#6 | Nathan Aké - 2020/21 Performances

[Dr Jacoby]

Excellent for the first hour but looked ragged in the last 20 minutes. To be fair, he was having to cover a lot of ground as James was having a lot of joy against Mendy.

I still think we overpaid for someone who’s going to struggle to be a first team regular.

 

[mccity]

He was fine for the first hour. The problem was that Tuchel targeted him in the 2nd half.

In the 1st half he was great, except for one moment. Once, he got caught trying to defend far too high and they got in behind Mendy. That was enough to clue in Tuchel as to what needed to be done.

Much of the 2nd half was Chelsea getting Aké out of position so they could exploit the space behind Mendy without Aké being about to cover.

This was where the tactical battle was lost for us today.

 

[Logan91]

Well out of his depth at this club.

Chelsea targeted our left side knowing him and mendy were our weak links today.

Doesn’t look confident passing, rarely looks forward to play a pass, missed plenty of opportunities to go forward but instead opted to play backwards.

Really thought he’d offer us something when we bought him but in my opinion it’s been a waste of money signing him and it’s also blocked an opportunity for an academy player to come through and get game time.

 

[Lavinda Past]

He's a decent squad player who was hung out to dry by Pep as soon as Mendy's name appeared on the teamsheet.

 

[LongsightM13]

I thought he was really good until he ran out of steam, but as posted in the post match thread, he has started Leicester, Leeds and tonight at home in the league this season. Maybe just coincidence but odd.

I said the same thing. Correlation doesn’t necessarily equate to causation and it’s hard to pinpoint many glaring blunders but he has been on the premises for many of our very worst performances. He was very poor for West Brom’s equaliser at our place in November

 

[WestGorton]

Did well but Mendy was repeatedly skinned by James and he was constantly covering. I like him.

 

[WestGorton]

He is a left full back not a centre half.

 

[pudge]

I thought he played well, in a hybrid type position and a formation that I'm sure he's not much experience of.

The issue for me was he was blowing out his arse after an hour, understandably, but was kept on

 

[Brewster's millions]

His signing made more sense in a pre-Dias world but he seems quite a limited player to me, or at least lacking in the confidence that he will need to succeed at City. He obviously didn’t get any favours from playing next to Mendy today but he seems to lack the strength required to play as a centre half, and doesn’t have the pace to play at left back.

We need to see if he can do a job at left back because if he can’t, then he seems a bit of an odd signing and wouldn’t have an obvious role in the squad.

 

[Millwallawayveteran1988]

I think had Pep known how good Stones was going to be this season, he probably wouldn’t have signed him. He hasn’t played enough to form a real opinion and when he does play, it’s always in these thrown together 8/9 changes sides which don’t help. Whether this signing will work out long term is debatable at this stage. Niggly injuries haven’t helped.