Kalidou Koulibaly

skyblues said:
Yes, but we desperately need great central defenders so if we’re ever breaking our transfer record, it’s now we need to. I just wish this guy was 25. I’m sure he has 4-5 great years left in him but if we’re unlucky, he might be peaking now and it’s downhill from here. We haven’t exactly been lucky with our defensive reinforcements so far.



We have years of material to watch this guy in action and he’s been amazing. He’s the only central defender in the world to be regarded even better than Van Dijk. I have no doubts about his quality but I do have doubts about his age and how long we can expect him to perform at this high level.
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Van Dijk is the same age.
 
He is quick and fast but gets into tackle early. A bit of Otamendi in this case and goes into tackle early. Even if he makes a mistake his swiftness helps his cover the ground more often than not. But i also saw Lukaku outrunning him more than once.
My only fear is if Laporte gets injured again a Koulibaly/Stones partnership won't be getting my hopes up. WIll he make it work with a inferior defending partner is the question. So i would prefer City remain adamant with what they think is a good offer and don't budge. ADL is a snake anyway. Wouldn't trust him even if we pay whatever hw asks.
A player with similar attribute is Upamecano albeit with more mistakes. But he is 8 years younger. I wonder why we are not pursuing that avenue
 
Great Kompany said:
He is quick and fast but gets into tackle early. A bit of Otamendi in this case and goes into tackle early. Even if he makes a mistake his swiftness helps his cover the ground more often than not. But i also saw Lukaku outrunning him more than once.
My only fear is if Laporte gets injured again a Koulibaly/Stones partnership won't be getting my hopes up. WIll he make it work with a inferior defending partner is the question. So i would prefer City remain adamant with what they think is a good offer and don't budge. ADL is a snake anyway. Wouldn't trust him even if we pay whatever hw asks.
A player with similar attribute is Upamecano albeit with more mistakes. But he is 8 years younger. I wonder why we are not pursuing that avenue
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So, what you have said is the price we pay will determine whether he fits in well. How does his price equate to changing abilities?..
Also, why would it be a pairing with Stones if Laporte were not avail?
 
I'm not too upset if we don't get him, there are other targets who are very good it seems (names I've never heard of but people say they've had great seasons).

It's weird that CB is a position we struggle with so much, I'm convinced our system is hard to play in, which is why so many have struggled.

Koulibaly played Sarri-ball though, and pretty well, that's what puts him higher up the list than others, but no way 90m.
 
WallyA said:
It's weird that CB is a position we struggle with so much, I'm convinced our system is hard to play in, which is why so many have struggled.
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To be fair, it's actually really rare for a team to genuinely have two world class CBs. Usually you have one world class one and one that's decent but their main quality is complementing the world class one. I remember Lescott saying in an interview that he was never going to be as good as Kompany do he made it his priority to be the best partner for Kompany instead. And that Barry did the same with Toure. Obviously in that system, if the world class one gets injured, the other one suddenly looks much worse, as we've experienced more than most because Kompany was so injury prone.
 
mosssideblue said:
So, what you have said is the price we pay will determine whether he fits in well. How does his price equate to changing abilities?..
Also, why would it be a pairing with Stones if Laporte were not avail?
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What i meant was I trust our scouting department to study Koulibaly like they did with Maguire and say "No" if the price asked by the selling club is way too high. We said no to Maguire at the 80 million price and his performance in rags colors have shown that he is nowhere worth that much.
We have already made multiple expensive signings in defense who have not worked out, I would hate to add Koulibaly name in that list.

The second point was - "How a good defender raises the game of everyone around him" Laporte and Van Dijk do that irrespective of whether they are paired with Ota/Stones/Garcia or Gomez/Matip/Lovren. Is Koulibaly this capable ?
I wouldn't know that until he plays for us. But our scouting department would have studied this issue and I trust them.
 
Great Kompany said:
What i meant was I trust our scouting department to study Koulibaly like they did with Maguire and say "No" if the price asked by the selling club is way too high. We said no to Maguire at the 80 million price and his performance in rags colors have shown that he is nowhere worth that much.
We have already made multiple expensive signings in defense who have not worked out, I would hate to add Koulibaly name in that list.

The second point was - "How a good defender raises the game of everyone around him" Laporte and Van Dijk do that irrespective of whether they are paired with Ota/Stones/Garcia or Gomez/Matip/Lovren. Is Koulibaly this capable ?
I wouldn't know that until he plays for us. But our scouting department would have studied this issue and I trust them.
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You'd think the scouting department like what they see, considering we've been negotiating with both his entourage and Napoli. The fact that we're willing to make a 29 year old our most expensive defensive signing ever speaks volumes about how highly we must rate him.

But our scouts have no say in how much we're willing to pay for him, they're just the ones who analyse his quality.

To a certain extent, I wouldn't blame the club if we walked away from a deal if it looked like Napoli were trying to move the goalposts with the fee. Sometimes it will stop us getting fleeced for the likes of Maguire, other times it will knock us out of the running for players like van Dijk.
 
Tugay One Cup said:
You'd think the scouting department like what they see, considering we've been negotiating with both his entourage and Napoli. The fact that we're willing to make a 29 year old our most expensive defensive signing ever speaks volumes about how highly we must rate him.

But our scouts have no say in how much we're willing to pay for him, they're just the ones who analyse his quality.

To a certain extent, I wouldn't blame the club if we walked away from a deal if it looked like Napoli were trying to move the goalposts with the fee. Sometimes it will stop us getting fleeced for the likes of Maguire, other times it will knock us out of the running for players like van Dijk.
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True. But with all the deals we have backed out in recent times , only Van Dijk is the one that truly hurts. Others we did good not succumbing to the selling club demand. I would believe Txiki to get this done because of our glaring issues in defence but unfortunately the player on the top of our list plays for Napoli. Hence the deal becomes 10 times more difficult.
 
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