Marc Cucurella

[MarsLlama]

Honestly, bullet dodged in my eyes.

 

[Sheikh rattle and roll]

All the players in our squad were already known and playing for top clubs before we bought them (bar Zinchenko & Jesus) we don't unearth gems, that's what a world class scouting system does.

We currently find ourselves haggling over 10million for a LB who could have been scouted a year earlier. With all our Spanish/La Masia connections why wasn't Cucurella scouted before going to Brighton.

Go give your head a wobble
We have recently won the EDS League at most of the age levels
Watch the Chairman’s speech a good percentage of these players are locally trained and sourced
Then factor in the players we’ve bought
Look at the potential first team squad players Delap McAttee Josh WE Mbete etc etc
We have Foden and Alvarez
These have all been scouted and signed
Why do you think Liverpool took our database

 

[andyhinch]

All the players in our squad were already known and playing for top clubs before we bought them (bar Zinchenko & Jesus) we don't unearth gems, that's what a world class scouting system does.

We currently find ourselves haggling over 10million for a LB who could have been scouted a year earlier. With all our Spanish/La Masia connections why wasn't Cucurella scouted before going to Brighton.

The class of 22 living up to expectations again.

 

[alexmcity]

I'm guessing the main reason for our interest in Cucurella was not only his quality but also the natural width we'd get from having a left-footed LB which will be a lot more important now we have Haaland.

The task now will be finding an alternative that is an upgrade or at least not a huge downgrade on Cancelo otherwise we are back to where we were last season, playing a right-footed player at LB. Don't get me wrong, I love Cancelo but clearly the plan this summer was to add natural width. I'm sure we'll sign someone though even if it's just as a back-up as we need an extra body in the squad.

Reasonable points, but, imo, the plan was never to upgrade on Cancelo, that's virtually impossible right now. If Cucu was better than Cancelo, we'd be happy to pay 60m for him. No FB in the world is a Pep FB to the extent Cancelo is. TAA is the closest, but only offensively. For all the criticisms Cancelo gets on here, probably more than on rival forums, he's defensively on another level to most FBs in the league. His interception and pressing stats are outstanding, and his passing stats are out of this world. Among the FBs, think only D. Alves might have had more touches and passes per game than last season's Cancelo, and that's not guaranteed.

 

[footballmanager]

cucurella has played like a dozen games as a left back on a back 4 in his entire profissional career. 50 mil my ass, move on

 

[kun]

Team accomplishments have very little to do with player valuation. That should be just so obvious. Otherwise we'd have massively overpaid for almost every single player ever as our usual profile is signing up and coming young players from teams not at the top of the pyramid.

This is somewhat true and somewhat not true. Yes you can be a fantastic player in a team that wins fuck all and you could be a bad player who has won things but overall the better players are in better teams and win more. Additionally this doesn’t cover the fact he’s inexperienced and the managers of Spain have never fancied him.

50M also won't get you the best around unless you want older players. If you look at top young fullbacks in the world like Alexander Arnold, Davies then 50M simply won't do it. 50M gets you good promising fullbacks looking at market in last few years, that's how much we have paid earlier and that's around how much united paid for Martinez, Chelsea for Chilwell recently for example. Man City don't have a monopoly on player valuation, all these prices have to be considered when coming up with a valuation.

You are right you can’t get Alexander Arnold or Davies for that price. Having said that Cucurella is not the next step down from them, he’s quite a few. Why on earth would be base out business on the signing of Ben fucking Chilwell and Martínez??
“Yes let’s just pay the same money a bunch of flops cost”
“The next midfielder we buy must cost £140m because Coutinho cost more than that!”
Equally I could point to Robertson who cost Liverpool £7m or Tagliafico who cost Lyon £4m. How much did Davies actually cost Bayern?

I'd also say any player we are looking to sign should be better than Zinchenko and I'm sure that's what our target is. Player valuation isn't linear, the better the player the steeper the increase in price. For example Neymar isn't 5 times better than Mahrez but he for sure is better.

Cucurella is better than Zinchenko but not by that much. He’s a different kind of player, more rounded, but less versatile and less adept at ball retention.

Would you pay 5x what you’d pay for Mahrez for Neymar? I certainly wouldn’t.

Mahrez for £60m > Neymar for the £300m

Ludicrous.

 

[Complex Simplicity]

We should just bite the bullet and pay the 50m if we want him, or move on very quickly. If it was another midfield player or another forward (where we have enough cover), it's not as important- but we desperately need another full back considering the World Cup is during the season. We risk burnout to our full backs during the tougher parts of the season. We have to promote Wilson Esbrand and Lewis, but Pep would rather play a senior player out of position ahead of an Academy lad in the Premier League. Give the kids a go.

We paid 60 for Cancelo, 55 for Walker and 50 for Mendy. I don't think it's that unreasonable. He's a top full back.

 

[BlueCityfan]

Until Jack Gaughan/Pol Ballus/Martin Blackburn confirm that we've ended our interest. There is still a slight chance we'll swallow our pride and pay the 50m.

Otherwise, would expect a quick move for any alternative.

 

[Mid Wales blue]

Go give your head a wobble
We have recently won the EDLleague at most of the age levels
Watch the Chairman’s speech a good percentage of these players are locally trained and sourced
Then factor in the players we’ve bought
Look at the potential first team squad players Delap McAttee Josh WE Embete etc etc
We have Foden and Alvarez
These have all been scouted and signed
Why do you think Liverpool took our database

I can’t believe you didn’t even swear!

 

[kun]

All the players in our squad were already known and playing for top clubs before we bought them (bar Zinchenko & Jesus) we don't unearth gems, that's what a world class scouting system does.

We currently find ourselves haggling over 10million for a LB who could have been scouted a year earlier. With all our Spanish/La Masia connections why wasn't Cucurella scouted before going to Brighton.

Of course he was scouted but we had 2 players in Zinchenko and Mendy in the way at the time: plus we may not have been convinced by him until seeing him in the Prem.