It's Quiet 18 - Wanna ring the bell?

[Dribble]

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.

I can only call it as I see it & he's never really stood out as anything other than a Croatian Jordan Henderson. \0/

I looked at his ability to "receive balls in tight spaces" as many on here are trumpeting & whilst I agree he wriggled away from a few in the several clips I've seen, often times he lost the ball during the wriggle.

What stood out to me most is what he did after receiving the ball. Most often there was a sideway/backward pass or he lost the ball through an errant pass or through being tackled.

This applies to ALL players, but there are success percentages on a sliding scale to consider. Kovacic's never stood out to me as anything special in the tens of times I've seen him. This doesn't mean he's a shit player, but I'm honestly struggling to see the excitement around his possible/impending arrival.

To bolster our squad? Great! As a replacement for Gundog or Bernardo, or as an option instead of Bellingham or Rice? No chance!

I'm not one who's jizzing all over the place about Mac Allister either, but given his reported £60m release clause & the age difference, I'd rather see Mac arrive here over Kova.

It's just my personal opinion, & like arsehole's everyone's got one! :-)

Mate, I honestly hope Kova proves me wrong if he comes here, & I'll be man enough to admit I got it wrong if he shows great footballing qualities that I've somehow missed...

 

[Dribble]

If Gundog does sadly leave as is looking likely, we'll be hard pressed to find an available like for like replacement.

Can Foden or Grealish replace him? Or do we go for different but good all the same with Bellingham or Rice?

Personally I still can't see where Kovacic fits in with all of this. To add to the squad, yes. But as a replacement for Gundog or Bernardo? I'm struggling to see it.

https://football-italia.net/cds-mil...arca-target-and-man-city-midfielder-gundogan/

 

[richards30]

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If Gundog does sadly leave as is looking likely, we'll be hard pressed to find an available like for like replacement.

Can Foden or Grealish replace him? Or do we go for different but good all the same with Bellingham or Rice?

Personally I still can't see where Kovacic fits in with all of this. To add to the squad, yes. But as a replacement for Gundog or Bernardo? I'm struggling to see it.

https://football-italia.net/cds-mil...arca-target-and-man-city-midfielder-gundogan/

Isn’t Gundo’s wife Italian?

 

[doobyedoobye]

Respectfully there have been more than a dozen irreplaceable players successfully replaced in recent years..

 

[Dribble]

Isn’t Gundo’s wife Italian?

Dunno mate, but it's looking likely we may hear that he's moving on at the end of the season.

Barça & Milan will be creaming themselves at the prospect of getting Ilkay on a free. I suppose City don't want to set precedents by handing out long contracts to players in their 30s.

Most have realised it was time to move on, or like Fernandinho, was happy with short term contracts & a season of proving he deserved another.

It seems Gundog wants the guarantee of 3 years & ending his career at the top age 36. Unfortunately, it's not how City roll... \0/

 

[richards30]

Leroy back or Gnabry would be good signings?

 

[r.soleofsalford]

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/

This is exactly how I feel. What I’ve seen live and on YouTube I’m not overly impressed. But if Pep believes he’s the one who are we to argue. Hopefully I’ll have more confidence when I see who leaves and which group of players we get in.

 

[richards30]

This is exactly how I feel. What I’ve seen live and on YouTube I’m not overly impressed. But if Pep believes he’s the one who are we to argue. Hopefully I’ll have more confidence when I see who leaves and which group of players we get in.

Pep will have his plan and we should trust him completely

 

[Dribble]

This is exactly how I feel. What I’ve seen live and on YouTube I’m not overly impressed. But if Pep believes he’s the one who are we to argue. Hopefully I’ll have more confidence when I see who leaves and which group of players we get in.

My thoughts exactly. If he comes in as an opportune squad depth signing, then fine. But I'll be seriously disappointed if he's brought in as a replacement for either Gundog or Bernardo.

From what I've seen of Kova, he's a decent player, but he's not on Gundog or Bernardo's level imo...

 

[Haaland94]

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.

Maybe didn't play in the finals, but he did play in the campaign to become champions in these cases.