Rumor: Mission Impossible: Replacing Infinito ∞ | The 2018-19 Transfer Thread

I too hope he will be a success, preferably here. Yeah, time will tell.

 

I’d suggest he’s already very close to Pique’s level and he’s just 19 .. he’s a born leader .. he may even extend Pique’s career ??

I can’t find a fault in his play but his leadership skills and dominance on both boxes will be priceless.
Him and FDJ is dreamlike - sadly the Valverde nightmares will continue

 

Yeah, to me too, he seems the kind of player we should really try to sign. He seems complete for a young defender, with no obvious flaws. But then again, many players have seemed superb in his age and then faded. Let's hope for the best.

Of course, he is not perfect. For all his leadership and Ajax playing well, they conceded more in Eredivisie than PSV, and Ajax crumbled to Spurs as well. Not his fault alone, of course, but it's not like he and his teams are unstoppable new standards of what is good defending.

I agree he seems like a natural leader (although I'd say that the speech to Ajax fans isn't too impressive to me, that's more public speaking with standard references to praise city, fans, attacking football etc).

Pique, Lenglet, De Ligt, and someone fourth as back-up sounds good to me as the CB quartet.

 

Thing is, the way Ajax play football lends itself to being vulnerable at the back. They play with a very high line with attack-minded fullbacks (wingbacks, rather) so it's more likely that they will get scored against than other teams. The upside being that a lot of times they also outscore their opponents by a large margin (at least in the Eredivisie).

The fact that Ajax only lost to Madrid in the CL knock-out phase until the Spurs return leg and not losing a single away match in said phase is remarkable to say the least. They've had arguably the toughest route to the final while having the youngest, cheapest and least experienced squad.

I'm not saying they set the standard for defending, but it's not something that can be understated either, and de Ligt played a major part in that, not only defensively but offensively as well.

With that being said, I don't think that speech is what should be used as a metric to determine de Ligt's leadership skills. It's more of what he does and shows on the pitch. The way he positions everyone and puts a fire under everybody's arses. They all respect him too, which is remarkable considering his age. But when you can be decisive both in defense and in offense (vs Juve for example), you earn that respect as well.

 

That's fair enough, but then again a goal conceded is a goal conceded. And he will face tougher attacks than what Eredivisie can offer. Either way, I don't doubt him, and I don't mean that Ajax's conceding is a proof he is poor, or something like that. Good, good player.

I agree, Ajax's performance can't be ignored. I think, though, that even if they met giant teams (Bayern, RM, Juventus), especially the first two of them are far from the level in general they were a couple of years ago.

Regarding speech, agreed.

 

The bigger the expectations, the quicker impatience grows.

 

Definitely agree on that. However, it’s hard to suppress the expectations given what he himself has achieved; Being the youngest starter ever in a EL final at 17, being the youngest captain ever in the CL, winning the Golden Boy Award, Winning the Double with Ajax and getting deep into the CL, getting best Eredivisie player award, putting in great performances against the best forwards in the world on both club and national level... and so on.

It’s kind of unprecedented for a CB and as such, the media and the fans tend to get carried away. However, he wouldn’t be the first super talent to fall short of expectations. I definitely think people should calm down and let the guy do his thing while not crucifying him for every mistake he makes, especially at the beginning during the adjustment period.

Oh well, we have yet to sign him so let’s get that in order first.

 

If they met ??

Didn’t they beat Bayern , Juve and Real Madrid in the last few months ?

 

Read “even if” as “even though”

Ajax didn’t beat Bayern. Drew both matches in group stage and finished second in the group behind the Bavarians.

 

Yep. They started off slow, then really grew into the tournament.

 

Here’s an article from over 2 years ago when De Ligt was already 6’2”.

https://www.ajaxdaily.com/items/matthijs-de-ligt/

Safe to say you don’t start growing again after you’ve stopped growing for 3 years. Nor do you get much faster after turning 20.

 

Like I said, it's not impossible to not grow anymore, even after you've stopped growing for 3 years. Men have been known to grow well into their 20's if we're getting technical about it. Whether it's likely or common is another story. However, again, it's not really relevant. The point is, the guy is a unit, especially for his age. His match-up against Lewandowski comes to mind.

Agree on not getting faster though, but de Ligt is fast enough and whatever he lacks in pace he more than makes up for in positioning.

 

My initial point was that De Ligt has shone against many top class forwards ... including the runaway German and Italian champions..

 

He was a beast against Juve in the second-leg, but for the most part Ajax' success this year was down to their attack. 119 goals in a 34 game league season pretty much says it all. Allowed them to win the title even with 6-2 and 3-nil losses to their closest title rivals. Keeping clean sheets was a foreign concept to them.

 

Mbappe put himself on the market.

He just said that he wanted more responsibility, whether at PSG or elsewhere.

He also hinted that PSG President will let him leave whenever he wants.

Left a lot of reporters stunned.

I guess Real Madrid are more in the running for him than us.

Kylian Mbappé: "I feel that it is time for me to have more responsibility. Maybe here in Paris or maybe somewhere else then. I am at a turning point in my career. In any case thanks everyone!"


Real Madrid are going to be scary if they do get Mbappe, alongside Hazard and Jovic.

 

Not looking as optimistic as we were led to believe as regards De Ligt

Sources close to the negotiations said that the "optimism" which Barca maintained a few weeks ago has decreased due to the renewed interest of some of Europe's biggest clubs and the excessive demands from De Ligt and his agent, Mino Raiola.
We can't move any more on what we've offered," a Barcelona source told ESPN FC. "One of the things that could benefit us is the player's desire to come here, but we will see if that really is what he wants in the end."

 

There's a new rumour about optimism in Barcelona growing or shrinking, every day, when it comes to De Ligt.

The latest is that the player himself said he'd love to play in the same team than De Jong. Said it like yesterday or today or something like that.

(FWIW, all signs considered, I'm fairly sure he will end up in Barca at some point this summer)

 

I try to take every rumor spread out by the media with a grain of salt. Otherwise you’ll find yourself on an emotional rollercoaster based on pure speculation and propaganda.

 

I think the only thing he's a bit hesitant about is Barca are stacked in central D. Since he's only 20, maybe its best he plays in a lower league (like France) for a year or two, and then goes to Barca. Rumor is this is the advice he's getting. Whether he listens or not remains to be seen

 

speaking of the rumour roller coaster, La Sexta is saying that that LPB have "given up on" Luka Jovic, balking at Frankfurt's asking price.

 

🚨[El Chiringuito TV] | BREAKING| Real Madrid say “no” to Luca Jovic after they asked for 100 million euros, Barcelona could enter the race now. pic.twitter.com/x007ohuOrJ

— BarçaTimes (@BarcaTimes) May 21, 2019

 

While I’d understand that he would hesitate in such a case Barcelona are seemingly getting ready to offload several of their current CB’s including Vermaelen, Murillo, and probably Umtiti as well.

 

Question is, would we rather spend 100M on Jovic or 120M on Griezmann? That’s a tough one for me. One is a proven striker on every platform who’s just had a pretty bad season by his standards, the other is a young and massively talented striker who’s just had his break-out season. The thing I like about Jovic is that he can score with both feet and seems more of a true number 9 than Griezmann. Problem with Jovic will he that he’d have to play second fiddle to Suarez and I think he mentioned that wherever he went he wanted to play. Griezmann would be more useful in the sense that he could play in other positions... Hhmm.

 

If we get either, would we still be able to afford DeLigt? I mean, that €300mn including what we already spent on De Jong (i.e. FDJ + DeLight+AG/Jovic). My first preference would be DeLigt, although that's mainly because of Griezmann's age and the fact that I haven't seen much of Jovic play.