Kalidou Koulibaly

[ctid1894]

What you are not taking into account, imo, is that most top teams who bring in 23 year olds, are bringing them in, to play with their established legend(s) & learn how to take over from them.

We don't have one. He's gone & the others have so far failed to live up to him.

To be fair Walker and Laporte (pre-injury) were considered to be among the best players in Europe in the respective positions.

 

[Sheikh rattle and roll]

What you are not taking into account, imo, is that most top teams who bring in 23 year olds, are bringing them in, to play with their established legend(s) & learn how to take over from them.

We don't have one. He's gone & the others have so far failed to live up to him.

Not always in my opinion which is different to youYes
our best defender came in at 23 Laporte the only certain starter same with our keeper 23
What age was KDB when he joined ?( I can’t remember) What about Sterling around 19 all immediate starters
That’s off the top of my head

 

[skyblues]

I think we all agree we need someone
Oh to be Pep and Khaldoon they don’t always get it right what chance if we got if the best of the best can’t always do so
and without doubt that’s what they both are

We’re well aware.

The club paid 50m for John Stones and certainly got a ball-playing centreback but not an actually defender who knew how to defend. That last-minute signing turned out to be a costly mistake and we’ll never see that money again. And don’t give me the ”he was a beast in 17/18”. No he wasn’t, and his performance has never blown me away. If Stones was a successful signing in Peps eyes, we wouldn’t be in the market chasing Koulibaly. We’d have Laporte, Aké, Stones and Garcia (before he choose to leave), and been set for years.

Difference this time, they seem to have identified an actual defender who is also good at passing the ball around. This time more emphasis is put on trying to sign a defender who has a track record of defending well.

 

[GBrannan]

The van Dijk analogy was merely about his age. Saying he’s too old at 29 seems ridiculous to me. He’s probably at his peak.

But do we just scout players ages?

What about shoe size?

There’s many categories we could look at this. From what I’ve seen, and it’s narrow compared to what a scout should’ve watched, but he looks a very, very risky signing based on the fee and his ‘peak’ is based on performances in a pretty inferior league (Smalling, Young etc). At 29 it looks even riskier because he has little time to adapt, particularly because our manager has about 10 months left on his deal.

If the guy at Athletico was the guy, Gimenez, even if he cost £100m at age 25, then I’d be more in favour of doing that because we’ll inevitably be looking for a replacement next year because KK hasn’t been good enough.

In my opinion, it’s high time we stopped being apologetic about our money, trying to be cute, and signing ill fitting guys to conform to a media narrative. Just go and sign the top guy at the right age. Maybe we might need to bin a lot of CFG signings at 5x£5-10m but so what.

Like I said before, if KK comes, I hope he is a success, but from what I’ve seen on his playing abilities and based on his age he looks a massive gamble. We shouldn’t be gambling at that level of cost, especially when you add in wages.

 

[Neville Kneville]

To be fair Walker and Laporte (pre-injury) were considered to be among the best players in Europe in the respective positions.

They are both capable of being right up there, as was John Stones, imo, but it was obvious at the key points of the season, who Pep put first on the team sheet.

If Vinny was 28, 29, we would be looking for a 23 year old cb, not Koulibaly. But as we can't trust any of our cbs from last season, we are looking at the possibility of more experience.

 

[Neville Kneville]

Not always in my opinion which is different to youYes
our best defender came in at 23 Laporte the only certain starter same with our keeper 23
What age was KDB when he joined ?( I can’t remember) What about Sterling around 19 all immediate starters
That’s off the top of my head

And they were all playing next to other 23 year olds were they ?

 

[Sheikh rattle and roll]

We’re well aware.

The club paid 50m for John Stones and certainly got a ball-playing centreback but not an actually defender who knew how to defend. That last-minute signing turned out to be a costly mistake and we’ll never see that money again. And don’t give me the ”he was a beast in 17/18”. No he wasn’t, and his performance has never blown me away. If Stones was a successful signing in Peps eyes, we wouldn’t be in the market chasing Koulibaly. We’d have Laporte, Aké, Stones and Garcia (before he choose to leave), and been set for years.

Difference this time, they seem to have identified an actual defender who is also good at passing the ball around. This time more emphasis is put on trying to sign a defender who has a track record of defending well.

Be fair to Stones he is not a beast far from it but he is also not a car crash
It is so difficult in an exposed high line
Maybe he would be better elsewhere
Do I think he is the answer of course not
Will we lose 50 million on him no he is young ish and we will get back a good amounyb

Koulibaly may well be the beast you crave he also may well be an ageing old man who gets roasted every week
I hope not who knows
So you don’t trust Pep and the board to sign Stones but you trust the same management team to sign Koulibaly?
hopefully we get it right
But this debate highlights how difficult is we all have different options and ideas

 

[Sheikh rattle and roll]

And they were all playing next to other 23 year olds were they ?

No Sane and Jesus were around 21 and Mendy 23

 

[Neville Kneville]

No Sane and Jesus were around 21 and Mendy 23

And the core of the team ?

 

[Sheikh rattle and roll]

And they were all playing next to other 23 year olds were they ?

Oh and Stones at the time was 23 so errrrr yes maybe they were was it not
Ederson 23 Mendy 23 Stones 23 Laporte 23 Walker 27
That’s just the back line did we win the league that year I can’t remember