Yeah I get where you're coming from and agree for the most part. Overzealous defending has absolutely done my head in with a couple of our past and presents centre backs and the conservative approach is always the best when done well.
That being said, Dortmund have conceded a few goals over the last couple of seasons where Akanji has just refused to even attempt to block a shot. I doubt he'd get away with it here because we can afford to drop players for those mistakes.
To be honest, I'd never heard of him until 5pm yesterday & don't recall him standing out when we played BVB last season.
However, according to the fans' consensus since our interest was reported, he was their best defender & was affected like the rest of Dortmund's squad by having several managers in a short period of time.
Apparently he was their best defender on the early part of last season until contract negotiations broke down over money & he told Dortmund he wasn't going to renew. This is when several fans say his form plummeted, but so did Dortmund's season too.
Pep has changed my outlook on football to where I used to prefer rugged, no nonsense, broken nose, cauliflower eared CB's who would stop you by any means necessary & whose job it was to boot the ball upfield to two broken nose, cauliflower eared strikers in the mould of Joe Jordan & Duncan Ferguson.
Now I appreciate footballers first, foremost & always. Akanji apparently lacks aerial prowess, but so what? Let's stop balls being slung into our area from out wide in the first instance. Heading ability issue solved.
In British football, we traditionally relied on fighting fire with fire. We saw it as "Let's see how your broken nose, cauliflower eared CB copes with our broken nose, cauliflower eared CF!"
Pep has moved the narrative on from that by creating a team of talented ballers who'll twist & turn the blood of your average broken nose, cauliflower eared CB, never mind their tree trunk sized legs.
Things like heading & tackling abilities are now secondary concerns for me, & rank way below ball control, passing ability, pace & positional sense. I'm pretty sure that if Akanji is properly positioned in the first instance, he won't have the need to throw his body into last ditched blocks & tackles to recover from positional errors.
I'm pretty sure Pep will quickly iron any creases in his game, but from the little I've seen of him, he possesses all the tools to be made a better player.
