Denayer was completely mismanaged. I know Pre-season flatters to deceive but he looked amazing, so calm from the back. To buy Demichelis was insulting and since the injuries at Galatasary, being played at RB and being loaned out to Sunderland, it completely shot his confidence. He's still only 24, convinced he'll become a very good CB.
THB & Garcia are excellent prospect and fit the Pep mould for a CB very well. THB's not John Stones but he has great composure.
You all may be right about Denayer, yet he didn't have a stellar season last year, according to WhoScored, at least, yet we know he has some qualities. He's 24 now so we'll see what happens.
Pellegrini clearly wanted to stick someone more experienced and trusted so with MDM he knew and as I recall was fairly key for us the season we won the title in 13-14 and did pretty well even in 14-15.
Was Denayer ready after the Celtic season? He was still quite young and we signed Mangala for a lot of money the season before and he hadn't really shown what was expected, clearly. The investment was heavy and I suspect there was concern about carrying 2 suspect, inexperienced CBs. MDM had flaws, but he was experienced and Pelegrini and he got along well.
I think it was our investment in Mangala that blocked Denayer more so than MDM. MDM was a cheap stop gap. We got him for practically nothing as I recall, and again was a Pellegrini manager on the pitch. Isn't that also part of the story for Denayer?
We still gave him a fairly big contract at the time, and he went to Turkey for a year where, let's be real, he didn't perform up to expectations. He eventually went to Lyon after years of mediocre performances in the Turkish league. He can pass, has potential and is a Francophone so Lyon took a chance on him after a little improvement over time.
We know Denayer did well at Celtic in 14-15 but it's hard not to forget it was also alongside VVD, yet, again, we can't deny he's a good passer for a centre half, but in terms of defence, he is a bit suspectx.
I hear the concern, and probably agreed then, but TBF to Pellegrini he was under massive pressure to win and probably felt that way about his own career given his limited window with Pep to follow. I think Pellegrini was under more pressure even more so than Pep (other than Pep's first season) and that's the story of Manuel going with more experienced players such as MDM who he knew well, and did a good job generally despite his age.
The reality is we were in a really large hole regarding our centre half situation at the time, and that includes Vinny as we know because of his injury problems. We also had slow aging fullbacks and overly relied on Fernandinho to cover the defenders' and sad to say Yaya's mistakes/diminished work rate as he aged, which was impossible even in Dinho's prime years for us under Pellegrini in a 2 man midfield.
We signed Nico for a pretty hefty fee that was lower only because Velencia owed us money for Negredo. This was after his season where he was "the best" at stopping Messi and "the best" defender in La Liga, but we learned quickly in his first season how reckless he could be, particularly going to ground too often for tackles.
Pep also learned all of the problems with our defence quickly in his first season as we know well and led us to spend massive cash we are still ridiculed for on 3 FB's and Laporte over 2 windows after the 1st season under Pep.
That's generally why we let Denayer go. He wasn't clearly up for a PL side who wants to win the title and struggled with defending. Pep saw him in one or 2 preseasons, I think, no? Something led to doubts.
Stones (already showing skill in the PL and someone Pep had high hopes for) and Laporte were better defenders than Jason. Whether in the air which at the time was still a dominant aspect of PL clubs or positioning and tackling whilst still being good at playing it out of the back/on the ground. I don't think Jason's been considered as strong as the other two, who are all about the same age.
