34 minutes ago, Deino said:

Why are we still going through with the signing when Nkunku will be rusty af coming into the most physically demanding football league in the world? 

But he will be back around February and Leipzig will surely play him as much as they can if they want to achieve a CL spot this season. He won't be rusty at all, the only worry is if he'll come back the same after injury as usual. 

On 24/11/2022 at 07:46, RIP Mourinho said:

Is this a joke? Double goals and assists last season and you honestly think work rate is all he excels at. You've got Walker and Sterling sat on a podcast talking about him being the most technically gifted player in the England squad behind Foden but yeah all he does is run 😴 

Lallana suggests the Blues star could improve any side in the world.

“It is no surprise to me having worked with Graham Potter at Brighton that Mount has started every Premier League and Champions League game barring one since he took over at Chelsea in September,” Lallana wrote for The Times.

“He implements on the pitch what Southgate wants from his team and he will be doing that at Chelsea too.

“For England, Mount is responsible for the pressing triggers because, firstly, he is willing to run and do the dirty side of the game. Secondly, his knowledge of when to do that earns him the implicit trust of his manager. The ability to carry out orders faithfully is vital to the slick functioning of any team.

“Sometimes I will hear comments around Mount such as, ‘What does he do?’ Perhaps that is based on judging players solely by goals and assists. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, of course, but that is complete rubbish in my book. I think he would improve any team in the world.”

I'm asking YOU what Mount excels at exactly. What traits does he have that warrants having the team being built around him? 

You also realise in the Ladbible Podcast that both Sterling and Walker unanimously had Foden as the most technically gifted, and yet City don't build their team around Foden the way we do with Mount? 

 

2 hours ago, Deino said:

Why are we still going through with the signing when Nkunku will be rusty af coming into the most physically demanding football league in the world? 

i think he's joining in the summer, so he should be back playing by then.

3 hours ago, Deino said:

Why are we still going through with the signing when Nkunku will be rusty af coming into the most physically demanding football league in the world? 

He will not. He is out to 8-10 weeks which means if he is lucky, he maybe back for when the Bundesliga resumes late January.

3 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

I'm asking YOU what Mount excels at exactly. 

 

Football.

16 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

I'm asking YOU what Mount excels at exactly. What traits does he have that warrants having the team being built around him? 

You also realise in the Ladbible Podcast that both Sterling and Walker unanimously had Foden as the most technically gifted, and yet City don't build their team around Foden the way we do with Mount? 

 

Agreed that historically you don't build a team around your technical star. They are the rogue element, the outlier. I am not sure that is Mason Mount's role. I think it was intended to be Havertz, but he has come up woefully short.

On 23/11/2022 at 22:14, Sexyfootball said:

James, Chalobah, Colwill, Chilwell

             Rice, Bellingham

Hutchinson, Mount, Sterling

                   Nkunku

🙂 

 

While it looks decent on paper, we're potentially making the same mistake as we did with Havertz that is essentially also an AM/CAM just like Mount but that was shoehorned all around the place despite his price tag and ultimately Tuchel found for a short time period the false 9 position that was the closest thing for him to build the play around Kai while having Mount in the starting lineup as well.

Nkunku might be a much better player than the rest or he might not be I don't know, but automatically putting him as our striker, at the position that hasn't worked for us since D.Costa could end up being a disaster for us.

If Mount can adapt and play deeper that would allow Nkunku to play on his best position, which is the ideal.

1 hour ago, Gol15 said:

Nkunku might be a much better player than the rest or he might not be I don't know, but automatically putting him as our striker, at the position that hasn't worked for us since D.Costa could end up being a disaster for us.

If Mount can adapt and play deeper that would allow Nkunku to play on his best position, which is the ideal.

It's not "shoe-horning" Nkunku in as striker though is it ? It's playing him where he has been predominantly playing at Leipzig to attract our attention in the first place !!!!

Of course if Mount can adapt, or is sold, then Nkunku could also play CAM, assuming he isn't on the treatment table LOL. I'd expect to see more assists if he's playing CAM though, especially in the "weak" Bundesliga ... 

On 23/11/2022 at 21:14, Sexyfootball said:

James, Chalobah, Colwill, Chilwell

             Rice, Bellingham

Hutchinson, Mount, Sterling

                   Nkunku

🙂 

 

Worryingly our “future” midfield couldnt control a game against the US.  

7 minutes ago, DarkMata said:

Worryingly our “future” midfield couldnt control a game against the US.  

Yes - very worrying LOL.

It's possible Bellingham is all hype and Rice is simply bang average. 

Could probably swap them out for Casadei and Ampadu 🙂 

1 hour ago, Sexyfootball said:

It's not "shoe-horning" Nkunku in as striker though is it ? It's playing him where he has been predominantly playing at Leipzig to attract our attention in the first place !!!!

Of course if Mount can adapt, or is sold, then Nkunku could also play CAM, assuming he isn't on the treatment table LOL. I'd expect to see more assists if he's playing CAM though, especially in the "weak" Bundesliga ... 

I think it would be the case, Nkunku really isn't your primary striker just like Havertz wasn't prior to coming here either. Not saying that Nkunku isn't skilled, but if we just put him in the striker position there is a risk that he also becomes average due to how we play and then it's just another name in the graveyard of attackers that we "ruined"...

This is according to transfermarkt:

https://www.transfermarkt.com/christopher-nkunku/leistungsdaten/spieler/344381

The main position is indeed behind the CF if you go by his highlights:

This season in the biggest matches he wasn't playing as the highest player up the pitch:

https://www.transfermarkt.com/rb-leipzig_real-madrid/index/spielbericht/3912632

André Silva was the striker vs Real Madrid.

https://www.transfermarkt.com/rb-leipzig_borussia-dortmund/index/spielbericht/3839115

Nkunku played behind Werner against Dortmund.

https://www.transfermarkt.com/rb-leipzig_bayern-munich/index/spielbericht/3822486

They also played with Forsberg as a false 9 against Bayern.

https://www.transfermarkt.com/france_denmark/index/spielbericht/3716439

He was like a striker for France when he came on for Mbappe vs Denmark, but once again, not the sole striker as Benzema was still in the match.

I'm not saying that he can't play the position, I'm saying that we need to be careful not to ruin him just by putting him in a position where we have have arguably the most trouble finding the right player. We already failed with Werner and we tried to turn Havertz into a striker and we also bought Lukaku for a lot of money... We must not fail this player.

8 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

I think it would be the case, Nkunku really isn't your primary striker just like Havertz wasn't prior to coming here either. Not saying that Nkunku isn't skilled, but if we just put him in the striker position there is a risk that he also becomes average due to how we play and then it's just another name in the graveyard of attackers that we "ruined"...

This is according to transfermarkt:

https://www.transfermarkt.com/christopher-nkunku/leistungsdaten/spieler/344381

The main position is indeed behind the CF if you go by his highlights:

This season in the biggest matches he wasn't playing as the highest player up the pitch:

https://www.transfermarkt.com/rb-leipzig_real-madrid/index/spielbericht/3912632

André Silva was the striker vs Real Madrid.

https://www.transfermarkt.com/rb-leipzig_borussia-dortmund/index/spielbericht/3839115

Nkunku played behind Werner against Dortmund.

https://www.transfermarkt.com/rb-leipzig_bayern-munich/index/spielbericht/3822486

They also played with Forsberg as a false 9 against Bayern.

https://www.transfermarkt.com/france_denmark/index/spielbericht/3716439

He was like a striker for France when he came on for Mbappe vs Denmark, but once again, not the sole striker as Benzema was still in the match.

I'm not saying that he can't play the position, I'm saying that we need to be careful not to ruin him just by putting him in a position where we have have arguably the most trouble finding the right player. We already failed with Werner and we tried to turn Havertz into a striker and we also bought Lukaku for a lot of money... We must not fail this player.

Did you actually watch that video ? It seemed to me he was the furthest forward player for most of his goals LOL.

You've quoted 4 games as evidence he's not a striker, and in two of them he's clearly playing us one of two up top in a 4-4-2 or 3-4-1-2. In the other two he's playing as a right or left forward (RW/LW as per your diagram) in a 3-1 front four. 

So in none of your four examples is he playing as a second striker or CAM. 

What am I missing here LOL ?

8 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Did you actually watch that video ? It seemed to me he was the furthest forward player for most of his goals LOL.

You've quoted 4 games as evidence he's not a striker, and in two of them he's clearly playing us one of two up top in a 4-4-2 or 3-4-1-2. In the other two he's playing as a right or left forward (RW/LW as per your diagram) in a 3-1 front four. 

So in none of your four examples is he playing as a second striker or CAM. 

What am I missing here LOL ?

First sequence, André Silva is the striker there, Nkunku goes into space before he gets the ball.

Second is him playing the ball from the right hand sinde in a great area to Szoboszlai.

Third clip is him laying it off to Forsberg while Silva is in front of him.

4th, 5th, 6th edited clips show he plays it to different players inside the box from outside of it, while Silva is there too.

After those ones you can see him scoring 2 headers in 2 different clips, in both of which the striker André Silva is present as well.

Afterwards you can see the striker Poulsen passing to Nkunku that is making a run inside the box and scores from it.

At around that time which is the half of the clip you see Nkunku scoring from a header, clearly Andre Silva is there too with the number 33.

 

That's half the clip that I just went from highlight to highlight and it's evident that Nkunku is what transfermarkt puts there, a CAM/Shadow Striker that does play with another striker in front of him or around him. Similarly to how Havertz played in Leverkusen and even comparable to how Werner played as well with another striker in front of him or around him.

Put him as the lone striker and there is a chance that he'll look more average and it wouldn't be the first time we would be making that mistake, that's all I'm saying.

7 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

Yes - very worrying LOL.

It's possible Bellingham is all hype and Rice is simply bang average. 

Could probably swap them out for Casadei and Ampadu 🙂 

The worst thing for me was how Rice didn’t seem to be able to turn and pass forward.  He spent the whole match hiding behind the 2 US attackers rarely moving into space to give an option to the centre backs.  Don’t know if Southgate instructed him to play so deep, but he was never more than a couple of yards away from the 2 centre backs.  
 

To be fair to Rice he didn’t get much help from Bellingham and Mount or anyone else to be honest.  

1 hour ago, DarkMata said:

The worst thing for me was how Rice didn’t seem to be able to turn and pass forward.  He spent the whole match hiding behind the 2 US attackers rarely moving into space to give an option to the centre backs.  Don’t know if Southgate instructed him to play so deep, but he was never more than a couple of yards away from the 2 centre backs.  
 

To be fair to Rice he didn’t get much help from Bellingham and Mount or anyone else to be honest.  

Shocked you are just noticing that.

Simply put he doesn’t have the qualities to do that role yet some are suggesting we should break the bank for him to replace Jorginho. 

On 25/11/2022 at 23:52, Zeta said:

i think he's joining in the summer, so he should be back playing by then.

 

On 25/11/2022 at 22:04, Brigadeiro Mk II said:

But he will be back around February and Leipzig will surely play him as much as they can if they want to achieve a CL spot this season. He won't be rusty at all, the only worry is if he'll come back the same after injury as usual. 

Provided he comes back without issues and immediately slots back in without problems.

I just have this niggling feeling that this injury may affect him a lot. Hope I'm wrong about this

On 25/11/2022 at 15:50, Sconnie Blue said:

I'm asking YOU what Mount excels at exactly. What traits does he have that warrants having the team being built around him? 

You also realise in the Ladbible Podcast that both Sterling and Walker unanimously had Foden as the most technically gifted, and yet City don't build their team around Foden the way we do with Mount? 

 

Before I get on to Mount i'll just clarify the last point. There's a couple of reasons: 

1. City have unlimited funds, they don't need to build their team around anyone. 

2. Foden is more of a luxury player, if you build around him you have to sacrifice elsewhere to plug the gaps.

3. We don't build our team around Mount, if we did we'd have had him playing in a central role for the last 2 years.

 

So last season Mount picked up 34 G/A's in all comps, no easy feat for a 23 year old. The same Phil Foden mentioned above managed 30 G/A's in all comps, equally as impressive but he's doing it in a role with much more attacking freedom and for a team that creates chances like they're going out of fashion. I think this clearly shows goal scoring and assisting he's fairly steady with. I didn't particularly want to start chucking stats about but i'm going to do it anyway, otherwise i'll just get told this is all my opinion and doesn't show anything. 

11 league goals scored from an NPxG of 7.74 last season, shows he's a good finisher. Puts him in the upper 92nd percentile for goals scored last season. 0.8 goal contributions per 90 is something not to be laughed at either. 10 assists in the league puts him in the upper 96th percentile for assists and 97th percentile for xA. All this while playing with Lukaku and Havertz in the 9... Last season he was averaging 2.19 key passes a game, so quite easy to say he's a good passer of the ball too, as we saw in the Champions league final a couple of years back. Now where he gets compared to the likes of Foden and Grealish is where his dribbling lets him down i'll admit. Mount isn't the type of player who'll pick the ball up on the half way line, weave between three players and draw a foul. Its not as aesthetic to view but Mount knows his limitations in this regard and limits the amount of dribbles he attempts (1.58 per 90), choosing instead to play to his strengths with his movements into space and receiving the ball on the half turn between the lines to look for a pass.

Then the obvious one, his work rate and tactical view of the game. Mount could be having the worst game of his life and he'll still run his arse off and give defenders no time on the ball. Its so much easier for a team to get into a game when they're given time for their players to get forward and build momentum. The Iran game was the perfect example of Mount leading the press and suffocating Iran. The second he went off Iran started to get a foot back in the game. Simply put, Mount is every managers dream. You get goals, assists, work rate and tactical perfection for whatever you ask of him.

I'll happily admit that he, along with several others, haven't been good enough this season. I put a lot of this to having one eye on the World Cup. Especially when you watch two of your best mates (Reece and Chilly) pick up an injury going full force in a pretty average game and then missing the World Cup because of it. No team should be built around a single player, that's a ridiculous notion. All the best teams have a spine of 4 or 5 key players to build around. Mase has shown enough the last 3-4 years that he'll be one of those key players.

Genuinely stopped reading after unlimited funds. 

We've literally spent over a billion since our last title win. 

Pretty sure Foden isn't getting the Man City team built around him cause he's still just 22, but make no mistake he'll take over where DeBruyne leaves off.

35 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Genuinely stopped reading after unlimited funds. 

We've literally spent over a billion since our last title win. 

What a ridiculously disingenuous reply that is, you asked hm for specifics, he gave you them and thats how you chose to react. You obviously dont have the mental capability to hold a conversation.

 

7 minutes ago, dkw said:

What a ridiculously disingenuous reply that is, you asked hm for specifics, he gave you them and thats how you chose to react. You obviously dont have the mental capability to hold a conversation.

 

Ahh resorting to personal insults now. We've now reached that point. Unfortunately my mental capacity and genuine effort to continue debating is peaked when fallacy after fallacy is being used as a supporting argument. But for the sake of your enormously condescending post, I'll try the best I can. 

 

- For one, claiming City have unlimited funds completely falls flat when you consider our spending since our last title win. 

- Second, Mount is utilised as our link between midfield and attack, thereby relying on him as our means of creativity and as an attacking option. To suggest Foden plays an attacking role at City whilst claiming Mount doesn't, again just completely falls flat. 

- Third, I find it amusing how last seasons metrics are all of a sudden more reliable than this seasons', given our previous Jorginho v Declan Rice debate where RIP Mourinho tried telling me this current season's metrics are more reliable than last season's. But hey, agenda's and all that. Need to find anything possible to strengthen your point, despite different tunes blown which just weakens your position. (Foden embarrasses Mount's metrics for this season so I can see why) 

- Fourth, Mount neither has the creative metrics nor attacking aptitude to be utilized the way he is. Particularly when our aspirations are to compete for the league AND in Europe.  He simply doesn't have the creative element or attacking game to do so, and providing stats where Mount has stat padded against bottom half clubs as justification doesn't suffice. Mount not only fails at that when context is provided on his metrics, but on the eye test as well. He is arguably one of if not the worst attacker when it comes to decision making and awareness in the final third.  I say one of the worse given the minutes he's given over others. 

- Fifth, was Hazard or Mata a complete fabrication? We've seen what levels of creativity and attacking aptitude is at this club, and at an elite level. Raise your standards. 

- My last point, Mount has a purpose at this club, but he isn't 'that guy' if you know what I mean. He needs to be reverted back to midfield whilst the club focus on strengthening the midfield and bringing attacking and creative players to actually bare Mount of this burden. 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

 

Hopefully he'll not get worse due to this recent injury. And hopefully he'll be able to adapt to whatever position and place on the pitch he'll get.

5 minutes ago, Gol15 said:

Hopefully he'll not get worse due to this recent injury. And hopefully he'll be able to adapt to whatever position and place on the pitch he'll get.

Ugh. 

Still under the opinion if we are spending this much money on a player we should actually play him in his strongest position. Stinks of another Havertz deal if that isn't the case and further frustration in the long run. 

On 28/11/2022 at 20:21, Gol15 said:

Pretty sure Foden isn't getting the Man City team built around him cause he's still just 22, but make no mistake he'll take over where DeBruyne leaves off.

I don't understand with this mindset of city building only for kdb. 

This Manchester city team is already playing to get the best out of Foden, haaland and kdb.