It's Quiet 18 - Wanna ring the bell?

[SouthernPlastic]

Bring Leroy home and play Phil off the right.

You’ve got me watching Leroy highlights. When is it being announced!

 

[Matt Diablo]

Bad news for City though… both on them not taking the cry baby off our books and City losing out on a free squad filler

Fail

 

[Irishblue93]

Agreed. I can't see us going for Kovacic with Gundog remaining.

HOWEVER, I see Kovacic as a utility player, not a specialist as we're used to. I've watched several videos of him over the last few days, on top of knowing him from the Premier League, & I still don't see him being bought as a starter.

He seems more of a filler in our current setup & I'd be seriously disappointed if he came here as a Gundog or Silva replacement. I just don't get this one. \0/

People would have said the same about akanji and ake and look at those now. Kovacic is a top player at a disfunctional team the last 2 years.

 

[Dribble]

I don't know. We have lots of options for most positions, but the Gundogan position seems the lightest. There's only really Bernardo for cover, and his future is still unknown too.

We've never managed to replace like for like really with our passing greats. We've bought replacements who're different but effective in their own way.

However, like others I'm struggling to get my head around 29 year old Kovacic. If he's an opportunistic, experienced strength in depth signing, I suppose I can see the sense, but no way can I envisage him as a replacement for Gundog or Bernardo.

This transfer window will be complex, because in my mind there's also the possibility of Foden & Grealish moving inside & an Alphonso Davies type left back being brought in along with right & left wingers.

But again, we may still be in with a chance of Bellingham & I'd love us to get Rice too, but again I struggle to see the point in Kovacic who's a decent player, but one who's never particularly stood out for me, when Gundog & Silva generally do.

The club will know the reality of our situation & what's best, so I suppose in Pep & Txiki we must trust. \0/

 

[Dribble]

People would have said the same about akanji and ake and look at those now. Kovacic is a top player at a disfunctional team the last 2 years.

Absolutely not. Aké was brought as the centre back reinforcement we needed, after a couple of excellent seasons with Bournemouth.

Akanji is probably the smartest signing we've made in years. As we all observed & Pep recently said, we have injury issues with our CB's.

Aké, Stones, Laporté & Dias all had injury issues at the end of last season going into this one, & when Stones got injured in August, I feared we were back to shoehorning someone in as cover whilst they recovered.

£15m for a seasoned 26 year old Bundesliga, Swiss international with CL experience was a no brainer for me, & what a signing he's turned out to be! Personally, he's my player of the season.

However, I'm still struggling to see where Kovacic fits in. I've watched hours of videos of him this week to see if I've missed something & nothing I've watched has changed my mind.

I'll happily yield to the superior knowledge of Pep & Txiki on this one & if he arrives here, I won't be like our fans who got on Grealish's back, as he'll have my full support, but I still don't get it if I'm being totally honest... \0/

 

[Dribble]

Cannot remember which source said City are offering 2+, but if City are just offering 1+1 I wouldn’t blame him if he went to Barca if they gave 3

I'd be worried about getting paid at the end of the month...

Bellingham to City & Gundog making an emotional return to Dortmund would be a dream switch for me.

I'm allowed to dream aren't I? :-)

 

[halfcenturyup]

Looks like he is a "mouth breather. "

He needs to cut that out. Don't want the new Phil Jones here .....

 

[Haaland94]

Absolutely not. Aké was brought as the centre back reinforcement we needed, after a couple of excellent seasons with Bournemouth.

Akanji is probably the smartest signing we've made in years. As we all observed & Pep recently said, we have injury issues with our CB's.

Aké, Stones, Laporté & Dias all had injury issues at the end of last season going into this one, & when Stones got injured in August, I feared we were back to shoehorning someone in as cover whilst they recovered.

£15m for a seasoned 26 year old Bundesliga, Swiss international with CL experience was a no brainer for me, & what a signing he's turned out to be! Personally, he's my player of the season.

However, I'm still struggling to see where Kovacic fits in. I've watched hours of videos of him this week to see if I've missed something & nothing I've watched has changed my mind.

I'll happily yield to the superior knowledge of Pep & Txiki on this one & if he arrives here, I won't be like our fans who got on Grealish's back, as he'll have my full support, but I still don't get it if I'm being totally honest... \0/

Kovacic is more established and accomplished than Akanji was before joining us. Part of the best NT midfield in the world, 4 CL medals, and experience (we are potentially losing a lot of experience in Bernardo and Gundogan) from Inter, Real, and Chelsea. His statistics are exceptional, especially forward passes/runs/dribbles. We will potentially lose Bernardo and Gundogan, so we need at least 2 midfielders, maybe 3 players altogether, assuming Phil moves to the middle. Finally, he will only cost around 30m, which is a very small amount for the quality we are getting. I know Chelsea looked poor this season, but even then, he was one of their best players this season, and you just need to watch him for Croatia to see how good he is. I don't know if any of this is convincing enough, but I hope he changes your mind soon enough :D.

 

[Blue warrior]

Dortmund players really have no loyalty to them s fair few down the years have ran their contracts down to either sign for Bayern on a free or a very low fee.

 

[Xhavenjoe]

Kovacic is more established and accomplished than Akanji was before joining us. Part of the best NT midfield in the world, 4 CL medals, and experience (we are potentially losing a lot of experience in Bernardo and Gundogan) from Inter, Real, and Chelsea. His statistics are exceptional, especially forward

That 4CL medals is misleading.
He didn't play at all in three of them and came on as a sub with 10 minutes to go for Chelsea against us.
A total of 10 minutes plus 7 minutes additional time.
Not saying he's not a good player but he didn't get much game time as you are suggesting.