That high line is asking for it regardless especially at 1-0, god knows why it doesn’t drop back in that scenario. Have they not trained that?
There was a period last season in which we managed those final 5-10 mins well.
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Last season we had big Virg with his height so lumping the ball into our box wasn’t a problem and the same can be said with Phillips playing, however yesterday we didn’t have the height or an aerially dominant player
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That’s my problem with this player: mot enough physical presence, especially on high balls. For the PL, it’s a paramount attribute to have as a CB.
He has done well considering his age, but I can see why we are after a player like Konaté.
Thats why Kabak and Phillips were doing well together Kabak is better with challenging on the ground whilst Phillips is very good in the air.
Similar to Joe and Virg, however Virg is good at both where Joe lacks the height and aerial dominance
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Yeah, it’s really rotten luck to have lost Phillips just when they were forming a competitive unit. Now it’s Fabinho back in there. Meh.
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Seems a switched on young lad, hope we keep him.
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Get well soon. We need you if we are to get anything out of this wretched season.
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Kabak is being sent back after his loan according to Pearce, we are only signing Konate and keeping Phillips.
Yeah, we have less than a week left to activate his clause.
I don’t think we’re doing this (never did anyway), thanks for the service and good luck to the kid.
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Do you have a link or tweet to that?
I agree, he is decent but not tall or fast enough, wish him well.
This is the part I don’t understand. When we signed him on loan, all the scout reports said he was pacy, and despite his height, had a good spring in his jump.
Wish the lad all the best, but maybe his agent hoodwinked everyone with a Brendan style brochure.
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The internet is full of “scout reports”.
I bet you could find a few that say Carroll is fast. 
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My point exactly. Seems someone wrote something, and then the whole world and his dog (so called reputable sports journalists) did a sloppy copy paste special.
Probably all stemming from that agent procured glossy brochure.
I still think Ozan has done well in parts in a tough situation, but imo we should avoid the buy option.
Going by reports over the last few months, we had an idea that we wouldn’t activate the clause, and go back with a lower offer to try and secure his services.
I like him, and wouldn’t mind having him if Edwards can strike a decent deal.
But the main thing for me is we get the Konate deal over the line.
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I think his lack of pace has been overstated. He’s not fast but not terribly slow either, he managed to keep up with Gibbs-White when he broke through. He just looks a bit funny at times when he’s running.
Overall he’s done reasonably well but that’s not a reason to buy him. IMO he hasn’t shown enough to suggest he’s good enough for where we want to be. If we want to keep such a player around as 5th choice it might as well be Phillips, he’s homegrown and won’t cost 18 million.
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Yeah, I agree, I don’t have a problem with his pure height or pace.
But overall, it’s not the level we needed and still need to improve. We need a better partner for Virgil or at least someone who can compete more consistently with Matip and Gomez (for next season at least, then we’ll see what we do next).
And we’re certainly not in a “oh, we have £20m to spare on a 5th choice CB so we can make a profit on him next summer” situation. That’s just FM fantasy. We were prepared to walk away from the player if Schalke didn’t agree only on an option to buy. That says a lot.
He’s done relatively well, but ultimately it’s not what we need for a while now.
Did we really expect two centre backs in the summer? I must admit I’m a bit worried about Konate and his injuries.
I will be sad if he leaves.
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I do but was always doubtful it would be Konate and Kabak as both are predominantly RCBs and I think we need one of each (especially as Davies isn’t trusted at LCB) and both are only really options to cover at LCB. I doubt you’d purposely plan to go into a run of games with those two as your starting CB partnership like I think may happen at the start of next season.