Firstly, Koulibaly is mostly decent in the air. Even if he isn't a complete beast in the air he has other qualities that more than make up for it. Secondly, an aerial presence is not what we have lacked. Smalling plays most games and he is a great header of the ball.
Kalidou Koulibaly
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He definitely has a source at the club and isn't the standard Twitter ITK bullshitter.
My first thought when i read it was that this is somebody with a line to Woodward. It has to be somebody involved since last year and somebody that knows what we're working on. With the current mood around the club I can absolutely believe Woodward would do this to pacify supporters.
I'm not going to complain though. Will provide some entertainment this summer at least.
Smalling is irrelevant if he isn’t on the pitch. He’s largely made up for Lindelof’s lack of command in the air this season. The concern is having two CBs on the pitch who aren’t great in the air.
Set pieces and crosses will do us again and again if that’s the case I’m afraid.
same bloke then?
Yes, different people. This Simon fella never claimed anything about Griezmann, only Kohler, along with the Fred, Dalot and tour details. There's a reason why he is Tier 2 on Reddit. Let's see how he fares this silly season - if we get Koulibaly and James, won't be surprised to see him bumped to Tier 1.
I am not warming up to the idea of Koulibaly for following reasons.
1. We should have a policy not to pay more than 50m for any player older than 25/26.
2. He is an exceptional defender no doubt, but he will cost a fortune and better, younger defenders are avsilsble.
3. I doubt his ability to adjust in EPL, he lunges in tackles quite frequently and is a bit slow in turning. And sadly he will command such a fee and our requirements are such that we would want him to hit the ground running from day one and have VVD like impact for us.
4. Wish we could have signed him when we signed Bailly.
5. Alderwiereld, Maguire are better value for money and both are epl proven.
6. I'd rather go for Skriniar, Tah or Ferro if we are looking outside epl.
Just wanted to throw this out as a neutral Spurs supporter:
In regards to the “too similar” comment I once had that opinion when we were going after Alderweireld that he and Vertonghen were too similar and it wouldn’t work out.
It turns out I was right and yet incredibly wrong. I was right in that they were very similar, but I was so incredibly wrong that it wouldn’t work out. It worked out magnificently as they were fluidly able to read off one another and when the two were on it produced the best Defense in the league.
Just wanted to throw it out there that you don’t need two different types of defender as the old school thinking used to be.
We should go for a younger CB like Milenkovic, IMO.
Ah yes the constant heckling of the Italian ITKs again this year
I remember Amoyal (?) had to tweet last year asking people to stop asking "what about Utd" in completly unrelated comment sections.Ideally this is what we should do, especially since he's great in the air and neither Alderweireld nor Koulibaly is that great in the air. But since we have Tuanzebe, I don't think we need another young CB although I've no idea how Axel has progressed
Interesting point. However I think Toby and Vert are both arguably more commanding than KK and clearly superior headers of the ball to Lindelof. They are also two of the more well rounded defenders around.
It’s not necessarily the old idea of a footballer and a destroyer pairing. It’s that I genuinely think our aerial presence will be a weakness with Koulibaly and Lindelof at the back, especially if De Gea is still around.
I would take Milenkovic over Skriniar and Toby etc due to him being quicker and more dominant in the air. I rate the young Serb very highly.
If you've seen Koulibaly play you'll know he's big and clumsy.
De Ligt is a far better defender even at his younger age.
90m on him would not be s good move.
De Ligt is a far better defender even at his younger age.
90m on him would not be s good move.
United's defence need sorting out for sure, because what we had on the right side this season was utter crap, but there was a time under Mourinho when I thought Eric Bailly had the potential to be world class. Tuanzebe might also be good enough. Consistency is really key here. I'd be really happy with Koulibaly, he does look legit.
BUT...
Our attack is of significantly greater concern to me. And it worries me MASSIVELY that we don't have players who can stick the ball in the back of the net, also, our midfield is pretty shambolic.
It's true that a more comfortable back 4 will allow more freedom for our attack, but it could also be argued that a good attack can hide defensive frailties by outscoring the opponent. I feel SAF always placed slightly (~significantly, at time) more emphasis on his attack and midfield. I don't recall SAF ever building the team from the back.
Yeah, I'm kind of echoing what some on here are already saying regarding adding the fairy dust after we build a solid team of grafters. But it's slightly different in that I'm saying we should make do with our defence, and focus first a foremost on our problem of scoring goals. This defensive mindset is a holdover from Mourinho's time I think. In fairness, Smalling, Bailly, Jones, tuanzebe is good enough to challenge for top 4 this season. In all honesty, we are stacked in centre defence. True, the quality isn't quite there, but United aren't challenging for the title next season.
Most pertinently, Young needs replacing with a world class wing back. Someone who can contribute to the attack.
A right winger... WE HAVE NO RIGHT WING WHATSOEVER.
We need a DECENT STRIKER. Even Cavani for a decent two years, just anyone who could contribute 20+ goals per season, and for the love of God, can hold the ball up and has a decent first touch.
The midfield, we obviously need reinforcements after Herrera.
Seeing as we didn't sign anyone in the last transfer window, maybe the kitty rolled over into this window. So if it's 200m + koulibaly, then by all means, United should sign koulibaly, but if Ole has to blow almost half the budget on a defender now, I would say: "No way"... and ask yourself: "where are the goals coming from?"
BUT...
Our attack is of significantly greater concern to me. And it worries me MASSIVELY that we don't have players who can stick the ball in the back of the net, also, our midfield is pretty shambolic.
It's true that a more comfortable back 4 will allow more freedom for our attack, but it could also be argued that a good attack can hide defensive frailties by outscoring the opponent. I feel SAF always placed slightly (~significantly, at time) more emphasis on his attack and midfield. I don't recall SAF ever building the team from the back.
Yeah, I'm kind of echoing what some on here are already saying regarding adding the fairy dust after we build a solid team of grafters. But it's slightly different in that I'm saying we should make do with our defence, and focus first a foremost on our problem of scoring goals. This defensive mindset is a holdover from Mourinho's time I think. In fairness, Smalling, Bailly, Jones, tuanzebe is good enough to challenge for top 4 this season. In all honesty, we are stacked in centre defence. True, the quality isn't quite there, but United aren't challenging for the title next season.
Most pertinently, Young needs replacing with a world class wing back. Someone who can contribute to the attack.
A right winger... WE HAVE NO RIGHT WING WHATSOEVER.
We need a DECENT STRIKER. Even Cavani for a decent two years, just anyone who could contribute 20+ goals per season, and for the love of God, can hold the ball up and has a decent first touch.
The midfield, we obviously need reinforcements after Herrera.
Seeing as we didn't sign anyone in the last transfer window, maybe the kitty rolled over into this window. So if it's 200m + koulibaly, then by all means, United should sign koulibaly, but if Ole has to blow almost half the budget on a defender now, I would say: "No way"... and ask yourself: "where are the goals coming from?"
You must be kidding me right? Koulibaly clumsy? Wtf.
Utter ballacks you're talking..
Google arsenal goals vs napoli youtube.
First goal he ran wide and got nutmegged.
Second goal instead of blocking the shot properly it hit him and went in
Maybe you missed this game?
Google Liverpool vs Napoli and watch VVD. Any player can point out a game where they make a few errors.
Watch the video . Easier than trying to insult other posters.
I don't need to watch a video of a player who i've watched play numerous times and who performed to such a high level in a average to above average team. Brilliant on the ball and is a brilliant footballer too who can pass through the lines at a high level. His physicality is a added bonus. To say he's clumsy is absurd.
I guess Vidic was clumsy too against Torres in 2009..
One or two lowlights does not a clumsy player make. Torres floored Vidic... and Id kill to have Vidic in this side.
I assume De Gea is really a terrible keeper after his bloopers recently
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Wow, as bad as any post I’ve seen on these forums.
If he is 90M, and Anderweireld 25M, why cant we get both, and offload Jones, young,rojo, and just keep Smalling, Lindelof.. as our 4
Why do I feel like we'll drop 100m on this fella and he'll get injured in his first game and be out for 4 months?
Seems like he's our second choice if Koulibaly can't be aquired for a reasonable fee. We probably don't want to spend more than Liverpool did for VVD, and we definitely don't want to spend that money as our first transfer of the summer, we'll get fecking rinsed by every club we talk to after it.
Anderweireld has hinted he's going back to Ajax when he's done at Tottenham
Koulibaly and Godfrey will do just fine. Add Tuanzebe into our options for next season and we are good to go.
Koulibaly clumsy? Is that because he's big and black? So he's obviously a brute. He breaks the lines with his passing as well as any CB I've seen.
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Phil Jones?
As someone already said, he is good but he is not 90mil good. That is almost half of our summer budget for only one player. We could buy Maguire and Ake for that kind of money. Offload our deadwood from defence ( Jones, Rojo, Bailly ) for 40 mil and there is still 150 mil to fix the squad.
Huh?
Have you watched regulary or you just google his YouTube videos?
It's not at all, let's not go and bring race into this debate because in my opinion Mustafi and Lovren are the definition of clumsy and error prone, I don't even think Koulibaly is clumsy either.
Have they made our budget public?
Agree though. Big risk paying that much for an older player who may take time to adjust to the PL...
Nice one pal. Seems you watched him twice against Arsenal and that's it, decision made
He wasn't at his best in those 2 games admittedly, but if that's his "low level" then that's still 10x better than what we have.
I've watched him plenty more times than twice and he's always very, very good in a team with hardly any defensive stucture. Napoli play like they're on "ultra attacking" on Fifa.
Sooner Barca sign De Ligt the better so that all these hipsters can stop displaying their throbbing for him in every single thread.
That's a singular game maybe you should assess his performances over a season.
One thing for sure is that he's not clumsy he's better In possession on the ball than both VVD and De Ligt
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