Nathan Ake

Whether this is good or bad news depends on how sad Ake is that it didn’t go through. If he’s not that arsed then great, I’m glad he’s staying. It is quite rare though to be offered £40m-45m (or whatever they offered) for a 4th choice CB. So I don’t know if it would have been better to sell and get someone cheaper in. I don’t know. I think there were positives to either outcome. Not really sure what to think.

I think anything under £45m would not have been worth it. At all. Over £50m to get it going. Anything inbetween is 'maybe, not too bad, a bit of a hit not to stand in the player's way, best we could get for a player wanting out etc etc' territory.

It seems chelsea wouldn't go high enough. Possible the player also got partially cold feet seeing them after lots of other CBs.

The only thing he has publicly said on this is he hopes to fight for his place in the squad and play more, so he has nothing to go back on.

If Pep wasn't convinced on his commitment, the club would be accepting the lower end of the valuarion or giving Chelsea more time to get there imo.
 
Good decision. What's the point in selling him just to use all the money to sign someone of possible similar quality and wait for them to bed in via the limited opportunities they'll get.
Ake showed at the back end of the season that he's settled into the teams way of playing and there was no drop off in quality whenever he played, in fact we improved defensively on that side of the pitch.
 
Not sure about this, that fee was ridiculous and we'll never get anything close to it again.

He is 4th choice for a reason and we could've used that fee to bring in a real top CB. The question mark here is of course if a top CB would come without a guaranteed starting place but seeing how often we rotate I'm sure we could've convinced someone.

Anyway, he is still a good squad player but I feel Chelsea was giving us a way to upgrade.
 
I got to the point where I preferred Nathan to remain instead of Raheem. It's very good news.

There's a logic to your position. I was in a very similar one. Not because I in any way underestimate what Raheem has done. Love the lad. Just because it seemed to be the right time, for him, and for us. Aké's a different story altogether. He's still got a job to do for us, and if injuries continue (him included, of course) an important one.
 
Excellent news. I think this is the best for all parties concerned. As a Chelsea fan, I will always have a soft spot for Ake, and was buzzing for him when he got his move to City, but it made very little sense to pay the price City want for him for three main reasons.

1. He's too expensive and he likely would not command a starting spot for very long.
2. He would block Levi Colwill's pathway and he's simply not good enough to mess with Colwill's development for.
3. City would likely go out and buy a better defender, so we would be directly helping City improve. I saw links to Torres and Gvardiol.
 
He is 4th choice for a reason and we could've used that fee to bring in a real top CB. The question mark here is of course if a top CB would come without a guaranteed starting place but seeing how often we rotate I'm sure we could've convinced someone.

I think you've answered your own question. Not at all convinced that we could have convinced a top-class centre back to be anything other than a starter in most matches.
Maguire, maybe. If you want him…
 
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