Fuck letting Laporte go, we’re gonna need him.He had to cover two positions today, he is a decent player and we need him as cover, especially if Laporte leaves. Mendy is a lot of fun, a great guy, but not good enough at left back, sadly.
There is a future at left back for him if he chooses to reinvent himself as Zinc had to do.Otherwise,sell him.
Still, benefit of doubt, he's never really played with our proper first team, and he's had Mendy on his side to work with. Don't think he made as many errors yesterday either. It's always easier to highlight it post game.He's got no chance of being a LB. He's not good enough on the ball to play there.
He's a bad signing. He cost £40m, it's another expensive purchase that hasn't worked.
You can't blame the players around him, Ake has to take the opportunity and grasp it.It’s unfortunate for him that he’s played most of his games alongside Garcia and/or Mendy so still not possible to judge him off a proper run of games - but I don’t think he’ll ever get that as there is an obvious drop of in quality of passing/composure when he plays
City had chronic injuries to CB when Ake was transferred. He is a backup squad player. If you expect anything more then you will be disappointed.I am really struggling to see why we blew £40M on this guy to act as third choice (at best) CB when we had more important positions to fill. We could have bought Chilwell as a specialist left back and kept Tosin as a backup CB for the same outlay and been far better off.
I guess he must be better than he has shown but it is hard watching him in the team at the moment.
In my opinion backup players should not cost £40M. For that outlay I would expect someone that can seriously put pressure on established players for a starting place.City had chronic injuries to CB when Ake was transferred. He is a backup squad player. If you expect anything more then you will be disappointed.
Yep, the situation with the centre backs changed dramatically after we had paid for Ake. Not one fan would have predicted just how good Ruben and John would be - I really hope that is the same this year.In my opinion backup players should not cost £40M. For that outlay I would expect someone that can seriously put pressure on established players for a starting place.
I know that when Ake was bought Stones was still to have his renaissance and Ruben was not on the books which implies that Ake was bought as a potential first choice.
Our academy should be providing backup players. I think Tosin showed enough for Fulham last season to prove he could have been a viable backup option but Pep and co. obviously did not agree. Our EDS does seem to produce some CBs with potential - Taylor Harwood-Bellis and Callum Doyle being two examples. We need to find pathways to get these types of guy to get into our squad if they kick-on.
It is frustrating that the one academy player that Pep did seem to trust left for Barcelona - wonder if he regrets that now?
I'll continue to give him the benefit of the doubt because it feels like he's never been given a crack in our strongest line up - he's seemingly always had to deal with having Mendy or Garcia alongside him, rather than a full strength back line.
The fundamental issue it comes down to with Ake though - and one we haven't seemed to learn from following signings like Cancelo - is that we didn't need to spend £40m on someone that is a back up player. I don't think the role he is playing is anything more than some £15m signing from Ligue 1 or the Bundesliga could have offered us - or even just utilising our own pool of immense talent from the academy (heaven forbid).
Yes, there was an element of necessity given the situation with Stones and Vinny leaving, but I don't think long term he was ever going to be a starting CB with Laporte and Dias in the picture, which begs the question why we felt it so necessary to spend so much on a defender whose club had just been relegated to the championship.
I've repeated myself on this opinion several times in the past, but I feel the club really need to move away from this idea that we need 22 players all costing £30/40/50/60m.
We need more focus on the core starting 11 and a few quality substitutes, rather than packing our bench with extremely expensive players that aren't up to the grade. I'd much prefer to see us go for that £15m gamble in a lesser league and put the £25m difference towards signing the targets that genuinely makes our team better - instead of us trying to haggle over £10m and miss out like he have done many a time in the past.
Wouldn’t say Dias caused it but could probably say it was a reason why Ederson didn’t save it. The amount of blocks Dias makes though you can hardly blame him for trying his best to block that. Can definitely blame Ake for not going and stopping Son in the first place though. He was shit scared as he knew he didn’t have the pace to match Son. So get to him and stop him before he turned with the ball. No problem to foul him and regroup instead he just let him keep going.I see Ake is no one for the boo boys.. For me Ruben caused that goal yesterday by totally putting Ederson off when he got his feet in a tangle.
He and Mendy were to blame for me. Mendy’s positioning when he finally got back was laughable. Why didn’t he just go and help Ake?Wouldn’t say Dias caused it but could probably say it was a reason why Ederson didn’t save it. The amount of blocks Dias makes though you can hardly blame him for trying his best to block that. Can definitely blame Ake for not going and stopping Son in the first place though. He was shit scared as he knew he didn’t have the pace to match Son. So get to him and stop him before he turned with the ball. No problem to foul him and regroup instead he just let him keep going.
I have really been surprised by his lack of pace (is that the injury) and his slow reaction times defending or attacking. We miss many opportunities to break because Ake is slow moving the ball. Perhaps it's a confidence thing. Stones is a key player for us in getting the ball forward quickly.Got no issue with Ake's ability as a defender. He reads the ball well in the air, is generally good enough in the tackle. For the goal yesterday he was left completely isolated by Mendy and there was nothing that could have been done to stop Son once it got that far. But boy oh boy, I didn't realise he'd be this bad on the ball. Who on earth were they watching? He doesn't give the ball away much but he's so slow to shift the ball on, and when he does it's always to Mendy or Dias. There's no attempt to break lines (like Laporte and Stones do), it's all very uncertain and short. It slows us down so much as a team.