Aymeric Laporte

[Thaksinssoldier]

Maybe he looked at how things worked out for Savic, Nastasic, Mangala and Ottamendi and decided there may be a better career path for him than to come to England and join a club that in recent years mainly has a habit of not helping central defenders kick on in their careers?

I completely agree with this. We've done ourselves no favours with our treatment of defenders and it probably bitten us in the arse when trying to buy in CB's.

 

[Nixon_The_Bike_Thief]

Yep. Different language that is completely unrelated to Spanish or French, and older than both I think. The Spanish Basque country is a "semi-autonomous" region, which means it has a say in how it's taxes are spent, has it's own police force, etc. I don't think the French part of the Basque country has the same level of autonomy.

This is coincidentally similar in many ways to the Devolution that Manchester is actively transitioning into the region since 2014.

 

[Lancet Fluke]

When you buy ready made players who have made a name for themselves at there club then it will always be a case of the selling club playing hardball.

The knack is buying these players before they become household names-something unfortunately we are not very good at doing, is it our scouting network? who knows.

Presumably a mixture of scouting and not giving players who have lots of potential but are still in need of development a proper chance in the first team. I don't see how we could possibly have unearthed many rough diamonds under a manager like Pellegrini, hopefully it might be different under Pep? I do wonder whether someone like Nastasic had the potential to be one of those who came not fully developed but with the potential to be a top player but we just weren't prepared to give him the chances and the time to see what he could have been. One very good season but then a bit of a dip in form and he's gone, replaced by very expensive players who turned out to be no better/possibly worse.

 

[yellamcfc]

It was a risky transfer with him coming back from a serious injury.
Maybe the club have convinced him, that it would be in his best interests to stay and recuperate in a less physical league than the premier league...who knows?

I'm not getting into the "loyalty/bottled it" argument because we clearly don't know the players reasons.
Seems we were taken by surprise with the u-turn, but there was never an official bid in the media from what I've seen or heard.

 

[Marvin]

I completely agree with this. We've done ourselves no favours with our treatment of defenders and it probably bitten us in the arse when trying to buy in CB's.

Doesn't look good does it Savic playing out of his skin for Atletico and City trying to sign two centre backs this window after Otamendi and Mangala. The message is you've got 12 months and a handful of appearances to make an impression or you're out.

Looks like Pep doesn't rate our central defenders so you'd imagine a Stones bid will go in as soon as the Euros are over. EFC just announced Koeman so they'll be keen to sort Stones future out.

 

[flb]

Presumably a mixture of scouting and not giving players who have lots of potential but are still in need of development a proper chance in the first team. I don't see how we could possibly have unearthed many rough diamonds under a manager like Pellegrini, hopefully it might be different under Pep? I do wonder whether someone like Nastasic had the potential to be one of those who came not fully developed but with the potential to be a top player but we just weren't prepared to give him the chances and the time to see what he could have been. One very good season but then a bit of a dip in form and he's gone, replaced by very expensive players who turned out to be no better/possibly worse.

Pellegrini was having one last throw of the dice, its because of him IMO that we havent any EDS lads in the squad-or at the very least we didnt find out if they were good enough-he was never going to blood youngsters-who will actually do this?


Savic was much maligned on here but is an Athletico regular and played in the CL final the other week.

TBH is was hoping for news that a few of the EDS lads would have been mentioned by now as squad members-perhaps they will but we seem to be going down the old route of throwing money at it again.Sometimes the only way you find out if kids will make it is to throw them in at the deep end.

Time will tell i suppose.

 

[Centurions]

Lol, the City OS was really slow to load this morning and I thought we'd announced his signing. Of well, onwards and upwards.

 

[Lancet Fluke]

Savic was much maligned on here but is an Athletico regular and played in the CL final the other week.

TBH is was hoping for news that a few of the EDS lads would have been mentioned by now as squad members-perhaps they will but we seem to eb going down the old route of throwing money at it again.

Time will tell i suppose.

The thing is, if you have a well organised defence and a defensive strategy that is coherent and workable then you don't need outrageously brilliant defenders to be decent defensively. I'm still convinced that no defender would have ever looked good in Pellegrini's tactics and I'm convinced that any of the central defenders we have had in the last few years could have looked decent under a different manager. Don't get me wrong, I haven't been particularly impressed with Mangala or Otamendi but I think a good manager could get them playing much much better. Pep is supposed to be the best manager in the world, if Ranieri can win the league and be very good at the back with Huth and Morgan, I'm not sure why we can't fashion a couple of 30+ million quid defenders into a functioning defence.

 

[flb]

The thing is, if you have a well organised defence and a defensive strategy that is coherent and workable then you don't need outrageously brilliant defenders to be decent defensively. I'm still convinced that no defender would have ever looked good in Pellegrini's tactics and I'm not convinced that any of the central defenders we have had in the last few years couldn't have looked decent under a different manager. Don't get me wrong, I haven't been particularly impressed with Mangala or Otamendi but I think a good manager could get them playing much much better. Pep is supposed to be the best manager in the world, if Ranieri can win the league and be very good at the back with Huth and Morgan, I'm not sure why we can't fashion a couple of 30+ million quid defenders into a functioning defence.

Totally agree with you mate, Denayer should be given the opportunity, the fact that we seem to be trying to replace either Otimendi or Mangala doesn't bode well for Txiki's choice of players who he signed.

 

[Neville Kneville]

The thing is, if you have a well organised defence and a defensive strategy that is coherent and workable then you don't need outrageously brilliant defenders to be decent defensively. I'm still convinced that no defender would have ever looked good in Pellegrini's tactics and I'm convinced that any of the central defenders we have had in the last few years could have looked decent under a different manager. Don't get me wrong, I haven't been particularly impressed with Mangala or Otamendi but I think a good manager could get them playing much much better. Pep is supposed to be the best manager in the world, if Ranieri can win the league and be very good at the back with Huth and Morgan, I'm not sure why we can't fashion a couple of 30+ million quid defenders into a functioning defence.

It depends what Pep has in mind.

If he's after footballers, neither Mangala nor Otamendi have shown themselves to be great in that area. Defensively, I don't see why either can't be as good or better than the guys we are being linked with.

I do like the look of Laporte though. Albeit only from recorded stuff.