Marc Cucurella

[DeBlueLou]

So many panic merchants on this forum. If we don't get a replacement for Zinchenko, who after all, wasn't the greatest of LBS we will just go with what we have. And thats Cancelo and Wilson-Esbrand. We also have Ake as back up

That’s terrible.

 

[waspish]

Exaclty what I said. So if Bloom is true to his word, cucurella won't go to Chelsea for less than £50mill. Let's see if Chelsea are willing to pay £50mill for him?

They wanted 50m+ not just 50m

 

[kun]

Anyways off to watch grimaldo compilations on YouTube. Can almost guarantee we end up with him. He is cheap, has Barcelona connections and with have good relationship with benfica. Very underwhelmed if that is the case

He'd do for me. Technically better than Cucurella. Defensively pretty poor.

Still think he'd surprise a few if he came in.

 

[Draikin]

Find it really weird how people are saying we are messing around over £5- £10m as if it doesn't matter.

I get the club's stance but we lost 2 months over this
Should have signed him or walked away within two weeks
New LB should be training with the first team by now

 

[Deblueded]

This appears dead and buried, madness that we've sold Zinchenko before sorting any replacement out.

 

[argyle]

Given the fees we've paid out over the years it seems strange not to meet a £50m valuation for a position we desperately need filling.

I dont think there will be a plan B. Other clubs will also be demanding big fees for their left backs.

I expect Ake and Cancelo to be left backs for this season.

 

[Dax777]

That's funny, thought it applied to the people who want to upgrade on the only City defender who made the PFA team of the year in any of the last two seasons, and the only FB in PL history who did it at RB and LB. But hey, those who play against Cancelo know nothing, unlike you and the "Cancelo can't defend" brigade. You know much better. If only Pep and Txiki knew as much as you about what City need! Wouldn't play with a defender who can't defend. Shame on them :)

Seriously, you don't address my points. You offer worn-out clichés about what a top defender is supposed to do. Pep's City win in spite of such clichés. Defending is not only or even mostly about clearances, blocks, last-ditch tackles and the likes. It's also, and for Pep mostly, about how you build up attacks and how you win the ball back after losing it. Cancelo excels In these aspects of Pep's way of defending. Wake up and smell the coffee.

In fairness, if you watch Cucurella highlights (you'd quickly notice how adept he is at doing these things.) Especially the early pressure, win the ball back quickly stuff. Which is more impressive particularly because It doesn't seem this is something Brighton does as a tactical choice. So Cucu just seem to do it naturally and to his teams advantage.

That said, I agree Cancelo is a very good defender. Frankly, I have more issues with his decision making on the ball than off it

 

[Nicholas van Whatsisface]

Without wanting to come across all Liverpool Echo on this, my biggest concern was that we’d try and drag this out til the end of the window as a negotiation tactic in the hope Brighton would blink and reduce their valuation.

Which I don’t think was ever going to happen - leaving it way too late to bring in an alternative.

At least if he actually moves to Chelsea, we know he’s gone - which will force us to look at alternatives with plenty of time left to agree a deal.

So - here’s my take - why Cucurella moving to Chelsea is good for City!

 

[CorporateBlue]

When your richest club in the world it doesn’t really . Look I get walking away as we are not to be held to ransom but in todays game £5-£10 mill is chump change .

It doesn’t matter whether we have the money or not, we have a policy of sticking to our valuations. Transfers either get done within those valuation ranges or we move on ..

 

[Cucu]

What are you guys on? Cucurella is 1.7m/5’8” he’s not playing CB regularly. Even in a 3 that’s far too small

After we sold Dan Burn he played LCB quite a bit. He's relatively small, but jumps very well and has good positional sense. I think he played LCB in all bar one of our last 8 games (last season), during which time we conceded only 8 goals. Overall last season only the top 4 (plus Wolves) conceded fewer goals than BHA. And actually, when he played in a three the right-sided CB was Veltman, who plays most of the time as a FB - so on paper we were exposed, but in practice it worked really well....especially when you also add in the fact that Cucurella gets forward a lot.