On 13/12/2019 at 12:04, ducavis said:

I agree with this and think he is underestimated here because he used to be a youth player here. He has been outstanding playing for Bournemouth and the balance he will bring to our defence with his left foot will be immense.

We would need to shift to out 1 or 2 CBs though to make way for him. I can see Christensen asking for a move, Pep is an admirer and Barca might consider him to be a more stable option than Umtiti. Zouma might also ask for a move if Rudiger’s body holds up with the Euros coming up. 
 

Why would Barcelona be interested in a physically weak CB that gets dominated and cannot jump and can't even get into our team.

1 hour ago, WhiteWall said:

Why would Barcelona be interested in a physically weak CB that gets dominated and cannot jump and can't even get into our team.

He has continuously been linked to them and they need to replace Pique, and are trying to offload Umiti. Vermalen did play for Barca for 3 seasons.

On 04/01/2020 at 08:58, jack_super_class said:

It's weird, i'm not that fussed if we bought him back but at the same time i dont want him to go to another club. 

New rumours are suggesting Arsenal are interested in him.

If we are keen to buy him back, we'd activated the buy-clause by now and get him to play in the FA cup game. I'm not surprised Arsenal would be keen in him, he's better than Mustafi, like most defenders in this league

19 minutes ago, icecoolguy22 said:

If we are keen to buy him back, we'd activated the buy-clause by now and get him to play in the FA cup game. I'm not surprised Arsenal would be keen in him, he's better than Mustafi, like most defenders in this league

Hes injured.

So we are hearing Barca, Arsenal and now sky reporting City....for a average at best CB that wouldn’t get into our leaky defence, he would literally be 3rd or 4th choice? I think his agent has been casting out his fishing line looking for a better deal at the end of his contract, I don’t think any of those clubs are truly interested. 

I'm pretty surprised by the general consensus on here.

Sure in my dreams a new CB would be the Koulibaly body type, 4' taller than Ake and roughly 90kg but apart from that I find him quite an exquisite defender.

The way I see it our main deficit currently isn't height buy spacial awareness and discipline and Ake is brilliant at that. Plus he's fast and very capabke on the ball with his left foot, which would be invaluable for playing out of the back.

Him and a Koulibaly type CB would be a great paring actually, and maybe tomori can turn into that player for us long term. A back 3 would suit him even better.

In fact the only argument that doesn't excite me that much is his often mentioned ability to play as LB, as for me he wouldn't be more than a stopgap in that position. We really need to buy some more explosive options there.

Contrary to popular believe I therefore think he'd be a great addition to our backline and would make us immediately more stable, and considering the imminent profit his buy-back-clause price tag would cause this should be a no brainer imo

You shouldn’t be surprised. According to some around here very few are good enough for Chelsea, especially players from English clubs below us in the table. 

5 minutes ago, ozboy said:

You shouldn’t be surprised. According to some around here very few are good enough for Chelsea, especially players from English clubs below us in the table. 

Then it takes about 4 bad results for everyone else to agree with them 

On 04/01/2020 at 20:52, WhiteWall said:

Why would Barcelona be interested in a physically weak CB that gets dominated and cannot jump and can't even get into our team.

I think he'd be perfect at Barcelona. Let's not forget that Mascherano played CB there for years. Lenglet and Umtiti aren't tall. Andreas would be better in the air than both of them.

I remain of the view that Andreas is a top class CB. He is just perhaps a bit too fragile to play in a two in the PL.

I'm on record as saying I think Ake is too short. I think we need more authority in the air not less. With a keeper who claimed regularly in the air like Tibo you might be able to make it work. But with Kepa rooted to his line we really can't afford that vulnerability. 

 

18 hours ago, Luiz4Chelsea said:

I'm pretty surprised by the general consensus on here.

Sure in my dreams a new CB would be the Koulibaly body type, 4' taller than Ake and roughly 90kg but apart from that I find him quite an exquisite defender.

The way I see it our main deficit currently isn't height buy spacial awareness and discipline and Ake is brilliant at that. Plus he's fast and very capabke on the ball with his left foot, which would be invaluable for playing out of the back.

Him and a Koulibaly type CB would be a great paring actually, and maybe tomori can turn into that player for us long term. A back 3 would suit him even better.

In fact the only argument that doesn't excite me that much is his often mentioned ability to play as LB, as for me he wouldn't be more than a stopgap in that position. We really need to buy some more explosive options there.

Contrary to popular believe I therefore think he'd be a great addition to our backline and would make us immediately more stable, and considering the imminent profit his buy-back-clause price tag would cause this should be a no brainer imo

Why are you so sure of this? He's never made Bournemouth more stable.

2015-16 - Bournemouth, joint 2nd worse defence in the league, conceding 67 goals.

2016-17 - Bournemouth, 5th worst defence in the league, conceding 67 goals again.

2017-18 - Bournemouth, 4th worst defence in the league, conceding 61 goals.

2018-19 - Bournemouth, 3rd worst defence in the league, conceding 70 goals.

2019-20 - Bournemouth, currently 6th worst defence in the league, conceding 32 goals.

 

If Ake was that good, he would at least improve their defensive record a bit, but he has never done that, so why would you expect things to suddenly change with us? You can't just say that he is playing with other mediocre defenders as an excuse either. If he was good enough, he alone should be enough to improve their defensive record at least a tiny bit.

It's either spending over 100m for a real star CB or getting someone like Aké but we can't spend little money and expect to get a Van Dijk, lets not be naive we can't have it both ways.

Klopp first said that he doesn't agree with spending much money, but then went all in - the results are clear now. There is no romantic story there, if we really want better defense during this window it would cost us more than buying back 2 Akés...

Just now, Gol15 said:

It's either spending over 100m for a real star CB or getting someone like Aké but we can't spend little money and expect to get a Van Dijk, lets not be naive we can't have it both ways.

Klopp first said that he doesn't agree with spending much money, but then went all in - the results are clear now. There is no romantic story there, if we really want better defense during this window it would cost us more than buying back 2 Akés...

Then save the money for a time where we can bring in players with enough quality to compete with the best again. I would rather we stick with what we have than waste money on players that aren't really going to improve us much or not at all. It would just be signing players for the sake of signing players. If we want to be a team competing for top 4 and nothing more every season, then go ahead and sign players like Ake. But it we want to start competing with the best again, then we save the money we have and spend it on players that will take us up a level.

3 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

Then save the money for a time where we can bring in players with enough quality to compete with the best again. I would rather we stick with what we have than waste money on players that aren't really going to improve us much or not at all. It would just be signing players for the sake of signing players. If we want to be a team competing for top 4 and nothing more every season, then go ahead and sign players like Ake. But it we want to start competing with the best again, then we save the money we have and spend it on players that will take us up a level.

Fair enough. This can also mean that we would need to wait till the summer.

On 04/01/2020 at 04:52, WhiteWall said:

Why would Barcelona be interested in a physically weak CB that gets dominated and cannot jump and can't even get into our team.

Same thing people said about Pique when he left man utd for barca. Barca favour technical defenders over brute ones, besides la liga would fit Christensen because it is not a physical league

18 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Fair enough. This can also mean that we would need to wait till the summer.

If we can't get the right players, I would be fine with waiting until the summer.

1 hour ago, Scott Harris said:

Why are you so sure of this? He's never made Bournemouth more stable.

2015-16 - Bournemouth, joint 2nd worse defence in the league, conceding 67 goals.

2016-17 - Bournemouth, 5th worst defence in the league, conceding 67 goals again.

2017-18 - Bournemouth, 4th worst defence in the league, conceding 61 goals.

2018-19 - Bournemouth, 3rd worst defence in the league, conceding 70 goals.

2019-20 - Bournemouth, currently 6th worst defence in the league, conceding 32 goals.

 

If Ake was that good, he would at least improve their defensive record a bit, but he has never done that, so why would you expect things to suddenly change with us? You can't just say that he is playing with other mediocre defenders as an excuse either. If he was good enough, he alone should be enough to improve their defensive record at least a tiny bit.

Good points Scott. Question is how well he'd be next to a good strong CH? He is crucially left footed which none of our current centre halves are. I do think at present he would be an upgrade on Christensen. But is it sufficient to bring him back?

Back in 2012 we brought in a centre half who many had reservations on. His team in previous seasons had conceded 67 and 77. He went on to win it all.

 

 

1 hour ago, Gol15 said:

It's either spending over 100m for a real star CB or getting someone like Aké but we can't spend little money and expect to get a Van Dijk, lets not be naive we can't have it both ways.

Klopp first said that he doesn't agree with spending much money, but then went all in - the results are clear now. There is no romantic story there, if we really want better defense during this window it would cost us more than buying back 2 Akés...

Something interesting about Klopp is bar Naby Keita none of his signings have flopped at Liverpool. If there is no quality or the ones available are overpriced like last summer, he goes with what he has. If there is a bargain to be had like Shaqiri & Minamino he gets ahead of the market and gets it done.

Compare to Pep’s abysmal record with his “£50m” signings and it’s like night & day.

3 minutes ago, ducavis said:

Something interesting about Klopp is bar Naby Keita none of his signings have flopped at Liverpool. If there is no quality or the ones available are overpriced like last summer, he goes with what he has. If there is a bargain to be had like Shaqiri & Minamino he gets ahead of the market and gets it done.

Compare to Pep’s abysmal record with his “£50m” signings and it’s like night & day.

There is no doubt that he looked for particular players, for special parts of his tactic. Some of his signings were a steal basically. But then again, when he knew he wanted for example Van Dijk the club was ready to hand out a blind check.

 

15 minutes ago, ducavis said:

Something interesting about Klopp is bar Naby Keita none of his signings have flopped at Liverpool. If there is no quality or the ones available are overpriced like last summer, he goes with what he has. If there is a bargain to be had like Shaqiri & Minamino he gets ahead of the market and gets it done.

Compare to Pep’s abysmal record with his “£50m” signings and it’s like night & day.

Not true, Klopp has plenty of other failures too, grujic, karius, klavan, Solanke. 

47 minutes ago, dkw said:

Not true, Klopp has plenty of other failures too, grujic, karius, klavan, Solanke. 

Solanke was good buisness fof them in the end. Cant believe they got nearly £20m for him. 

The other 3 cost about £5m a piece. Just cheap gambles that didnt quite work out. I wouldnt hold a kalas, or piazon, against a chelsea manager. 

Klopps transfer record has been fantastic. Although it isnt just him picking players, so credit must go to the system they implemented.

 

 

32 minutes ago, big blue said:

Solanke was good buisness fof them in the end. Cant believe they got nearly £20m for him. 

The other 3 cost about £5m a piece. Just cheap gambles that didnt quite work out. I wouldnt hold a kalas, or piazon, against a chelsea manager. 

Klopps transfer record has been fantastic. Although it isnt just him picking players, so credit must go to the system they implemented.

 

 

Cost doesn't matter, he claimed no signings had flopped, which was wrong. 

Sky Sports reporting that we've ended our interest in Ake.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/11908682/chelsea-end-interest-in-nathan-ake-and-callum-wilson

33 minutes ago, Jezz said:

Sky Sports reporting that we've ended our interest in Ake.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/11908682/chelsea-end-interest-in-nathan-ake-and-callum-wilson

They have not got a clue.  They are being made to look silly this window. They had us nailed on to sign him not long back.  Then it was Ben White, then Issa Diop, then Gedson. All from the same guy

 

The best thing SSN can do is take that Kaveh off the transfer stuff.  He's useless

Their interest is not get the news right just for us to click those articles and share them.