14 minutes ago, coco said:

Now we have both our wing threats back we can now stretch teams wider, which hopefully creates more space in the center or at the back post.

Spot on. Note how many of our goals this season have come from low crosses. 

2 hours ago, Spiller86 said:

Totally agree. Prior to his injury he was a very solid defender for us.

You say you havent seen anyhting to suggest that Cucurella is a better defender. I am less generous. I say I haven't seen anything that highlighted the need to spend 60m on Cucurella at all. Let's hope Chilwell retains his place as he offers much more particularly going forward.

I don't understand the love for cucurella.  He doesn't beat people 1v1, doesnt make enough threatening runs, he's not that fast and not particularly strong either.  Tidy in possession but no better than Chilwell.

I'd take a 26 year old Marcos Alonso over Cucurella any day.

8 minutes ago, Whiskyjack said:

I don't understand the love for cucurella.  He doesn't beat people 1v1, doesnt make enough threatening runs, he's not that fast and not particularly strong either.  Tidy in possession but no better than Chilwell.

I'd take a 26 year old Marcos Alonso over Cucurella any day.

Give it time. Technically a very good player and offers tenacity and passing quality / balance we desperately need. None of our wingbacks are able to play 60 games a season and we need quality depth. 
 

That said, Chilly is a tremendous player and we have a good problem on the left. 

Wait, so he has a fight on for his place and decided to kuckle down and do his talking on the pitch?

That isn't right, I'm reliably informed you're meant to sulk, cause locker room issues and give interviews sucking off your former club.

Edited September 4, 20223 yr by Argo

19 minutes ago, PhilH930 said:

Give it time. Technically a very good player and offers tenacity and passing quality / balance we desperately need. None of our wingbacks are able to play 60 games a season and we need quality depth. 
 

That said, Chilly is a tremendous player and we have a good problem on the left. 

Chilwell is superior imo but is good to have Marc on that side, hopefully we get someone on Reeces side too.

3 minutes ago, Argo said:

Wait, so he has a fight on for his place and decided to kuckle down and do his talking on the pitch?

That isn't right, I'm reliably informed you're meant to sulk, cause locker room issues and give interviews sucking off your former club.

Clearly he did not spend his time on the shelf last season paying attention to that...

50 minutes ago, Whiskyjack said:

I don't understand the love for cucurella.  He doesn't beat people 1v1, doesnt make enough threatening runs, he's not that fast and not particularly strong either.  Tidy in possession but no better than Chilwell.

I'd take a 26 year old Marcos Alonso over Cucurella any day.

Another of these technical players who can play simple passes when under no pressure that managers who favour positional play seem to love. Solid but not game changing.

Should have came on much earlier, Cucurella is a better defender but going forward he's done nothing so far. WB is the most important position in 343, that's why we paid the big bucks and have 2 available to swap during the game and in the season. If James is out, we are dead beat just like Southhampton game, should have upgraded their too.

7 hours ago, Spiller86 said:

Totally agree. Prior to his injury he was a very solid defender for us.

You say you havent seen anyhting to suggest that Cucurella is a better defender. I am less generous. I say I haven't seen anything that highlighted the need to spend 60m on Cucurella at all. Let's hope Chilwell retains his place as he offers much more particularly going forward.

Cucurella's a good cover. Can't expect Ben to play 50+ games straight right after an ACL rehab

5 hours ago, PhilH930 said:

Give it time. Technically a very good player and offers tenacity and passing quality / balance we desperately need. None of our wingbacks are able to play 60 games a season and we need quality depth. 
 

That said, Chilly is a tremendous player and we have a good problem on the left. 

Reality is neither of them is going to settle to be “depth”. The manager will need to make up his mind on who is 1st choice LB is pretty soon for stability & cohesiveness. Whoever is left riding the bench will get restless, and won’t want to depend on the 1st choice get injured before he gets a chance. Pep learnt that lesson early on his regime at City that is why he doesn’t have 4 £50m fullbacks anymore. I reckon you will find one of either Cucurella or Chiwell will be gone in the next 2 summers to another big team were their starting place is guaranteed.

Chilwell is an exceptional LWB for us last season he scored 3 in 6 appearances before the injury, a striker would be proud of that ratio.

My concern is on the right as James is susceptible to thigh injuries, we have poor cover.

On the left Cucurella will provide good cover though less as an attacker.

7 hours ago, ducavis said:

Reality is neither of them is going to settle to be “depth”. The manager will need to make up his mind on who is 1st choice LB is pretty soon for stability & cohesiveness. Whoever is left riding the bench will get restless, and won’t want to depend on the 1st choice get injured before he gets a chance. Pep learnt that lesson early on his regime at City that is why he doesn’t have 4 £50m fullbacks anymore. I reckon you will find one of either Cucurella or Chiwell will be gone in the next 2 summers to another big team were their starting place is guaranteed.

I don’t disagree. Let the competition commence. 

21 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

And if we had kept Alonso, we would have people moaning about not having a quality back up. Can't win with some it seems.

Alonso was comfortably a capable back-up. The issue was with Chilwell suffering such a bad injury that Alonso was number 1 for so long - you would hope those situations are a rarity.

 

Dropping £65m on a back-up is excessive, there really isn’t anyone else on the market that could provide cover for a more reasonable price? I think Cucurella is a good back-up but we did massively overpay - in my opinion.

Edited September 4, 20223 yr by EdinburghBlue

I'd really like to see both start, Cucu lcb alongside Silva and fofana as rcb. That gives me good vibes. 

1 minute ago, bisright1 said:

I'd really like to see both start, Cucu lcb alongside Silva and fofana as rcb. That gives me good vibes. 

Because of Koulibaly's age, I wouldn't be surprised if we see it happen a few times.

19 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

I'd really like to see both start, Cucu lcb alongside Silva and fofana as rcb. That gives me good vibes. 

That would make us even worse at defending set pieces than we already are.

 

On 04/09/2022 at 10:16, strider6004 said:

Chilwell is an exceptional LWB for us last season he scored 3 in 6 appearances before the injury, a striker would be proud of that ratio.

My concern is on the right as James is susceptible to thigh injuries, we have poor cover.

On the left Cucurella will provide good cover though less as an attacker.

RLC has done well at RWB imo whenever he has played there.

2 hours ago, RIP Mourinho said:

RLC has done well at RWB imo whenever he has played there.

Not knocking him yet don't see him putting in crosses like James, see him more as a defensive RWB.

IMO if we play back 5 there is no competition.

Once he is fit and firing, lwb spot belong to Chilwell. Cucu is more of a lb than a wb. I think profile wise he is similar to Azpi but he is a better passer. 

On 04/09/2022 at 13:33, ducavis said:

Reality is neither of them is going to settle to be “depth”. The manager will need to make up his mind on who is 1st choice LB is pretty soon for stability & cohesiveness. Whoever is left riding the bench will get restless, and won’t want to depend on the 1st choice get injured before he gets a chance. Pep learnt that lesson early on his regime at City that is why he doesn’t have 4 £50m fullbacks anymore. I reckon you will find one of either Cucurella or Chiwell will be gone in the next 2 summers to another big team were their starting place is guaranteed.

Cucu will play lcb + lwb. Chilwell will play lwb so there is no competition. It is a bit like  James vs Azpi 2 years ago (it is not even a contest right now) 

17 hours ago, strider6004 said:

Not knocking him yet don't see him putting in crosses like James, see him more as a defensive RWB.

I don't see Chilwell retaining possession like Cucu or Cucu being a goal threat like Ben is. It's good to have a variety options in positions. I don't think we'll ever find a like for like replacement for when Reece is out anywhere in football. 

3 hours ago, RIP Mourinho said:

I don't see Chilwell retaining possession like Cucu or Cucu being a goal threat like Ben is. It's good to have a variety options in positions. I don't think we'll ever find a like for like replacement for when Reece is out anywhere in football. 

A younger Azpi was good and then in an earlier period we had Dan Petrescu who like Ben was capable of scoring decent goals.

52 minutes ago, strider6004 said:

A younger Azpi was good and then in an earlier period we had Dan Petrescu who like Ben was capable of scoring decent goals.

I'm on about a backup for Reece now. Think Petrescu might be a bit old to do the job now.

Big shout out to Chilly for his stop on 45 minutes. That goes in and as it could be a different game at 1-1. Massive save and excellent play. It hasn’t been talked about enough. 
 

Given his injury, he’s had a great start to the season and contributing a lot. One of my favourite players. 

Intelligent man and an intelligent player. Reminds me of Cech and Lampard in that respect. Absolutely love him.