Manuel Akanji | City close to £15m agreement, 5 year contract

[Blue_Lightsaber]

Not quite sure why we need 5 centre halves

Ake's injury might be worse.

Laporte just coming off surgery so might not be good for his usual 50 games a season.

Dias coming off hamstring injury so might not be good to make him play 50 games a season

Stones.. injury prone.

Mbete needs gametime to develop but won't get it here..

Academy unproven.

This sorta ticks all the boxes including the cheap back up one.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

Looks a very powerful lad!

 

[FrankSwift1]

Suggests the injuries to Laporte or Ake are worst than we have been told.

 

[merz]

What do you think his main strengths and weaknesses are?

I’ve hardly any knowledge of him.

his biggest strength is probably to play under pressure and disrupt attacks early. he is also physically strong. he had a short rough patch at dortmund where he made some errors leading to goals but normaly he is solid at everything with no glaring weaknesses but also nothing he really excels at.

 

[Manchester_lalala]

It definitely makes sense getting another body in. Our centre backs are brittle. Laporte, Ake, Stones and Akanji can all cover at full back too. Makes our squad stronger anyway, can’t really see any weakness now apart from on the wings possibly.

 

[MCFCFanTX]

Decent price. We can probably flip him next summer and at the very least recoup.

He'll automatically become our fastest CB. His best Dortmund performance were under Favre as a LCB in a back 3, interestingly enough.

Passing range and comfortability is better than Dias or Ake, in my opinion. Can read the game well and break up plays early. Good depth signing.

Struggled with Dortmund recently (tbh their entire defence has been shambolic for a while) but there's a lot to like.

 

[MCFC1993]

Pretty much done.

 

[PrezIke]

I just thought of another reason that we may be signing him:

Pep thinks he can help more in the inverted WB role that Walker isn't as good at and I heard on the CitySpaces discussion suggesting Pep should abandon as he's very 2 footed with pace and more technical ability than Walker.

 

[kupest]

Is this totally in reaction to the quick winger counters we have been facing this season?

 

[Vester]

27 years old so probably near his peak, outspoken Rags fan, Dortmunds defense has been terrible last few years. Not convinced about this deal at all, very uncharacteristic signing from us. But we do need bodies in defense and I guess he is better than no one. Seems like its close to a done deal so lets hope we get the best out of him and he starts performing on a higher level under Pep!