Full Backs?

[Ruzzles]

Jeremy Toljan.

Can play on either side good shout.

 

[Trautmann's Chiropractor]

Does anyone reckon we'll actually go in for a second right back now? I know the media briefings have been 4 full backs, but with our perfect option in Alves now a no-go it means spending more money on a player who wouldn't bring half of what Alves would've brought.

We have a few options at RB already here that may be trusted for back up duties. Obviously they may not be the best selection, but players like Fernandinho, Maffeo (who hasn't officially left on loan yet I'm sure) and Denayer could be used to give Walker a rest. That allows Pep to still use leftover funds for the centre half he's targeting.

It'll be interesting to see who he uses in the friendlies.

 

[Neville Kneville]

So our original plan was to have Alves for a year or two as a back up RB to Walker while Pablo Maffeo was at Girona. He'd probably have played 15-20 games at most. We aren't going to spend €40-50m on Semedo to play 20 games a season, and players like that won't be hugely interested in coming to us over a team like Barcelona who need a first choice RB to play every single game.

Now IMO we have three options for a back up -

1- Sign another old player who doesn't mind being back up because they're old.

2- Sign an average player who doesn't mind being back up because they obviously aren't good enough to start.

3- Sign a very young player who doesn't mind being back up because they're young.

The first 2 make no sense to me, 1 - why do we want another old player? We were only interested in Alves because it was Alves, the perfect Pep fullback and serial winner, no other old player is going to be that. 2 - Why do we want second rate players? Those days should be gone.

So the direction to go in is #3, and we already have the solution for that, Maffeo. Just bring him in a year early. He's got the experience in big games Pep said he needed youth players to have, 28 games for Girona now and 2 promotion fights, he's always impressed when played here and he's at the club, he's free, he's already worked with Pep for a year. He's even fucking HG so we can buy another foreign player, or at least have the flexibility to if Bertrand falls through for example, or we can't offload Kolarov to get the new CB in.

This is doubly the case if Sam Lee was told correctly that City don't have room in their budget to buy a CB now that we have to pay for another RB.

I'd go so far as to say every other club in the world, every club we're trying to emulate especially, would use Maffeo in this situation, but of course we probably won't.

This is because we are two, three years behind where we should be, with young players.

We should have several who have been tested out, who can come in, at a pinch & cover the position. If none were good enough, we should have found ones who are & tested them out, so we have young homegrown backup. It doesn't matter if they are then sold, & replaced with another kid. They should still be there, as first team squad backup.

This goes for pretty much every position.

 

[blue61]

For me we should get Walker and backfill with Maffeo and Fernandinho.

 

[Marvin]

This is because we are two, three years behind where we should be, with young players.

We should have several who have been tested out, who can come in, at a pinch & cover the position. If none were good enough, we should have found ones who are & tested them out, so we have young homegrown backup. It doesn't matter if they are then sold, & replaced with another kid. They should still be there, as first team squad backup.

This goes for pretty much every position.

Takeover is almost 10 years old. Systems should be well in place by now.

 

[Neville Kneville]

If we are going to splash out, the best fullback at the Confed Cup, by a country mile imo, was the geezer from Southampton, who also already has an excellent understanding with Bernardo Silva.

 

[domalino]

This is because we are two, three years behind where we should be, with young players.

We should have several who have been tested out, who can come in, at a pinch & cover the position. If none were good enough, we should have found ones who are & tested them out, so we have young homegrown backup. It doesn't matter if they are then sold, & replaced with another kid. They should still be there, as first team squad backup.

This goes for pretty much every position.

But we're not in this case, we're in a position where Maffeo would be fine, it's not too late. He's got experience abroad, now he could be playing in preseason and then in the cup games before the turn of the year, while being fed into the league slowly.

Then by the turn of the year, even if Walker got injured we'd trust Maffeo in 90% of games.

At some point, someone just needs to take a leap of faith with these kids, and this situation is absolutely perfect for it.

 

[Neville Kneville]

Takeover is almost 10 years old. Systems should be well in place by now.

Imo Marwood etc have done an absolutely fantastic job setting up the academy only for successive managers to use the kids purely as cannon fodder.

Too early yet to see if Pep is following on the same.

 

[Neville Kneville]

But we're not in this case, we're in a position where Maffeo would be fine, it's not too late. He's got experience abroad, now he could be playing in preseason and then in the cup games before the turn of the year, while being fed into the league slowly.

Then by the turn of the year, even if Walker got injured we'd trust Maffeo in 90% of games.

I think Maffeo would probably be fine, but we have very little evidence to go on. Both the Pelle & Guardiola, could have got much more minutes out of him, but chose not to.

 

[domalino]

I think Maffeo would probably be fine, but we have very little evidence to go on. Both the Pelle & Guardiola, could have got much more minutes out of him, but chose not to.

Well he wasn't in the training photos/video yesterday so I assume he's already on his way to Girona with Garcia and anyone else who could have played in the first team this year.