 
blueinsa said:
For a new member on here you seem to have no issue with being incredibly confrontational right from the off?
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I like it though. This place needs new blood. And AK93 is as sharp as they come. I reckon we'd have our disagreement over time. But I'd rather a confrontational sharp responder, than your run of the mill 'ad hominem' attackers all day. :-)
 
domalino said:
At Celtic when he was playing in a backline with Tosin and Sagna CB's. In a dead rubber where none of our first team played and no one really cared about the result. I wonder why he looked so average?



back up fullbacks don't play nearly as much as you seem to think. Pochettino is famous for rotating his fullbacks constantly. Until Kyle Walker fell out with Pochettino about wanting to leave he had played 15 league games in 2 season. That's before considering that Pep can play 3 at the back, or Fernandinho at RB if he feels Maffeo isn't quite up to a long stint in the team.

If we as a club have any pretensions at all about wanting academy players in the team, then having Maffeo as a 2nd choice RB is a necessity.

When a player has been brilliant at academy level, brilliant on loan, brilliant when thrown into a derby and then can't get a chance when both players ahead of him are let go, then there is no scenario at all in which we will ever bring anyone through.

If we don't want to bring players through that's fine, if we're just not interested in youth development as a means to anything but selling off players and making a proift then we'd get over it. It's actually the discord between publicly declaring we're desperate to bring someone through and never actually doing it that pisses people off.
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I sat here and watched Bluemoon beat itself up all season over our dearth of suitable quality options at full back, and I'm surprised that people would believe that Maffeo would automatically succeed where Zabaleta, who's still good enough for a 2 year deal at West Ham, and Sagna did not. He might, but equally he might not, and at Premiership level he is completely unproven. I take the point about our not bringing players through. My preference though would be for testing youngsters out in the cup competitions, not gambling on sink or swim in the Premier League, not when there's so much at stake. The problem with the alternative - Fernandinho covering left and right full back - is that we aren't awash with quality options in the defensive midfield fulcrum role either (only Ferna himself and Ya Ya are good enough IMO), and he can't be in two places at once.
 
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ak93city said:
Put in another way mate, just because Otamendi's handful of brain-dead actions in certain games leaves such strong impressions on the fans, doesn't negate the fact that he's done other things over the full 90-minutes which fans don't pay attention to and which might be good.
That's one of the crucial reasons why clubs pay top dollar to hire stats people: to help find out the good/bad things players did aside from the ones which are obvious or leave an emotionally charged impression (either brain-dead actions or inspiring ones).
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Ding ding!!! Been saying this all season. Oh buddy, you will get an earful. Believe me :-)
 
Burtonblue said:
70 million an awful big tag for someone who hasn't kicked a ball in anger since cruciate ligament surgery.
Big risk that.
Even at 50 it's a gamble...
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Not a medical person but isnt cruciate ligament in the knee, his injury was ankle ligament wasn't it ? There was talk he could have started before the end of the season but there was no point risking him.
 
Exeter Blue I am here said:
I've sat here and watched Bluemoon beat itself up all season over our dearth of suitable quality options at full back, and I'm surprised that people would believe that Maffeo would automatically succeed where Zabaleta, who's still good enough for a 2 year deal at West Ham, and Sagna did not. He might, but equally he might not, and at Premiership level he is completely unproven. I take the point about our not bringing players through. My preference though would be for testing youngsters out in the cup competitions, not gambling on sink or swim in the Premier League, not when there's so much at stake. The problem with the alternative - Fernandinho covering left and right full back - is that we aren't awash with quality options in the defensive midfield fulcrum role either (only Ferna himself and Ya Ya are good enough IMO), and he can't be in two places at once.
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Saying you want to bring kids through but when there's nothing at stake and it's not sink or swim is just a longwinded way of saying you don't want to bring them through.

It's creating a scenario that never exists. There's always something at stake, it's always a bit of a gamble and it's always sink or swim, in cup competitions even more than Premier League games - except in some random cup game you're probably asking them to impress while playing without any of the good senior players too.

It's much like the "loan him out to prove he's good enough". Loans never prove someone is good enough. A loan to a foreign club like Celtic isn't seen as good enough experience, nor is a loan to a lower table premier league team.


At some point you have to take a risk on a kid... or you can pay £50m to buy someone else's kid that they had the balls to test out.

Also RE: Fernandinho - Pep clearly prefers Yaya as the pivot, and he's going to play a lot, Gundogan is another option that I think will be there when he's fit. Fernandinho will be free plenty to play RB if needed.
 
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ninjamonkey said:
Not disputing he's looking like being a bargain. The point is, nobody was sure enough he was going to be top class to buy him back then, hence him going to Southampton. For every one that improves and proves themselves to be of our required standard there's at least another handful that doesn't, (Denayer appears to be a perfect example) and that's not something City need to, or deem worth taking a risk on nor will any other team that wants to be challenging for everything possible. We're not feeding off scraps hoping to strike lucky anymore, we're at the big table, we're acting like it in the transfer market and some fans need to catch up.
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We had centre backs & chose to blow millions on adding various untried characters from other leagues, both before & after that time & of the latest three, one has ended up on loan, one is only here because we haven't got something better & the other is a kid who couldn't get a guaranteed start for Everton, & isn't guaranteed one for us if we sign VVD now!

What's more we have just taken a punt on 3 young players, Sterling Sané & Jesus for big money & are ruoured to be attempting the same with Mbappe.

Signing Van Dijk would not have been against club policy then, nor would it be now. He would just have been cheaper & as it turns out, better, than most of our other cbs.
 
Danamy said:
What's to say if VvD came here back then he may have gone backwards in the same way Denayer has, as it happens he's now matured into a good all-round CB and his time at Southampton has shown he can play in a Pep side with no issues. Vinny along with others have come out and said you have to be in a certain mould to play in a Pep defence and this lad ticks all the boxes, he's more of a Pep style defender than a Mancini one, the timing and the era is chalk and cheese?
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We did actually sign Mangala & Otamendi, after Savic & Nastasic.

Van Dijk was no gamble compared to those. Imo Denayer was one of the best kids in europe at that time & the two together were wrapped up like a Christmas present for us. A genuine cb pairing who improved each other's game when together.

I can understand one or two clubs being wary of VVD as he was a bit reckless (but Bobby Moore compared to Otamendi) but in our situation, playing next to our own kid (who had half the top clubs in europe sniffing) it was negligence imo.
 
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