#3 | Rúben Dias - 2020/21 Performances

[Le Havre Oswald]

Scary that he's only 23!

Gonna be an absolute legend for us

 

[alexmcity]

Without Dias we conceded 6 goals in the first 2 PL games. Since his arrival we have conceded just 7 goals in 16 PL games with 10 clean sheets to boot. Incredible. Our defensive stats over the last 20 games are comparable to Chelsea's from their 04/05 season. Let's hope we will maintain our current defensive form and add more goals with Aguero and Jesus regaining form over the next months.

 

[OB1]

Dias is a fucking amazing player and Txiki and team deserve all the credit in the world for signing him, but he obviously wasn't the first choice. We spent months negotiating with Napoli for Koulibaly - per literally every single person connected to the club, from Mullock and that crew, to Tolmie, to everyone. I dont know why we need to pretend otherwise, who cares?

Do you know who Omar Berrada is? He said: "The truth is we never were in negotiations with his club (Napoli)".

 

[itisrising]

We just pulled off such a ridiculous coup it isn't funny. All the top teams are going to look for the next great CB with the likes of Ramos, Pique, Chiellini etc coming close to the end of their careers and we've managed to sign Dias with no fuss. His signing could genuinely be the catalyst for a sustained period of dominance.

 

[itisrising]

Do you know who Omar Berrada is? He said: "The truth is we never were in negotiations with his club (Napoli)".

Yes, because we weren't negotiating with Napoli, we were negotiating with Koulibaly's agent who was acting as an intermediary. Dias was absolutely not first choice.

 

[OB1]

"He was our number one target in that sense". So not in the sense of being our actual number one target, but being our number 1 target when his price got cut in half.

We already know that the club refused to negotiate with Napoli directly after Jorginho and were doing all negotiations through Koulibaly's agent as a 3rd party. I know you were in the transfer threads every day, so you know that.



Yes, because our attempts to sign other CB's failed, and he unexpectedly came on the market 10 days before the window shut.

I don't think for one minute you seriously believe the club rested it's entire CB buying strategy on waiting until late September to see if Benfica had a shock result and Dias became affordable. They were trying to buy other players.

I'm not sure why some people are trying to pretend this was a masterfully planned transfer where we identified one player who suited us and went out and got him and he fitted straight away. It wasn't like that at all, it was messy and a bit lucky and now we get to enjoy that bit of good fortune for hopefully 10+ years.


He's a world class player, you don't have to create a myth around how he got here.

Now you are trying to attribute thoughts to me that aren't mine.

Of course we got lucky that Dias became available and we were looking at other options but I'm sure that was because we didn't believe Benfica would deal with us at a remotely sensible price. Benfica had no intention of selling and City knew that.

However, City were linked with Dias over year ago I believe. Dias fits the profile of player we prefer to sign so well that why you think he wasn't preferred to the likes of an aging KK, I don't know.

 

[TFC]

Couldnt give a fuck if he was first choice or not, we have got ourselves a worldie.

 

[OB1]

Yes, because we weren't negotiating with Napoli, we were negotiating with Koulibaly's agent who was acting as an intermediary. Dias was absolutely not first choice.

In the case of Ruben Dias, he has been on our list for a long time. We always felt his valuation in previous seasons — and his buyout clause, which I think was €88 million — was too high. This year, we were able to negotiate a deal with Benfica..”

Re KK:

“The truth is we never were in negotiations with his club. It was very interesting to see the amount of noise that was coming out from certain media outlets and social media…”

“I smiled because there were certain instances where people were reporting that the deal was agreed, done, about to happen, he was going to be announced in a few days, when we were never in touch at all with Napoli about him. He’s definitely a top player so some consideration was given, but within some parameters that were very clear to us, and those parameters never came into play so he was never really considered…”

 

[OB1]

Couldnt give a fuck if he was first choice or not, we have got ourselves a worldie.

Fair point, well made.

 

[itisrising]

In the case of Ruben Dias, he has been on our list for a long time. We always felt his valuation in previous seasons — and his buyout clause, which I think was €88 million — was too high. This year, we were able to negotiate a deal with Benfica..”

Re KK:

“The truth is we never were in negotiations with his club. It was very interesting to see the amount of noise that was coming out from certain media outlets and social media…”

“I smiled because there were certain instances where people were reporting that the deal was agreed, done, about to happen, he was going to be announced in a few days, when we were never in touch at all with Napoli about him. He’s definitely a top player so some consideration was given, but within some parameters that were very clear to us, and those parameters never came into play so he was never really considered…”

Essentially saying Napoli didn't reduce their asking price so a deal was never that close. But Koulibaly was our primary target. We just eventually moved on to Kounde and then Dias because of the valuation issue. If KK was available for 55m + Otamendi, he'd be playing for us right now.