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Mateo Kovačić


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He started off very well last season, I think some people forget that. But for the most part he didn't stand out much. He's good technically and disciplined, the sort of player managers like to have around. I actually felt he was playing too conservatively a lot of the time, he's a surprisingly good dribbler and can carry the ball forward well, he just didn't do it enough. Maybe Sarri asked him to reign it in, who knows. It will be interesting to see if he plays the same way under Lampard. 

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4 hours ago, evissy said:

This is what YouTube makes to a player. Looks like world class. 

 

Doesn't look world class to me. Those are his best bits, over an entire season. It's pretty shoddy. Not one single pass in that vid that I couldn't make. He lacks creativity, we know that, he lacks any kind of attacking edge, he can't shoot. He's decent, make no mistake about that, he's good technically, he's got skill, touch, close control, he's reasonably tenacious, he links up the play pretty well. He's far better than Drinkwater or Bakayoko. If we weren't in for him however I doubt there's another club in the world that would spend 40mil on him. We're on a ban, some of the fee is already written off against the loan, and he's relatively young, so it was probably an easy decision, but if it weren't for those factors we wouldn't be looking at him.

 

People see he played for Real Madrid or Inter Milan and they presume he's something he's not. There's a lot of snobbery involved. If we'd bought him off some unknown Croat side, and he'd put in exactly the same performances last season, they'd be saying something different. I prefer to believe the evidence of my own eyes. Sure, his performance in our last game in Baku has changed people's perceptions a little bit. He had a good second-half, against a non-existent midfield. It's no less than we should expect. I saw him in our semi-final second leg against Frankfurt, where we got overrun and he was anonymous. If we had got beat that day, as we should have, there would have been no Baku and people would be being a lot more harsh.

 

I think about players like Maka, Ballack, Lampard and Essien. Is he getting anywhere near those guys? He's a bits and pieces player, which is okay, but it's not great. He has to do more. Maybe he can get there, maybe he can't, but he has to do more, a lot more.

 

Edit: When I was a lad we used to get told to affect the game, leave a mark, go out there and have a bearing on what happens, make the difference. Too many times Kovacic goes missing, to the point that you don't even realise he's playing. Hopefully he'll improve but those describing him as a top player are wide of the mark.

Edited by Davey Baby
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Can’t see the new manager playing him as advanced as Sarri did. Hopefully Kovacic looks the better for it as there won’t be as much expectation on him to deliver in the final third.

Can imagine he’ll be asked to mostly play much deeper this season.

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1 hour ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Can’t see the new manager playing him as advanced as Sarri did. Hopefully Kovacic looks the better for it as there won’t be as much expectation on him to deliver in the final third.

Can imagine he’ll be asked to mostly play much deeper this season.

How? If Kante is played in his proper role and Jorginho is the deep lying playmaker possibly  part of a 2 man pivot with kante how can kovacic play deep aswell? 

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2 hours ago, WalterWhiteCFC said:

How? If Kante is played in his proper role and Jorginho is the deep lying playmaker possibly  part of a 2 man pivot with kante how can kovacic play deep aswell? 

I think some are expecting him to start ahead of Jorginho, or at least share the role. That leaves Loftus-Cheek and Barkley sharing the advanced position. I'm not sure where this leaves Mount, he won't get much game time at all if Kovacic is signed.

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It wouldn't be an exciting signing by any means, but I'm not bothered by it either.

If Kovacic can produce similar performances the way he did in the EL Final, I'll be content with the signing and if Frank is happy to bring him in on a more permanent basis, I will be happy to support it.

The potential is there, but Sarri didn't get the best out of him.

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11 hours ago, rtwelch said:

£40m seems a bit much if he doesn’t start to offer more. Pretty much what we spent on Drinkwater and Baka and they were a waste of time! 

It wont be that much though, thats top whack with all the additions so more likely to be around £30m up front.

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11 hours ago, WalterWhiteCFC said:

How? If Kante is played in his proper role and Jorginho is the deep lying playmaker possibly  part of a 2 man pivot with kante how can kovacic play deep aswell? 

Because we could play anything up to 60 games this season I would expect a fair amount of rotation. We have no idea what formation we'll play this season but I would be extremely surprised to see Kovacic given much attacking responsibility simply because he isn't good at it. 

With Hazard gone a no recognised prolific goal scorer in the squad we'll be looking at as much of the team as possible to pose a scoring threat so my opinion is that RLC or Barkley will start almost every game in midfield. 

I don't think we can fully rule out Jorginho leaving either but that's another story. 

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57 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Because we could play anything up to 60 games this season I would expect a fair amount of rotation. We have no idea what formation we'll play this season but I would be extremely surprised to see Kovacic given much attacking responsibility simply because he isn't good at it. 

With Hazard gone a no recognised prolific goal scorer in the squad we'll be looking at as much of the team as possible to pose a scoring threat so my opinion is that RLC or Barkley will start almost every game in midfield. 

I don't think we can fully rule out Jorginho leaving either but that's another story. 

That bit about no prolific goal scorer is depressing, can’t think of anyone in the squad that guarantees 10 league goals.

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9 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

I think some are expecting him to start ahead of Jorginho, or at least share the role. That leaves Loftus-Cheek and Barkley sharing the advanced position. I'm not sure where this leaves Mount, he won't get much game time at all if Kovacic is signed.

Lotus is looking likely to be out until at least January. Mount will likely come in and compete with Barkley for six months and the situation will be reaccesed when RLC returns to full fitness.

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10 minutes ago, Argo said:

Lotus is looking likely to be out until at least January. Mount will likely come in and compete with Barkley for six months and the situation will be reaccesed when RLC returns to full fitness.

Yeah I think given the RLC situation we are extremely lucky Mount is coming back. If he does well I would move Barkley on next summer. Doesn’t do enough for me.

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1 minute ago, rtwelch said:

Yeah I think given the RLC situation we are extremely lucky Mount is coming back. If he does well I would move Barkley on next summer. Doesn’t do enough for me.

Agree; Everton seems to be his peak level. You do however wonder if some sentimentality comes into play because he is British playing under Lamps.

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I can't help but think that we're signing Kovacic for such a ridiculous amount only because he's the only player we can sign this year. Not sure what to make of it. Kovacic is not a game changer in any way, so I'd rather we save up the money for when our ban expires.

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15 minutes ago, Girish said:

I can't help but think that we're signing Kovacic for such a ridiculous amount only because he's the only player we can sign this year. Not sure what to make of it. Kovacic is not a game changer in any way, so I'd rather we save up the money for when our ban expires.

How is it a ridiculous amount?

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21 minutes ago, Girish said:

I can't help but think that we're signing Kovacic for such a ridiculous amount only because he's the only player we can sign this year. Not sure what to make of it. Kovacic is not a game changer in any way, so I'd rather we save up the money for when our ban expires.

If we decide next year he isn't for us we could probably recoup all the money anyway. 

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Who in their right mind will pay us 30-40 million for a player like this?  Man Utd are the only other top club who've been signing as much absolute dross as us in recent years, but even they wouldn't be stupid enough to splash out Kovacic.  He's like another off the long list of  nonentities Everton have become experts at signing. 

Edited by Dixons
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40 million pounds and that includes add-ons. So probably around 30-35 for a player versatile enough to cover multiple positions in midfield. In today's market that's really not too bad.

When RLC is fully fit, that probably leaves Kovacic on the bench. I'm sure Real, Man City, Barcelona and all the other top teams would be happy to have a player like Kovacic in their squad, though not necessarily in their starting eleven.

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42 minutes ago, Dixons said:

Who in their right mind will pay us 30-40 million for a player like this?  Man Utd are the only other top club who've been signing as much absolute dross as us in recent years, but even they wouldn't be stupid enough to splash out Kovacic.  He's like another off the long list of  nonentities Everton have become experts at signing. 

They signed Matic for that price after he was awful for two years and a half years bar isolated spells.

We could be selling Zouma for £40m and could well get a similar price for Bakayoko, if those two are attracting those type of prices Kovacic easily will from somewhere.

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9 hours ago, brownindian said:

i would have been ok had we sold Drinkwater and Bakayoko to get this money - but with them still not sold this feels like a needless and pricey purchase.

Well, you need buyers in order to sell.  What did Drinkwater do last season to make himself attractive to teams?  And I'm sure there are memories of Bakayoko's last Premier League appearances.

Edited by Boston Blue
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4 minutes ago, Argo said:

They signed Matic for that price after he was awful for two years and a half years bar isolated spells.

We could be selling Zouma for £40m and could well get a similar price for Bakayoko, if those two are attracting those type of prices Kovacic easily will from somewhere.

Yes, they signed Matic (and others) and that's why i mentioned Utd also wasting shedloads of money. Utd and Chelsea are now a long way behind City and it's pretty simple why - signed far too many bang average or poor players and not enough top quality ones. In an era where creativity and goal power is massively important, we go for the exact opposite.  We'll stay a million miles off the pace for as long we keep making such poor decisions.

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27 minutes ago, Dixons said:

Yes, they signed Matic (and others) and that's why i mentioned Utd also wasting shedloads of money. Utd and Chelsea are now a long way behind City and it's pretty simple why - signed far too many bang average or poor players and not enough top quality ones. In an era where creativity and goal power is massively important, we go for the exact opposite.  We'll stay a million miles off the pace for as long we keep making such poor decisions.

Liverpool are where they are by on the most part signing unfancied players and fitting them into a system. Many players in their team now would have been instantly dismissed had we signed them at the same time instead (for example signing Robertson from relegated Hull for £7m would have given him the tag of the Scottish Papy). United have gone wrong due to only thinking about the individual aspect of a player while we have in general brought well (2017 aside) we have brought players suited to a variety of different styles that has led to continuity problems.

Liverpool were universally laughed at for signing Robertson, Wijnaldium, Shaqiri, Mane and Salah (the first three from clubs that just previously went down) and even VVD caused a lot of raised eyebrows as he never played for a top level side before. By the sounds of it Lampard was given the last word on Kovacic and decided to give the deal the green light so obviously has some plans for him, aslong as he's played deeper, be it in a pivot or the two more defensive positions in midfield I think he may surprise you, putting Kovacic in the most advanced midfield position is the equivalent of putting Lampard in CDM when he was in his prime (not atall saying Kova will have the same type of impact) ie he'd have shown his talent at times but his unease at such an unnatural role would be clearly evident.

Edited by Argo
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We had the opportunity to add an experienced player to our team.  With incoming youth, and the uncertainty around exactly how long it will take for RLC and CHO to not just come back from the Achilles injuries, but reach the level they were at pre-injury, I think this makes sense.  

I didn't like the signing at £50m, but I don't mind it in the £35m + add-ons range.  And if he can play like he did in the EL final, he will be a valuable contributor.

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On 28/06/2019 at 06:18, bluedave said:

He started off very well last season, I think some people forget that. But for the most part he didn't stand out much. He's good technically and disciplined, the sort of player managers like to have around. I actually felt he was playing too conservatively a lot of the time, he's a surprisingly good dribbler and can carry the ball forward well, he just didn't do it enough. Maybe Sarri asked him to reign it in, who knows. It will be interesting to see if he plays the same way under Lampard. 

I was thinking this as well. There was one very early game I remember (can't remember against who) where he was everywhere,  dribbling, getting into the box, he hit the post at least once. I thought he was very good.

Once he was integrated into Sarri's tactics that seemed to go away until the final where he was very good again doing similar things.

From what I've seen and read of Derby I think his movement will suit Frank's style well. Looking forward to seeing him under the new management.

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