Mateo Kovacic

[Xhavenjoe]

Funnily enough, at the time we were apparently in for Rose and Walker, a spurs fan told me he thought Rose was the better player…….

Rose probably was at the time.
Trippier was supposedly better too.
Walker has improved so much since he came to us, obviously under the guidance if Pep whilst Rose went the opposite way.
Its a bit like all those " great" centrebacks at Chelsea who were rated above Ake.

 

[threadkiller]

Which is why we shouldn’t always seek to press them so far back that we end up restricting our own space. It has its moments, but if the midfield is younger and faster, it can play more ways. If we drop 5 yards, they’ll come up 5; if we drop 10, they’ll come up 10.

They don't though. We drop back 10 yards and they regroup and say 'OK, you're 10 yrds further back, now what are you gonna do?' teams are a lot more comfortable letting us have possession than they were at the start of the Pep project, and it shows - we don't really score 5/6 goals a game anymore.

 

[IrishBlueSince92]

How creative is Kovacic?

 

[Willo the Wisp]

He never really blossomed,bit of a prick.

Rose also had some thorny issues with commitment and effort

 

[Coatigan]

How creative is Kovacic?

Here is what I know, that for me is all I need to know to get me 'excited' about this one.

- Pep wants him. Now, in 2023, at City.
- Pep wanted him in 2018, we were strongly linked with him before he moved from Real Madrid to Chelsea
- Pep wanted him in 2014 at Bayern, when Kovacic was at Inter, before he eventually moved to Real Madrid.
- It is a position Pep knows pretty damn well and the one position he rarely gets wrong. He seems very much a Pep type player, if nothing else by the documented long standing interest.

Not sure what 'creative' covers and if it a metric that can apply to him, but he is no dumb brute. He is a highly technical player with decent vision and footballing intellect. From what I've seen, which in fairness has been more at the world cups than for Chelsea.

 

[clarion]

How creative is Kovacic?

He is not creative.

 

[HalfwayUpTheKippax]

He is not creative.

...yet

 

[Gumzy97]

Hopefully he shows more of this.

 

[Blackley_Blue]

Hopefully he shows more of this.

He should have loads more assists based on that clip alone. Some shite finishing there!

Imagine Haaland on the end of some of those!

 

[akrh215]

Stats are cute but no one can come close to mr whippy. He is a hybrid of xavi/ lampard/David Silva.Some of his spins and turns reminds me of David. Huge miss and irreplaceable.

Just like the much better David Silva, he was also irreplaceable, right?