Juan Cuadrado

[Daniel1980 1,425]

Even if the stats is acknowledge, is the stats difference significant enough to spend another 30m on Cuadrado? Is Cuadrado a much better player than Willian overall and would he be a significant upgrade to justify spending that kind of money on him. These are the concerns and uncertainty that those of us against this tranfer are expressing. stats or not, most posters have seen Cuadrado play on a regular basis and do not feel he's an upgrade on what we already have.

heck Schurrle has better stats than Willian and Cuadrado yet he's not a starter nor popular with the fans. so it's more than just stats sometimes.

The only significant Schurrle's stat that is better than Willian and Cuadrado's is goals per minutes played, but when it comes to that, he makes even Hazard look like Eden doesn't have end product. In everything else: chance creation, dribbling and assisting Andre is much worse even stats-wise.

If you're not good enough to play at a certain level, you'll end up looking (a lot) worse than you actually are.

Comparing stats is never a good idea imo.

I compared their stats only to address lionsden's erroneous statement that "Even stats wise, last season was the only abnormally." That's not true.

[iceboy 992]

ChelsTransferGossip @ChelsTransfer · 1h1 hour ago

Chelsea have also not ruled out including Salah as part of any deal for #Fiorentina’s Juan Cuadrado. #CFC #ASRoma (via @DiMarzio)

[The Mak 4,459]

- Too pricey.
- Probably only a replacement back-up.

- Will take time to adapt.

- No significant improvement to the team.
- No resale value.

- No point.

If he signs, I'll obviously root for him to succeed but I think this will be a bit a massive waste of time and resources. May as well recall Moses and wait till the summer.

[Rekin 835]

schurrle has better stats overall (offensive stats as they are all offensive players) than Cuadrado thorughput the course of their careers, why do you want Cuadrado instead since it's all about stats right?

Its not all about stats, but they play a part of the analysis.

Regardless, I cant find numbers to support your statement. Schurrle has hardly played this season, so it feels unfair to compare them 14/15.

Last season Cuadrado racked up more points in total (but also played a good deal more, sure. If you compare point/min they were actually quite similar, but see my last post about keeping up higher averages).

Cuadrado had a good deal higher averages in shots per game, successful dribbles and key passes. That is while simultaneously having better stats on the defensive side.

In terms of how far back you go; it is useless to look throughout their whole careers as again, Cuadrado is a converted wingback. He had very back defensive stats back then though.

Even going back two seasons to when Schurrle played in Leverkusen you will still see that Cuadrado has better stats except in shots per game.

Stats are not everything, but they reduce the amount of unknown variables. Many members here imply that they have never seen him in action, and in that case stats, the opinion of people who has seen him, highlight videos and vs videos are the best tools.

I have seen him quite a lot on TV, and also twice live, and I base my opinion of him mostly on seeing him in games. My opinion is reinforced by his favorable statistics, not based on them.

EDIT: @The Mak

1. Actually fair market value

2. We do not know anything about that. Some players take to the league right away, others don't. In other words speculation.

3. Opinion and speculation, that kind of analysis should be left for the people who make a living out of it. Stats point towards him being enough of an improvement though.

4. What is the resell value of Fabregas or Costa? We can not only buy players with selling them in mind. The idea is for them to play well, improve the team and then leave when they have reached a point where they cant earn their keep. Unless they fail right away the time of that usually occurs with higher age.

5. Opinion

Not trying to sound like an ass, but those aren't exactly striking arguments. A forum thrives when people come in with opinions based on at least some sort of facts rather than just saying "he sucks", "no THX" etc.

Thinking that Cuadrado is the wrong player is fair enough, but its hard to know what you in this instance is basing this opinion on.

[Gilvorak 3,734]

You have to be stupid to compare his goal stats to other wingers without taking into account the fact hes spent alot of his career in defensive positions ala Bale

[Nero 1,794]

no longer wishlist ; )

[Pizy 17,863]

I've been checking around a few oppositions forums and they all seem more worried about us signing him than our own fans are excited at the prospect.

[We Hate Scouse 10,261]

You have to be stupid to compare his goal stats to other wingers without taking into account the fact hes spent alot of his career in defensive positions ala Bale

He also played striker quite a bit though

[RoyalBlues 4,050]

I trust Jose about this signing, he could sign Joey Barton if necessary as long as we could win some trophies at the end of season.

[Daniel1980 1,425]

I've been checking around a few oppositions forums and they all seem more worried about us signing him than our own fans are excited at the prospect.

The same happened when we signed Cesc. Other PL fans promoted us to #1 favourite for the title if we sign him, but so many of our fans were complaining and wishing for us to sign someone else.

[Sheva. 5,373]

I think he'll benefit from not being the main outlet in attack. The ball is always on the left wing when Chelsea play, so when it's finally switched to the right side, there's usually acres of space to operate. And with his style of play, he'll be direct and dribble into the box to get a pen or take a shot.

This is what I had hoped for with Willian, but he's clearly not a winger.

[iseah100 5,612]

We need a centre back and a super star RW who can score goals. Since we're cooperating strictly with FFP, it seems a waste to spend almost £30m to only marginally improve the squad.

Superstar RW's are few and far between. Especially right now. We could get Reus, not sure why Jose wouldn't want him? He puts in a defensive shift as well as being just as dangerous as Hazard attacking and he is a set piece specialist, something we don't have. If we don't get Reus or Varane in the summer, cause I don't think they're going anywhere in January, it will be a huge disappointment.

Keep in mind that the standard of opposition Willian is up against is much more difficult than what Cuadrado faces. These stat charts are pretty meaningless.

Lol then how do you compare players? If you have only seen so much of them you have to go off stats.

Cuardado is absolutely better than Willian, he was as important as James in Brazil and was wanted by Barca and United. He's very good and if he moves to a better league he will step it up.

[Gilvorak 3,734]

He also played striker quite a bit though

How is playing out of position a good thing? Look at the amount of excuses being made for Di Maria for instance.

[WNDS 502]

I'm not sure how I feel about Cuadrado's potential acquisition yet. He's a proper RW with pace and dribbling/crossing/shooting ability, but his raw technique levels (ball control/passing) appear to be below Willian's, he's less physically strong than Willian is, and his workrate can hardly be superior to Willian's either. From what I have seen of his style of play (not much admittedly), he looks like the sort of player who will struggle with the physicality of the PL; the combination of excellent dribbling and decent-but-not-outstanding technique with a lack of upper body strength suggests to me a player who (similar to Schurrle) is going to lose possession A LOT during domestic games. And yet he IS a genuine RW (unlike Willian, Schurrle, Reus, Turan etc.), and that could possibly make enough of a difference for us .

[dee25 1,044]

I really haven't seen enough of him to offer a sound opinion but there were times when I tuned in to a Fiorentina match to watch Jovetic and I always ended up paying more attention to Cuadrado.

I have reservations about spending that amount of money on a player who seems to be a marginal improvement on our options for right wing but the thing is, if City are able to retain the premiership, it'll be the 6th season we haven't won the league and the gap between ourselves and them, in terms of commercial revenue, brand appeal etc will widen further. So the people who are saying that we should wait until the summer for someone like Reus need to consider what the possibility of City retaining the title and winning it for the 3rd time in 4 years will mean for us in terms of being able to compete for the best players and also retaining our best players, i.e Hazard. I think the board should do all they can to put the team in the best possible position to win the league and having Cuadrado in place of Salah will strengthen the squad considerably.

26M seems like a lot to spend on him but the implications of not winning the league, I feel, would be more costly.

[Gilvorak 3,734]

Loving the fact Cuadrado has a great strike on him. Generates so much power on his longshots

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

I'm I the onlyone that actually believe Willian is better than him or at worst, they are on the same level? from a technical and tactical standpoint. Even stats wise, last season was the only abnormally.

My policy is very simple, if it doesn't improve us, don't buy unless it's for squad purposes and you don't spend £25 odd million on a squad player. Either get a player that's clearly superior to what we already have or don't bother.

But he does improve us. He is better than schurrle and salah so now we have a dynamic high level squad player who can come in and have an impact on any game. Also at the level we are at now we do need to add high level squad players. Look at the likes for Madrid and Bayern, 25m for bench players is the norm now. We want to compete on that level right? If we don't get him and grab Reus, willian becomes our 30m squad player.

[Dy-lan 142]

For everyone saying why aren't we going after Reus, here's What I'd bet decent money on has happened.

1- Chelsea have contacted Bvb and Marcos camp and have been informed that he is absolutely not available right now because of their league and CL situation. And come summer will be an all out battle for his signature.

2-Similar to the situation above, Chelsea have made contact, but have been informed the player already has a deal set up with another club for summer.

Basically what I'm saying is, if Reus was even a POSSIBILITY right now you can bet Chelsea would at least have a dog in the fight.