36 minutes ago, chelsea_true_blue said:

Yes I called Rudiger and Christensen mediocre & clowns because that is my subjective opinion. Neither player is even a nailed on starter for their national teams. I think we can do a lot better. We’ve gone from Terry and Carvalho to those two? Standards have dropped considerably and that shouldn’t be the case for a club like CFC. Forgive me for not sharing your optimism.

As for my little typo, what are you the grammar police??! Why get hung up on such an irrelevant issue? Just makes you look petty. 

And yes winning trophies like the FA cup and Europa league is nice and all but ultimately it’s the premier league and CL triumph where the true measure of success lies. I want to be competing for those titles. We won’t be doing that any time soon with your Rudigers, Christensens and Girouds. Forgive me for showing some ambition. 

And you think Koulibaly isn't a step down from those two? He's 28 years old and he hasn't won a single major trophy in his career, he's not much of a winner is he? You say Christensen and Rudiger are clowns, well at least they have a winning attitude and have actually won major trophies. 

24 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

And you think Koulibaly isn't a step down from those two? He's 28 years old and he hasn't won a single major trophy in his career, he's not much of a winner is he? You say Christensen and Rudiger are clowns, well at least they have a winning attitude and have actually won major trophies. 

 

Koulibaly is currently one of the best defenders in world football. The other two aren’t even among the best in the PL. 

And judging a players ability on what they’ve won is silly. 

27 minutes ago, chelsea_true_blue said:

 

Koulibaly is currently one of the best defenders in world football. The other two aren’t even among the best in the PL. 

And judging a players ability on what they’ve won is silly. 

Van Dijk joined Liverpool and instantly turned them into a serious force in Europe. They were good without him, but they went up another level just with him being there, he is what I would call a world class cb. Koulibaly is in a similar position to Tottenham's CB's, nearly men.

And judging a player on what they have won isn't silly at all. The best players win trophies, they find a way to achieve it, Koulibaly hasn't found a way to win anything major in his career so far.

2 hours ago, Amputechture said:

It took reading just one of your posts to realize you're clearly a troll. Oh well, on ignore you go...

and  pretty much advising a veteran of a thousand plus posts to consider his future on the site ? yeah gotta be mate

9 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

Van Dijk joined Liverpool and instantly turned them into a serious force in Europe. They were good without him, but they went up another level just with him being there, he is what I would call a world class cb. Koulibaly is in a similar position to Tottenham's CB's, nearly men.

And judging a player on what they have won isn't silly at all. The best players win trophies, they find a way to achieve it, Koulibaly hasn't found a way to win anything major in his career so far.

 

And what had Van Dijk won before joining Liverpool?

There’s no reason why Koulibaly couldn’t achieve similar success here. 

Ultimately though this talk is redundant anyway as we’re currently a million miles away from being able to prize players like Koulibaly to the bridge. 

Rudiger + 50m for Koulibaly in a swap deal? 

 

Would love to see that happen! As much as I love Rudi, he has definitely been a bit suspect 

25 minutes ago, PlayDaYouf said:

Rudiger + 50m for Koulibaly in a swap deal? 

 

Would love to see that happen! As much as I love Rudi, he has definitely been a bit suspect 

Swapping Rudiger for Koulibaly doesnt seem like that big an upgrade especially considering Rudiger has been with the team for a couple of years, is settled and entering his prime as a defender. With Koulibaly he will most likely take a season to adapt and by the time we can get him operating at his optimum levels he will be over 30.

If we can get Koulibaly playing alongside Rudiger than that gives us an elite pairing but to swap one for the other will probably not give us the necessary upgrade in quality. Koulibaly for Zouma would give us 4 CB's: Christensen, Rudiger, Koulibaly & Tomori in which case we could shift to 3 at the back and that would immediately rectify our set piece problems. 

5 minutes ago, Imran_CFC said:

Swapping Rudiger for Koulibaly doesnt seem like that big an upgrade especially considering Rudiger has been with the team for a couple of years, is settled and entering his prime as a defender. With Koulibaly he will most likely take a season to adapt and by the time we can get him operating at his optimum levels he will be over 30.

If we can get Koulibaly playing alongside Rudiger than that gives us an elite pairing but to swap one for the other will probably not give us the necessary upgrade in quality. Koulibaly for Zouma would give us 4 CB's: Christensen, Rudiger, Koulibaly & Tomori in which case we could shift to 3 at the back and that would immediately rectify our set piece problems. 

Fair point, didn't take into account Koulibaly's age! For some reason I thought he was younger than his actual age, but thats probably because when we were first linked with him several years ago, he was actually quite young ?

Im on board with that for sure though, Koulibaly, Rudiger, Christensen, Tomori as our four CB's is fantastic. 

In all honesty actually, I would probably take Romagnoli over Koulibaly, but thats a discussion for a different day.

Apparently he's not very happy at Napoli right now

14 minutes ago, DidierDrogbalala said:

Apparently he's not very happy at Napoli right now

Tricky one; ADL apparently wants £120m which is a lot for a 28yr old defender who has played in a slow paced Italian league for most of his career.  He looks very good but no idea how that translates into the PL when you consider Smalling who was discarded by Man Utd is outperforming Koulibaly this season.

Buying from Napoli nearly as bad as buying from spuds. 

On 10/12/2019 at 17:09, DidierDrogbalala said:

Apparently he's not very happy at Napoli right now

Is anyone ? The whole squad want out from what I've read LOL

5 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

Is anyone ? The whole squad want out from what I've read LOL

lol i know and the owner said he want them all out , thats why i think we should able to get him at a resonable price

Christensen + cash.

I'd rather we look somewhere else. He's turning 29 soon and no telling how long he'll last at the top level. For 50m, I'm ok but 80m+ is absurd

He is under contract at Napoli until 2023 so he will be very expensive, especially in a mid-season window. I would say Ake offers much better value in the coming window.

18 hours ago, forbzy said:

He is under contract at Napoli until 2023 so he will be very expensive, especially in a mid-season window. I would say Ake offers much better value in the coming window.

Koulibaly is a world class CB while Ake is a versatile defender who may or may not make a step up to become a top tier player in the years to come. At this point in time, the only advantage Ake has over Koulibaly is age, but world class players are never many, rarely available for transfer and are always difficult and costly to acquire while the young players with potential are never in short supply.

That's not to say I'm against buying back Ake, it's just buying Koulibaly upgrades our lineup immediately. Ake at the moment looks like a decent squad player who's best asset is his versatility, but who isn't a level above the players we've already got in those positions.

Edited December 18, 20196 yr by abramovich

On 14/12/2019 at 14:06, Deino said:

I'd rather we look somewhere else. He's turning 29 soon and no telling how long he'll last at the top level. For 50m, I'm ok but 80m+ is absurd

Yeah, this is the problem. We need to start scouting better. Look at Liverpool, they've just scouted a very good young player from Austria, the cost? £7m. Bargain. They also scouted Andy Robertson too, another bargain gem. There are good defenders out there, but we need to scout better.

I think Tomori is a fantastic young CB and is being overlooked immensely here. I would keep him and partner him with Rudiger. However, if we scout better, we will find bargains and hidden gems. We have done it before, we can do it again. 

1 hour ago, enigma said:

I think Tomori is a fantastic young CB and is being overlooked immensely here. I would keep him and partner him with Rudiger. However, if we scout better, we will find bargains and hidden gems. We have done it before, we can do it again. 

Tomori is fine. Most people rate him and see him in the long-term project we're building.

The bigger issue is Christiensen and Zouma. These two players are replaceable if we can sign better defenders.