It's Quiet 18 - Wanna ring the bell?

[Silva2021]

No better man than John Stones to play alongside Rodri. Stones was absolutely sensational playing that role last season.

Funnily enough Declan Rice cost £105m and is a traditional midfielder yet he can only dream of playing like John Stones.

I think your really underselling Rice, I’d have imagined he’d be equally adept given time and working under Pep.

It’s why we where interested, especially given respective injury records.

I love Stones and the compliment is he plays slightly out of position as well as the top players in position.

I hope he continues it, as it saved us having to over spend on Rice (although I do rate him highly).

 

[Cityfan]

Phillips is our week link so wouldn’t a traditional CDM be the best option

Nah I think we need a daily link to complement him.

 

[Asa's left peg]

So what is Paqueta ?

Kova is playing the Gundogan role Bernardo has played deep in midfield

We have played a midfield three surely of Rodri and some combination of Gundogan KDB Bernardo and Foden the role I assume Parqueta will play

It's only my opinion - but, I think Kova is the extra body we needed. He can do a little bit of everything and Chelsea asked him to play a few different roles.
I see more Gundo qualities in Paqueta. If you watch even the last game highlights from Saturday, he can pick a pass, arrive late in the box, score goals and can track back ( a question that surprisingly has not been asked on here!) He will be released from his defensive role a little, with us, so I expect his contribution going forward to increase. Lets see if he's capable of playing that KDB pass, the longer one that drops on a sixpence, with backspin!

 

[Chopper2115]

And Gvardiol has the potential to do even better than Stones in that role too.

He already has a higher level at dribbling than stones has. Stones is only new to this position and has done incredible the level of our defence has improved significantly.

 

[Chopper2115]

It's only my opinion - but, I think Kova is the extra body we needed. He can do a little bit of everything and Chelsea asked him to play a few different roles.
I see more Gundo qualities in Paqueta. If you watch even the last game highlights from Saturday, he can pick a pass, arrive late in the box, score goals and can track back ( a question that surprisingly has not been asked on here!) He will be released from his defensive role a little, with us, so I expect his contribution going forward to increase. Lets see if he's capable of playing that KDB pass, the longer one that drops on a sixpence, with backspin!

I think you add the qualities of both of Kovacic and Paqueta you get Gundo as a whole player.
Kovacic has the technical side of his passing and tempo to the game plus ball retention and Paqueta had the creativity up front.

 

[Keeper!]

It's only my opinion - but, I think Kova is the extra body we needed. He can do a little bit of everything and Chelsea asked him to play a few different roles.
I see more Gundo qualities in Paqueta. If you watch even the last game highlights from Saturday, he can pick a pass, arrive late in the box, score goals and can track back ( a question that surprisingly has not been asked on here!) He will be released from his defensive role a little, with us, so I expect his contribution going forward to increase. Lets see if he's capable of playing that KDB pass, the longer one that drops on a sixpence, with backspin!

Rodri will be the one surprising a few people this season, already in the Burnley game we watched him pushing on far more, he will score plenty this season.

 

[RayCTID]

More versatile hasn’t Caicedo played at full back and and different roles in midfield

Paqueta is the more creative player.

 

[Gaz (FMwkdsoul)]

More versatile hasn’t Caicedo played at full back and and different roles in midfield

Can probably put LW/RW into Paquetas as it was a 4231 in most cases, depends if you class that as mid or winger.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

It's only my opinion - but, I think Kova is the extra body we needed. He can do a little bit of everything and Chelsea asked him to play a few different roles.
I see more Gundo qualities in Paqueta. If you watch even the last game highlights from Saturday, he can pick a pass, arrive late in the box, score goals and can track back ( a question that surprisingly has not been asked on here!) He will be released from his defensive role a little, with us, so I expect his contribution going forward to increase. Lets see if he's capable of playing that KDB pass, the longer one that drops on a sixpence, with backspin!

Kovacic is almost a Gundogan clone in terms of his footballing IQ and ability to create space. Kovacic dribbles more than Gundogan and Gundogan learned to score by arriving late in the box as the third man.

In terms of build up, Kovacic is as good as Gundogan and so we’ll see little drop off in our build up with him this season.

He’ll be invaluable in the bigger games where a proper double pivot may be needed. He’s press resistant and knows when to move the ball on when being tackled.

Whoever it was before that asked how players were worried about Foden with Paqueta, but less so with Wirtz is bang on. Foden is KDB’s replacement. Paqueta is the other 8 when we need more creativity.

 

[Chopper2115]

Does anyone know why we aren’t in for Kudus if West Ham are replacing Paqueta with him. Seems like he was never a target for us but a great player.