6 | Nathan Ake - 2023/24

ninjamonkey said:
Lets hope and pray for it to be little more than a precaution, however If it is hamstring again, He really needs to take the time get it sorted properly. Seems to be a recurring problem lately and they're a ticking time bomb if you don't fully heal from them, as kdb has just shown us.

Weirdly, despite our incredible physio team having a proven track record of making players who had injury problems at previous clubs significantly fitter and less injury prone here, Ake has gone the other way. He was known for being reliably fit at bournemouth and never injured.

This highlights exactly the problem everybody was telling me isn't a problem with our squad. We had to replace Laporte when we sold him, 7 defenders is painfully thin and will almost certainly bite you in the arse at some point.

If stones and ake are unavailable at thr same time and let's face it, this wont be the only time both will be unavailable this season, then the back 4 picks itself on sheer lack of options and plays every minute of every important game until one or both of stones/ake are back with just an 18 year old rico as the sole defensive option from the bench.

Genuinely baffled me why more people weren't concerned by having so few defenders. Especially off the back of a season where we brought in akanji last minute as we were worried 8 defenders weren't enough given their injury concerns and this proved to be a correct and vital decision.

Look forward to seeing phillips at left back, his rebirth as the new Delph is upon us.
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This is why I was baffled why we allowed Laporte to be sold. Competition is key but also important when you have two defenders, Ake and Stones who pick up injuries more often than not.
 
normskih said:
This is why I was baffled why we allowed Laporte to be sold. Competition is key but also important when you have two defenders, Ake and Stones who pick up injuries more often than not.
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Isn’t t that why we bought Gvardiol?
 
normskih said:
This is why I was baffled why we allowed Laporte to be sold. Competition is key but also important when you have two defenders, Ake and Stones who pick up injuries more often than not.
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I could accept Laporte being sold if he wanted out, he deserves whatever he wants after the years he's given us but he absolutely had to be replaced.

The only logical reasoning behind not replacing him I can come up with is we've got that Argentinian lined up for January. I strongly suspect we will be active in January if not, were spread too thin.
 
ninjamonkey said:
I could accept Laporte being sold if he wanted out, he deserves whatever he wants after the years he's given us but he absolutely had to be replaced.

The only logical reasoning behind not replacing him I can come up with is we've got that Argentinian lined up for January. I strongly suspect we will be active in January if not, were spread too thin.
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But we did replace him.

We bought Gvardiol - a left footed centre back.

He’s a direct replacement for Laporte - a left footed centre back.

I don’t get the narrative that Laporte wasn’t replaced - when he very clearly was!
 
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