34 minutes ago, ducavis said:

Pep is a big fan, and Kompany is on the way out.

CB's of Stones and Christensen, any ST with a tiny bit of strength would have a field day.

44 minutes ago, ducavis said:

Pep is a big fan, and Kompany is on the way out.

But he's not going to walk into the City first team, even if Kompany left. 

Stones, Laporte and Otamendi would all be ahead of him because they're (currently) better players. So why swap the bench for Chelsea where you're only behind two players to move to City where you'd be behind three? 

1 hour ago, ForeverCarefree said:

But he's not going to walk into the City first team, even if Kompany left. 

Stones, Laporte and Otamendi would all be ahead of him because they're (currently) better players. So why swap the bench for Chelsea where you're only behind two players to move to City where you'd be behind three? 

City have like 100 players and manage to keep them all happy cause they rotate frequently. 

54 minutes ago, Remodez said:

City have like 100 players and manage to keep them all happy cause they rotate frequently. 

Point I’m making is if he is looking to leave in search of regular football then Man City isn’t the answer.

Sure he’ll get 20/25 games but is that what he wants? 

But other than City because allegedly Pep rates him what big clubs realistically are going to be in for him? Dortmund maybe? 

Other than that I think he’s got to take a step down to be considered outright first choice whereas a bit of patience at Chelsea and he can still establish himself as first choice because come next season Cahill won’t be here and Luiz isn’t likely to be playing every week and gets into the later stages of his career. 

If Pep wants Christensen then surely that shows he has faith in him to play the ball out from the back?

I’m not very confident in him but surely it won’t be long till he get more chances. David Luiz is on the wrong side of 30, Cahill on his way out.

For me he is completely top drawer. We cant afford to lose another major talent. Surely he should be starting some Prem games too, hes definately a better defender than luiz, at purely defending.

5 hours ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Point I’m making is if he is looking to leave in search of regular football then Man City isn’t the answer.

Sure he’ll get 20/25 games but is that what he wants? 

But other than City because allegedly Pep rates him what big clubs realistically are going to be in for him? Dortmund maybe? 

Other than that I think he’s got to take a step down to be considered outright first choice whereas a bit of patience at Chelsea and he can still establish himself as first choice because come next season Cahill won’t be here and Luiz isn’t likely to be playing every week and gets into the later stages of his career. 

Not having a pop at Sarri but we are the team that rotates the least in the Top 6. 

We tend to underrate our youth prospects which I find a bit strange. Take Nathan Ake for example;  he has been putting in top performances regularly, and is currently been linked with Utd & Spurs which I can see happening.

14 hours ago, dansubrosa said:

If Pep wants Christensen then surely that shows he has faith in him to play the ball out from the back?

I don't think it's a question of whether Christensen can play out from the back or not. He's generally quite assured on the ball and regularly finishes games with a pass success rate of 90%. 

But he's quite conservative with the ball, generally plays the ball safe and tends to go sideways and backwards with it quite a lot. If you're looking for your centre back to recycling possession he's great but his range of passing (or at least his confidence in execution) is very limited. How often do you see him get his head up and ping a pass diagonally 20/30/40 yards cross field? It's pretty rare... Whereas Rudiger and Luiz will do that a few times every game which gives more variation to your attacks. 

It might be that were he to join City, he's not expected to make those sort of passes, it could be that they'd be happy with him playing it safe at the back and delegating the responsibility of moving the team forwards to other players. 

11 hours ago, ducavis said:

Not having a pop at Sarri but we are the team that rotates the least in the Top 6. 

We tend to underrate our youth prospects which I find a bit strange. Take Nathan Ake for example;  he has been putting in top performances regularly, and is currently been linked with Utd & Spurs which I can see happening.

We've got a long history of managers who do not rotate very much. Could be that our general demand of instantaneous success prompts managers into that sort of habit. Sarri come to Chelsea with a reputation of not rotating very much and perhaps it's something he needs to improve, had he rotated his Napoli team a little more would they have faltered towards the end of the seasons allowing Juventus to get ahead of them? 

I agree we've been far too short sighted with selling certain players, Ake being a recent example. There's no questioning the boy has talent but it seems like as soon as a player builds a bit of a reputation and expresses a desire to leave we ship them out rather than trying our best to incorporate them and keep hold of them in the hopes they fulfill their potential.  

Lukaku was a good example of this, selling him when our striking options were a 33 year old Eto'o, Torres and Demba Ba was extremely shortsighted by us. 

I don't see the general situation with young players being given more playing time changing until we stop getting rid of managers ever couple of years. We all know that its highly likely Sarri will be gone if he we haven't won the title by the end of next season.  Under such pressure, he might as well go with experienced players and try for the instant success demanded by the club. 

It's a complicated situation quite honestly, he has bags of talent and I think it's inevitable if he goes on to massively improve at another club, but at the moment he's not ready to play in this team. I don't think we can risk playing him either, he's more error prone than David Luiz in this system. 

I'm really not sure what more we can do, we've given him some games and whenever he has played he looks terrible, very uncomfortable. People can get caught up with pass % rates by centre-backs, that doesn't mean anything, there will be many centre-backs who have a better pass % than David Luiz, that does not make them a better distributor of the ball. Luiz just takes more risks because he can, he's excellent at playing diagonal balls, same with Rudiger. Christensen however, can not, he looks nervous on the ball and can't wait to get rid of it as soon as it gets to his feet. You'll notice attackers swarm him when he has the ball because opposite sides know this, against Liverpool there were so many signs of this and he eventually did give a dodgy pass away to Sturridge which he should have easily have scored from.

All we can do is hope he impresses and gets his act together in the limited games he gets, if he keeps making mistakes in those games then we can't play him.

Talk of him being "nervous on the ball". If true, it's a massive problem  to overcome in a league like the premiership. That's the kind of problem one might expect from a 16/17 year old, not one of his age.

Rumor that Sarri wants another young CB as a top priority, which makes things look even bleaker for Christiensen's prospects at Chelsea. 

Christensen (and RLC) have been on our books for some years now and this season should have been the season where they pushed on. Sadly, they both look like they're going backwards again and that's something neither player can afrord to be doing at this very important time in their careers. Again, sadly, I cannot see either of them making it at Chelsea now and I think we should be looking to move both on.  Time to start looking at the next generation and see if any of them have what it takes. 

Wow, cant believe what i read on here half the time. It will be the same people saying he isnt up to scratch, coming out saying we shouldnt have sold him, when he goes on to be a top top defender. Because that will happen if we do sell him. 

In the 3 games hes played the team have only conceeded 1 goal. It would be easy to point out some of the opposition, but they are still competitive matches. And bar a few little moments here and there he has been very solid. We cant afford to keep losing our biggest talents.

He isn't nervous on the ball at all. 

He loves taking lots of touches on the ball, and getting his head up. Too much for this system IMO. It's noticeable how much he slows down play when he is in the team. People in front of him stop moving because he's going to take a lot of touches. 

He is very conservative with his passing too. That's especially true compared to Luiz, who plays very quickly and looks to make things happen (which is great in this system). I think Christensen would have suited Jose better, and did suit Conte better. Luiz suits Sarri a lot more than Andreas.  

What I didn't think I'd be saying last season is: Luiz looks a better defender right now too. There is no way you can drop Luiz for Christensen. In all honesty, this is the best Luiz has played for us, over both spells. I've never been "a fan" of his, but he is playing brilliantly right now. I don't know if it's the more open style suiting his pro-activeness, or if he's "just clicked" with Rudiger, or what, but he's been great this season. 

Of course, if Christensen leaves, it'll be another KDB, Lukaku or Salah...because there is an absolutely top player in there. I think he's a gem. There was a top player in all of those three and we all saw it (well, maybe not Salah, even his biggest fan didn't see him having a 40 goal season in the Prem)...but the people in front of them were playing better, and Luiz is playing better than Christensen.

There is something about us that means players in that situation don't seem to wait it out. TBH I think it's a boardroom thing of trying to play moneyball and selling unhappy players at a certain value; rather than risking them running down their contract, letting them be unhappy for a season or more, and punting that they'll come good later (as Utd have seemed willing to do with Luke Shaw, for example). 

if we are gonna sell him, I think selling him with a ironclad buyback clause is best for everyone. and also not selling him to any premier league rival. 

In that case if there is some sort of situation where he massively improves, we can get him back relatively cheap and we get first dibs over any other teams coming back for him

1 hour ago, JJP said:

if we are gonna sell him, I think selling him with a ironclad buyback clause is best for everyone. and also not selling him to any premier league rival. 

In that case if there is some sort of situation where he massively improves, we can get him back relatively cheap and we get first dibs over any other teams coming back for him

Buybacks mean sh*t if the player doesnt want to come back. 

Heres a question, who would rather have Nathan Ake or Christensen?.

Both ideally but I've always preferred Ake as his passing is more adventurous and he can play multiple positions. 

48 minutes ago, jack_super_class said:

Heres a question, who would rather have Nathan Ake or Christensen?.

 

44 minutes ago, Remodez said:

Both ideally but I've always preferred Ake as his passing is more adventurous and he can play multiple positions. 

Agree with Remodez on this one. 

Ake was a player, a bit like Ampadu, that regardless of how the rest of the team played or where on the pitch he played he impressed me. 

I was surprised we let Ake go personally, I thought he was showing a lot of promise and am still a bit confussed why we let him go so easily. Probably one of the best players to have come through the academy in the last 10 years. 

Didn't he want more playing time than we could guarantee him?

1 hour ago, yorkleyblue said:

Didn't he want more playing time than we could guarantee him?

Most likely, the money we sold him for though helped us to get Rudiger though so i cant complain.

The Christensen’s are spouting off in the media about playing time again. 

Wouldnt it be nice every once in a while to hear “it’s my job to make the manager pick me, and I’ll do that by working hard in training and taking advantage of my opportunities in games”

naive... I know. 

5 hours ago, Skinnedy said:

The Christensen’s are spouting off in the media about playing time again. 

Wouldnt it be nice every once in a while to hear “it’s my job to make the manager pick me, and I’ll do that by working hard in training and taking advantage of my opportunities in games”

naive... I know. 

Look at Fabregas under Conte. He didn’t fancy Cesc but Cesc worked hard to force his way into the team. 

The sad thing is that I don’t see that same type of attitude from RLC and Christensen. They just  want to be given chances easily. 

Edited October 19, 20187 yr by JM7

Lots of people criticising his attitude but who can blame a young player for wanting to play.

The manager clearly favours Rudiger and Luiz. Even Cahill has been on the bench ahead of him in recent weeks.

I would be doing completely the same if I was his dad in helping him try and move.

I think he will move on and I don't blame him.

Let's hope he doesn't turn out to be world class elsewhere.

Ake made a similar move a couple of years ago and I'm not surprised to see him linked with a £40m transfer this week to Spurs. It would be horrible to watch him become a success there.

3 hours ago, Nickcook26 said:

 

Lots of people criticising his attitude but who can blame a young player for wanting to play.

 

I’m not criticizing his desire. I’m criticizing how he and his father handle the PR aspect. 

Courtois and Hazard both would love to play at Real Madrid. One goes about it the right way. One goes about it the wrong way. 

This isn’t about desire. This is about airing grievances through the media. 

On 11/10/2018 at 19:05, Oli said:

For me he is completely top drawer. We cant afford to lose another major talent. Surely he should be starting some Prem games too, hes definately a better defender than luiz, at purely defending.

Is he though? As of now Id lick Luiz ahead of him, he just offers more. I kind of rate Christensen, but when he actually got to play against a decent opponent this year he had a mare. It is what it is, should probably get more time, but Luiz and Rüdiger is quite clearly our two best CBs at the moment