We have a very high potential young striker as back up with 53 goals under his belt. Mbete is a player with 7 senior games of football. The difference is massive.Replaced with whom? A lesser player happy to sit on his ass behind 3 superior defenders?
You can’t stockpile players just in case our injures stack up. What happens if Haaland gets injured? Should we go out now and buy a 100m pound player just in case?
Mangala was an experienced centre half not an 18 year old with less than 10 senior games.you need to get a grip. you've described a scenario where both someone gets injured AND a highly rated youth player is still on the bench. we've won 100 points with mangala as 4th choice.
So 18 year old with 0 premier league minutes and a new DM signing... Just get a replacement for Aké. No reason to weaken ourselvesThink Mbete will emerge next season and Kalvin will cover the 3 too. Sorted
People have short memories. Picture ourselves with a tough fun of fixtures with some injuries in defence. Think we get through them with Philips and mebete in defence? Just because we signed Haaland doesn't mean we can afford to weaken other areas, we will be competing in, and wanting to win 4 trophies. We need to be as strong as possibleSo 18 year old with 0 premier league minutes and a new DM signing... Just get a replacement for Aké. No reason to weaken ourselves
I don't get the knee jerk reaction/hysteria to Jesus, Sterling & likely Ake leaving this window. Or the ridiculous oh we have FFP issues conspiracy.
It's been obvious for months we were going to start to rebuild this window, we had to. Haaland is a upgrade on Jesus, a massive one, that's obvious to anyone with any semblance of a football brain, not a knock on Gabby just facts. Sterling has reached the end of his journey with us, Alvarez isn't the proven player Raheem is but potentially could be better suited in time we will see on that one. Phillips comes in with Ake out (possibly), Phillips is a elite Premier League midfielder and no doubt Pep's already worked out if worse comes to worse we could put him in at centre back. If Cucurella comes which seems likely I think we are a stronger squad then we had last season all things considered. The EDS sales of Latvia, Bazuna and co are smart business as we likely can't get them into the squad to develop so selling them on with buy back clauses is shrewd business. They can develop and we have first option like Douglas Luiz in the future.
People need to look at the deals as a whole not as a single transfer in each case. The club is run by experts in this field, not haphazard morons. They won't get it all right but Ferran, Txiki and co know what they're doing.
I'm more excited to see what Peo can do with the rebuild of the squad coming into this season. If we can get a Pep extension it will make it more exciting. As far as I'm concerned we still have the best squad in the League with the moves we've made.
Is Doyle a better option to have as the 4th defender if Ake goes and we don't replace him?People overrate Mbete alot.
He didn't even stand out for the EDS last season. He was good, but not a standout.
He needs a couple of years on loan before he gets a chance here.