Nathan Aké

[Peace. 4,352]

20 hours ago, Tomo said:

He was given a pecific task in a one off game playing cautious tactics, doesn't mean he will make a full time CM. Infact i have a feeling Zouma will be Conte's Mata, not sure he fits this system atall.

Well Tomo, I would even be tempted to say Zouma does not fit our squad in light of the aspirations we have.

Sentimentality put aside, Zouma is a bad ball-player and in regard to tactics he is kind of "raw" — which means he is a "mad dog". Unfortunately, our team is cruelly lacking of technic — lack of or inability to use it (either because of a lack of mobility or of football brain). We are not in a situation where our team is full of technically gifted players which would allow us to adapt a poor ball-player in the team.

Because of this set of reasons, on the medium term, Zouma's futur here will not go further than — I am afraid — the bench. Christensen is considerably better equipped to take Cahill's spot in the team next season. That being said it is not a fatality because he has a good profile to be used as tactical substitute — either during the game or for certain types of games — when we need more muscle.

[OhForAGreavsie 6,067]

17 hours ago, the wes said:

Lads what's Ake crossing ability like?? You need to be good at crossing the ball playing left wing-back position 

No you don't. This  widely held, yet wildly inaccurate, idea is a great big fat myth. It's why so many people wrongly believe that Ricardo Rodriguez is a tip-top full-back; they've seen him hit a cross or two on  youTube. 

In the list of attributes required to be a good wing back, crossing ability is rock bottom last of them.

[Dazzy_Vance 454]

4 hours ago, OhForAGreavsie said:

In the list of attributes required to be a good wing back, crossing ability is rock bottom last of them.

[Unionjack 7,531]

Nate welcoming home his dreaded brother

 

[Unionjack 7,531]

11 hours ago, OhForAGreavsie said:

No you don't. This  widely held, yet wildly inaccurate, idea is a great big fat myth. It's why so many people wrongly believe that Ricardo Rodriguez is a tip-top full-back; they've seen him hit a cross or two on  youTube. 

In the list of attributes required to be a good wing back, crossing ability is rock bottom last of them.

I woulda thunk it would be a major attribute from a WB to be a good crosser.

Surely one of the uses of a WB is to utilize the width of the pitch. So when the WB gets to the top 1/3 the FB comes out to him thus creating space for the attackers and taller players to use. Specially when the bus is parked up.

[manpe 10,861]

11 hours ago, OhForAGreavsie said:

No you don't. This  widely held, yet wildly inaccurate, idea is a great big fat myth. It's why so many people wrongly believe that Ricardo Rodriguez is a tip-top full-back; they've seen him hit a cross or two on  youTube. 

In the list of attributes required to be a good wing back, crossing ability is rock bottom last of them.

Rock bottom is an exaggeration. Wide players need to be able to cross, especially if they are playing on their stronger side (i.e. left-footed LWB and right-footed RWB). Remember Bosingwa and how many attacking chances he ruined from good crossing positions? Or Ivanovic from last season? Modern wide defenders aren't that good at defending anyway, so they better have some useful tools going forward and crossing is 100% one of them. Alonso for example is a decent crosser, he's created many dangerous situations by putting in good crosses and it is one detail that has contributed to our much improved performances this season.

[communicate 2,703]

Hopefully he can make that lwb spot his own. Not convinced at all with Alonso 

[BoyBlue96 990]

Nathan Gullit is back.

 

Hopefully the first Dutchman to really add something to the squad at Chelsea since Robben...

Did good at Bournemouth but I don't think he's up for it but I hope so...for him but also for us Dutch as the Dutch team has shit left backs since Gio van Bronckhorst retired.

[OhForAGreavsie 6,067]

1 hour ago, manpe said:

Remember Bosingwa and how many attacking chances he ruined from good crossing positions? Or Ivanovic from last season?

Or everybody else, from any season you care to mention. Even if your name is Beckham or De Bruyne most of your crosses from open play will not find a teammate, and most of those which do will not be converted into goals.

I don't say the ability to deliver a cross is not desirable, I just say it's less of a benefit than many think it is and definitely less of one than the other WB attributes we could list. Find me a candidate who offers those other attributes and I tell you honestly, I couldn't care less whether he is the best or the worst in his position when it comes to delivering a cross. The difference between top and bottom of that category, in terms of outcome, will be pretty marginal anyway.

You and I go back much further than most posters on here. If we put our heads together, how many consistently great crossers could we name who have represented this club? And I include attacking players in that. I would suggest that any name we come up with would only seem to have been great when shrouded in a haze of nostalgia. A haze which causes us to forget all of their uselessly wasteful deliveries, and only remember the ones which came to anything.

I did a post a month or two ago in which I explained why I don't rate crossing as a big factor in the play of a wingback, and talked about the things which I think are more important. I won't attempt to regurgitate it all but if I can find the original I will link it. In the meantime, if you would find it interesting, why not list the attributes you think are important for wingbacks and say which ones you rank below crossing?

[manpe 10,861]

5 hours ago, OhForAGreavsie said:

Or everybody else, from any season you care to mention. Even if your name is Beckham or De Bruyne most of your crosses from open play will not find a teammate, and most of those which do will not be converted into goals.

I don't say the ability to deliver a cross is not desirable, I just say it's less of a benefit than many think it is and definitely less of one than the other WB attributes we could list. Find me a candidate who offers those other attributes and I tell you honestly, I couldn't care less whether he is the best or the worst in his position when it comes to delivering a cross. The difference between top and bottom of that category, in terms of outcome, will be pretty marginal anyway.

You and I go back much further than most posters on here. If we put our heads together, how many consistently great crossers could we name who have represented this club? And I include attacking players in that. I would suggest that any name we come up with would only seem to have been great when shrouded in a haze of nostalgia. A haze which causes us to forget all of their uselessly wasteful deliveries, and only remember the ones which came to anything.

I did a post a month or two ago in which I explained why I don't rate crossing as a big factor in the play of a wingback, and talked about the things which I think are more important. I won't attempt to regurgitate it all but if I can find the original I will link it. In the meantime, if you would find it interesting, why not list the attributes you think are important for wingbacks and say which ones you rank below crossing?

Good post and I very much understand your POV. I was more contesting the claim that crossing is "rock bottom last" attribute. Good crossers are hard to come by these days and they often seem wasteful, because as you said most crosses won't achieve anything directly, but a dangerous cross can cause a situation where you destabilize the opponent and carve out an opportunity to score eventually. Using this logic you can also say that shooting is not important, because most shots will not go in or even be on target.

How many consistently good crossers I remember? None honestly. During the time I've watched us we have never really been a team with great emphasis on wing-play and crossing like Man United for example, we have mostly been a battering ram through the middle.

What attributes are important for wingbacks? Speed to get up and down quickly, stamina for sure to be able to do that throughout a game. Tactical sense and positional awareness (City has shown us what happens when they are lacking that). Obviously defending skills like marking and tackling, because first and foremost they are still defenders and need to be competent at that. Those would be the attributes I would look at the most when evaluating a WB and you are correct, crossing ability is not that important in the list mainly because we rely more on combination play (yay!) and quick breaks. It's still a fine weapon to have knowing your WB can whip in a worldie when provoked to do so, instead of under- or overhitting 9 times out 10. This will be especially useful when we are facing teams that clog the middle and force us wide.

Which attributes rank below crossing? I will say long distance shooting and crazy dribbling skills, but beyond that I'm actually struggling to think of any. Considering the opponent you are facing and the type of game you're in, crossing ability can be of vital importance or completely unnecessary, but overall it's far from being among the core attributes required for a wingback that I agree with. Writing this post while giving it some more thought I realized that I might have overestimated the importance of crossing.

[ja1 1,166]

On 08/01/2017 at 1:40 PM, Leif said:

I agree with every word of yours. I think that bringing in the youth, is like a cherry on top of the cake. It's very pretty decoration. But, we still need a strong enough sponge/foundation first. And right now, our sponge is not completely ready. It's crumbly, and while it resembles a cake, if someone were to bite into it deep, they'd see that the core is not yet good enough to be leaping ahead to adding the decoration.

Maybe this wouldn't even be a conversation though if we were looking at our other youngsters. We do have some talent that I genuinely believe are already 6.5's, ready to be made 7/10 players very quickly under Conte. Those are Jay Dasilva, Musonda, perhaps Christensen, Tammy Abraham (he was already an absolute monster for the youth teams; the fact that he's now averaging a goal every 2 games in the Championship makes me think he's capable enough to be our next Demba Ba or whatnot.), & Kalas (still only 23, and when we played him, I thought he was truly superb. It confuses me why we don't use him). 

Those are our gems. Those are all players who'd be good enough for the top 6 or so Premier League teams, right now. No other team in the top 6 would take Ake, Ruben or Chalobah. We and City would both be better with Christensen, right now. Arsenal would be better with Abraham (he's perfect for their system; just stand up top and score, don't do much else.) Kalas would be useful here or at City; but he'd truly shine at Liverpool. Musonda is more delicate so I won't say anything about him in this regard. Dasilva similar. We have youth players already good enough for the Premier League's top 6, so why do we focus on our youth players that're barely good enough for the top 6 of the npower Championship? 

I like how everyone ignored this car cash of a post

[Chelsea? 892]

1 hour ago, ja1 said:

I like how everyone ignored this car cash of a post

😂 😂😂

[Blue-in-me-Veins 4,067]

Love the racall of Nathan Ake. He can really be the ultimate utility man, playing as a  LWB, LCB, and in CM too. An article was just released that Marcos Alonso has been carrying an upper leg injury even before he arrived, and it's been getting progressively worse the past few weeks, so I think it's clear Conte wants him to play as LWB primarily for right now. 

Having said all that, I'll be very curious to see how Conte puts together our defense for next season. Top clubs usually don't carry more than 1 young Developmental CB. And as it stands, we'll have 3 next season with Christensen, Zouma & Ake. That's 1/2 too many. 

In my ideal world, Ake makes it here as a LWB primarily. Christensen/Luiz/Azpi/Cahill for CB spots, Azpi also as supplemental RWB when up against. Zouma on Loan. 

Edit: Interesting video here, where Nathan Ake states he sees himself as a CM/CB more so than LB. Think it's clear he doesn't like LB role that much. Wonder what this means. 

 

[Dazzy_Vance 454]

So crossing isn't important? How did we concede our two goals against Tottenham again?

The word "cross" doesn't just mean some absolute peachy inswinger from 40 yards out that hits the target on the top of their head. A lot of goals scored come from grounded crosses as well.

[Sideshow Luiz 2,310]

When the news of his recall came around, my immediate reaction was to assume he was going to play as LCB.

We'll see.