Centre back options

if we got Pepe, with his vast experience, City will sort out that defence nicely.
but sadly, Pep doesn't rate him that much.
 
Dax777 said:
These occasional breakaway happen to every top team. The only major difference was that there keepers made saves at a higher rate than ours. Put another way, as shitty as most thought our CBs and FBs were, they gave up chances at the same rate as Chelsea and United and slightly less than Tothenham. They were far superior to Liverpool and Arsenal. But Chelsea and United's keepers were just significantly better than ours.

For all intent and purpose if you exclude goalkeeper performance, only Tottenham played better defence in the league.

So its either the whole league barring Tothenham is shit, or (more rationally) our CBs are not as shit as advertised. I'm going to go with the latter.

Any position can be strengthened. I don't want to pretend CB can't. But nothing suggests its a particular problem. We have a great on Komps, a top 5 defender in Ota, a developing Stones and a quite capable Kolarov. We are spoilt for options at CH.
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One of the problems with statistics is that there are different interpretations for all of them. We had a greater amount of possession than any other team in the EPL so it could be argued that per amount of time on the ball the other teams created more against us than other teams.
It is also true that Pep had a better defensive record at previous clubs than he did here and it is possible that the more attacking players restrict opportunities better with Peps system but our defenders let us down.
Not necessarily saying either is the case but just looking at chances created and saying our defenders must have been good is a dubious. From observation I believe our central defense was relatively weak last season though not as bad as some observers would have us believe.
 
capiloton said:
if we got Pepe, with his vast experience, City will sort out that defence nicely.
but sadly, Pep doesn't rate him that much.
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We are getting Alves who brings the experience, he is enough we certainly don't need two 34 year old.
 
Dax777 said:
We don't need a CH. Sure we MAY be better with a very good one like Varane VVD or Chiellini. But there is no guarantee an injury to Komps still won't affect us.

Contrary to popular opinion, CH is not a problem. Frankly its a strength. In Komps, Ota, Stones and Kola we have 4 very good ones.

If we had Thibaut Courtios save ratio all season we'd have conceded 29 to 31 goals. Better than Chelsea's 33.

If we had De Gea's save ratio, we'd have conceded 26 to 28 goals... Sure still worse than the 25 the Rags conceded. But they were a particularly defensive team. While we always played.

The only team who would have been significantly better had we had their goalie was Tottenham. If we had their goalie, we'd d have still conceded 29 to 30 goals. 6 more than they did.

It is no surprise that we got a keeper out of the blocks. If we up our save ratio to around Mignolet's, the worst of the other 5 and we'd have conceded the same # as Chelsea.

Where else we failed on the other hand is in scoring. Both Chelsea and Spurs scored more goals than we did off of fewer chances.

Chelsea created 57 fewer clear chances than we did. And scored more. Yet folks are somehow convinced its our CBs that's the problem.
Bernado, Sanchez, Mbappe are all links and acquisitions that speak what are problems were. The focus on fullbacks, the choice to use Dihno and Navas even when the regular fullbacks were healthy, also speaks to our true weakness.

CB frankly isn't one of the
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Have you studiously compared the quality of each chance that each of those teams conceded and then compared the quality of each chance that each of the keepers saved and the chances they let in?
 
Anyone seen much of De Vrij? Only seen bits and pieces but from what I have seen he looks a decent defender who is good on the ball. Not seen enough to know if he's good at organising etc or how consistent he is.
 
Prodigal son returns...

For the love of god, someone remove all the drinks carts from the team plane.
 
Boateng makes sense.

If Bonucci is off the table, no one gets closer to his passing range than Boateng, plus Guardiola is on record saying he thinks he's the best CB in the world.

Bayern won't want to let him go but with Martinez, Süle, Hummels plus Alaba and Kimmich capable CBs it could work.

Di Marzio reported Chelsea were looking into him yesterday.
 
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Jazzman said:
He is pretty damned good, but I am slightly concerned about his injury record.
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Yeah but if there's Stones and Otamendi plus Kompany and Boateng then I think you're ok even if one is injured constantly.


Boateng would also fit in with the profile of signing experienced players who can slot straight into a pep team (Alves, Sanchez)
 
What about Manolas from Roma? Available for £26M - both Chelsea (Conte) & Zenit (Mancini) are interested which suggests he's a pretty good defender.
 
domalino said:
Yeah but if there's Stones and Otamendi plus Kompany and Boateng then I think you're ok even if one is injured constantly.


Boateng would also fit in with the profile of signing experienced players who can slot straight into a pep team (Alves, Sanchez)
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Indeed
 
Boateng is the best but I can't seen City getting anyone out of Bayern that they want. PSG defenders maybe. Especially if there's a swap on the cards.:
Do we really believe that there is a complex central defender deal on the table? If it falls through, where's the back up option? The two most difficult positions to come in and hit the ground running are goal keeper and central defender. The problem we had last season was that there was absolutely massive pressure on our central defenders.

1) The full backs were shot
2) The keeper was in melt down
3) The strikers couldn't make a game safe
4) Toure was stuck in 2nd gear
5) And most importantly the main man Kompany was out
6) Whole team was getting used to Guardiola's plans

A lot of those problems will be solved. Should be easier for the central defenders next season.

Thiago Silva would be my ideal defender
 
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