Nathan Ake

[Dr Jacoby]

On present form, he’s an upgrade on Stones and Otamendi.

 

[Ederson's smiley tattoo]

On present form, he’s an upgrade on Stones and Otamendi.

On present form Eric Garcia or THB would probably do a better job

 

[Malekith]

Good player with room to improve, but too injury prone for my liking.

 

[mosssideblue]

On present form, he’s an upgrade on Stones and Otamendi.

Until someone who has played for us, how on earth can you claim he would be an upgrade?

 

[haugemcfc]

We have to buy the Best partner for laporte
Not the second Best

 

[tommybooth]

Not for me thanks.

 

[TikiTaka]

He is 180 which for a centreback is nothing. We could might as well put Bernardo as a CB, he would be just as effective in the air. And he is left footed. We already have Laporte. Now we’re looking for a partner to Laporte. Not a partner to Stones. Fake news. I fkng hope so!

 

[Delphinho]

he knows we need a CB, so why isn't he addressing the issue?

Because Laporte is likely to be back in january, at least early february. We have absolutely no chance of winning the PL, and our defence should be good enough to finish top 4. No point really of buying a CB at the time Laporte returns. If Laporte can stay injury free, we could rotate between playing Stones/Ota/Dinho/Garcia/THB/Rodri to play alongside him

 

[Zenmanc]

He is 180 which for a centreback is nothing. We could might as well put Bernardo as a CB, he would be just as effective in the air.

I'm not at all in favor of signing Ake either but this is ridiculous.

 

[domalino]

Because Laporte is likely to be back in january, at least early february. We have absolutely no chance of winning the PL, and our defence should be good enough to finish top 4. No point really of buying a CB at the time Laporte returns. If Laporte can stay injury free, we could rotate between playing Stones/Ota/Dinho/Garcia/THB/Rodri to play alongside him

That doesn't make sense.

We know Pep wanted Maguire in the summer, he wanted another CB over what we had when Laporte was fit. Even if Laporte comes back tomorrow, we need a new CB.

Also, the league is over, fine, lets get a CB to win the CL like Liverpool did with Van Dijk, who was pretty much the only reason they got to the final in his first season. No one is cup tied anymore, bad CB play has cost us the CL in the last 3 seasons.

 

[TikiTaka]

I'm not at all in favor of signing Ake either but this is ridiculous.

Explain how 1.8m Nathan Ake would do against 1.93m Van Dijk? He wouldn’t stand a chance. Height is crucial for a centreback.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Give it a rest, Van Dijk is top quality, he was at Celtic, he was at Southampton and now at Liverpool.

Every time he has stepped up to a better team/league he has improved, always a sign of a quality player.

And off to Real or Barca, or can he not find anywhere that would be an improvment? I didn't suggest he was rubbish. And as for resting, my fingers won't rest from drawing attention to the fact that Virgil can escape a red card and conceding at least one pen when VAR consistently deems other players and other teams to have infringed the LotG in a manner similar to their Dutchman.

 

[Zenmanc]

Explain how 1.8m Nathan Ake would do against 1.93m Van Dijk? He wouldn’t stand a chance. Height is crucial for a centreback.

Not the point. You said Bernardo at CB would be just as good and as dangerous in the air at CB.

 

[Dr Jacoby]

Until someone who has played for us, how on earth can you claim he would be an upgrade?

So, you don’t believe Van Dijk would be an upgrade on Stones?

 

[blueparrot]

Explain how 1.8m Nathan Ake would do against 1.93m Van Dijk? He wouldn’t stand a chance. Height is crucial for a centreback.

Puyol

 

[domalino]

Puyol

Puyol did play almost universally in La Liga though, and even Guardiola has said the Premier League has different requirements because there's so many more aerial balls.

If 24 y/o Puyol was available, you'd take him anyway because he had absolutely everything else and leapt like a salmon to compensate, but is Aké really Puyol reincarnate?

The other thing is you've got to look at the squad we already have. Otamendi is short, Fernandinho is short, Garcia is short, Stones is technically tall but so weak in the air he plays like he's short.

If you buy Aké, we're going to be a very short back 4 if Laporte is out. Could you imagine an Aké-Garcia parnership in the premier league? I'd rather we bought a big fucker if given the choice, and then we've got options between little and large pairings, or 2 big bastards.

Edit - Also Aké is 100% a left sided player, and left footed so can he play with Laporte? Maguire was left sided but right footed so I could see him making the change over, but Ake I'm not sure about.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

Yeah as much as I don't want us to be buying players purely for their height, when so much of the rest of the team are smaller, you'd hope to have a commanding presence at CB. If we had a lot of other taller players, it might be less of an issue. But we only have Rodri, Laporte and Stones that are 6'2 or above.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

Perhaps we should have bought Mings??

 

[TikiTaka]

Not the point. You said Bernardo at CB would be just as good and as dangerous in the air at CB.

oh you didn’t understand I wasn’t serious?

 

[blueparrot]

Puyol did play almost universally in La Liga though, and even Guardiola has said the Premier League has different requirements because there's so many more aerial balls.

If 24 y/o Puyol was available, you'd take him anyway because he had absolutely everything else and leapt like a salmon to compensate, but is Aké really Puyol reincarnate?

The other thing is you've got to look at the squad we already have. Otamendi is short, Fernandinho is short, Garcia is short, Stones is technically tall but so weak in the air he plays like he's short.

If you buy Aké, we're going to be a very short back 4 if Laporte is out. Could you imagine an Aké-Garcia parnership in the premier league? I'd rather we bought a big fucker if given the choice, and then we've got options between little and large pairings, or 2 big bastards.

Edit - Also Aké is 100% a left sided player, and left footed so can he play with Laporte? Maguire was left sided but right footed so I could see him making the change over, but Ake I'm not sure about.

Agree about the left footed bit, the height not so much, I don’t even know if he's good enough or a target however height isn't a barrier. If Puyol or Cannavaro were to play next to Laporte I’d be happy. I was really just saying a great cb doesn’t always need to be tall, wasn’t specifically talking about Ake.