Ruben Dias - Benfica confirm sale to City

[Neville Kneville]

Stones was bought for 50m, and no one would currently pay more than 20-25m for him, he needs to fight for his place, get good form and then hope for a move. Him staying is his best opportunity of redeeming himself at the highest level, else he'll just end up back at a non top 6 club to see out his career.

Early in the window, replacing Stones would have been perfect.

Now I'm just hoping Stones gets his shit together then we have 4 cbs genuinely competing & plenty of games to play them.

 

[Neville Kneville]

So basically he is a good defender, a leader, intelligent, reads the game well, not lightning quick but also not slow and not an amazing passer but still still better than most centre backs.... Is that not a description on Kompany?

Very good passer.

 

[leo_city]

In my opinion this type of aggressive defending is getting phased out in modern day football with the use of VAR & protection/advantage given towards the attacker.

I would prefer an athletic defender who can keep up with the forward play & not dive in.

Whilst Dias doesn’t appear to be no slouch, I fear he hasn’t been exposed to playing in a high line defense such as ours where if you go aggressive & lose out you’re literally the last line of defense with lots of green ahead.

Have to agree with Pep’s earlier comments it’s a tough job to be a defender in his team & you almost have to be a perfect specimen which really doesn’t exist.

Can see why a lot of people liked Koundé for his athleticism & calm, but effective defending. The trade off with Dias seems to be leadership & presence he brings to the table & backline, which the former needs to develop & we have lacked since Vinny left.

Also think Benfica being the only team so far who seems to be willing to accept Otamendi as part of a deal & therefore getting him off our books is attractive to us.

Totally get that mate, agree to a degree. But look at every top team that challenges for CL. There's one defender who's the leader, more aggressive, stronger presence, and the guy beside him is the guy passing and playing it neat, keeping it clean.

Koundé and Laporte would be too similar. Dias and Laporte however is a good combination, Dias the aggressive, no nonsense defender who can also play out from the back, while Laporte is the pure ball playing centre half helping us in build up while giving the backline solid support.

Almost every top CL team has this balance, look at Ramos (leader, aggressive) and Varane. Same with VVD and Gomez/Matip, and so on. Plenty examples. It's the correct balance, I like Koundé a lot as I said, and I get the concerns with Dias, but if not Koulibaly, this is a good move. For the rest, I can only hope it works out and trust Pep and co.

 

[oldius]

Early in the window, replacing Stones would have been perfect.

Now I'm just hoping Stones gets his shit together then we have 4 cbs genuinely competing & plenty of games to play them.

Competition between defenders will be a very positive thing. We haven't really had that for a while with some players out of favour.

 

[BillyShears]

So basically he is a good defender, a leader, intelligent, reads the game well, not lightning quick but also not slow and not an amazing passer but still still better than most centre backs.... Is that not a description on Kompany?

It's a huge weight to put around a young player's neck to suggest that he's going to be as good as Vinny. That's the dream obviously. I think it's been posted elsewhere in this thread but has no history of injuries, not even little ones, and he has 1 red card in his whole career. I think Vinny was more athletic than him though.

Oh and Vinny was 23 when he joined us and so is Dias.

 

[City Raider]

If Dias was our number one target it wouldn’t have emerged a week before the deadline. Why would we brief sources close to the club about KK and other targets all summer to then move for our supposed number one target a week before the deadline?

There’s talk Dias has been our main target for some time. Maybe things have changed at Benfica recently, they needed the money and realised we were about to spend elsewhere. It happens.

Truth is, no-one on here knows, inc me. Above maybe bollocks!

 

[chesterguy]

Hell have an annual transfer budget. if we spend less, then just like the pisscan did he'll receive a percentage of how much under budget we spend. Any transfer fees in will be offset against the budget.

I agree entirely. My point is we fans have no idea who we were after but lots of our fans seem to know because some interested party has tweeted something. The scouting of a player factors into it many things character of the player his quality but also takes into account budgets. We will have identified a number of potential key targets but they will all be judged on those criteria but as far as I am aware no one apart from our key leaders knows all those factors

 

[leo_city]

Early in the window, replacing Stones would have been perfect.

Now I'm just hoping Stones gets his shit together then we have 4 cbs genuinely competing & plenty of games to play them.

Tbf I think having Stones as a backup option when you consider a Garcia or Harwood-Bellis is quite a massive difference. He's not world class but he'd be a starter at most clubs in Prem bar top 6 (I'd even say Chelsea right now), this can only be good for him and push him to work hard. Also benefits us, if he stays fit he will no doubt be involved, having less pressure and being out of the spotlight will definitely help him as well.

 

[Claytop]

It's a huge weight to put around a young player's neck to suggest that he's going to be as good as Vinny. That's the dream obviously. I think it's been posted elsewhere in this thread but has no history of injuries, not even little ones, and he has 1 red card in his whole career. I think Vinny was more athletic than him though.

Oh and Vinny was 23 when he joined us and so is Dias.

We’ll drum that out of him don’t worry..

 

[Txiki Txiki Bang Bang]

Early in the window, replacing Stones would have been perfect.

Now I'm just hoping Stones gets his shit together then we have 4 cbs genuinely competing & plenty of games to play them.

4 strong CB- Ake, Stones, Dias, Laporte. We can mix and match them up however pep wants, I see us repeating the fourmidable season again. Just need to ride out the injury phase, I think its a good thing we are having these injuries right now, looking at our run of games, the only tricky game we have is the Arsenal game, by the time we play the dippers, dinho would have fully settled back into his natural position, Ferran would have adjusted to the league and who knows maybe the dippers might have a couple injuries of their own (hardly happens though, I wonder if they are a team of super humans).
We just need to be at the top or at least 2 or 3 points behind the top team when we face the "greatest pl team of all time".