So far he's been pretty poor, with just the odd glimpse of form. I intend to apply my golden rule to him and judge him after a season of PL, not in his first year. He needs to start picking up though , cause right now he's pretty ordinary.
He was fecking awful tonight, clueless positionally, all his passes were behind the players causing them to check the momentum. Heading was piss poor and as for shooting? Don’t get me started.
I called it around week 2 that he looks Rambo than Essien. Hey he ain't Mikel. He can only get better. Hoping for the best.
It looked like a training match and for those who want to be pushing for a regular spot, I would have thought they would have been trying harder.
i was very excited when he first joined after hearing about his power and size and athletic ability and how monaco ran the midfield against many a club. That soon dulled down a bit when you can see he suffers badly as he's technically not very good but i thought he could still beast the midfield. I don't know whether its down to confidence but recently he's been a very average player. He doesn't really attack and he doesn't make the right movements. He can barely pass the ball and we rarely control the midfield. I was glad to get rid of matic but at this moment in time, i feel like our midfield is even worse creatively then when it was matic and kante which is what i was hoping bakayoko would allieviate. He might be brilliant in a 442 but i can say now, he isn't at the right level for 3-5-2/3-4-3 as he cannot pass and thats something we need our midfield 2 to contribute more (especially since kante isn't great at this either). Right now i would prefer a midfield of danny and kante although it'll be interesting to see how ross barkley gets on
I have a feeling he will come good. At this point he seems rushed on the ball and that may well be due to the diffrence in pace coming from France to EPL. He needs to calm down and realise when he has time on the ball and realise when to be brave and use his strength to hold off a challenge. He's quite young and given time he may well be a good player, problem is he's at Chelsea and he wont get time.
Stupid signing an injured player to replace NM. Then another one, DD. And now RB too! Anyway, Baka has been dreadful bar Atletico and Spurs away. Hopefully he is injury free and gets a good preseason in next summer, then he can show something
I think he needs time. The French league is very weak compared to ours (PSG aside). He's been very average but Im hoping he can be a bit of a Yaya for us in the long run given his physical attributes at least. Ramires, Essien both took a little while and they are the players I'd most liken him to. But for now, I think Drinkwater probably deserves to be starting next to Kante. Can't see Barkely in this role. He's normally been pushed a bit more further forward from what I've seen. Fabregas back up / long term replacement??
True, I hate slagging off players but the last two games were awful from his POV. I’m sure a good pre-season will bed him in so we can see what he really has to offer but I would definitely drop him for a couple of games to drive home the message. I’m pleased with Rudiger after initially being sceptical. He’s excelled and grown and will be a great player for us.
Rudiger is showing plenty of promise and like Bakayoko, might be a much better player after this season. lets hope so.
Drinkwater and Kante are a perfect pairing, both can dig in and win the ball back, both are very good at interceptions. Drinkwater is the much better passer of the two and often fed Mahrez the ball to feed Vardy when at Liecester. Kante is the more likely of the two to get forward and join the attack even though he is looked at as the DM, together they make a very good partnership. Barkely is most probably looked at as a Faregas replacement/cover dependant on how he recovers after so long without games. He is capable of playing the position (maybe not as well as Fab) but needs to be trained not to be too greedy with the ball or try to do too much on his own.
It just goes to show the dearth of midfield talent in our first team when Danny ****ing Drinkwater is the best choice!
Kind of exposes the muddled thinking that we get Drinkwater crocked, Bakayoko crocked and unproven and Barkley crocked and inconsistent. Surely one fit and far superior talent would be a better and more cost effective way to go, and use young Ampadu as our up and coming midfielder, otherwise he'll be off like a brides' nightie before too long, as will Loftus Cheek. We need a striker and are looking at Andy Carroll, while Sanchez is likely to go to City for 25mill. And we are still faffing around with Alex Sandro over 60 mill x-fer. No wonder Conte has had a belly full of our transfer policies. Also expect Hazard and/or Courtois to go at seasons' end, too much smoke there to see the fire yet, but I think we will soon.
To be fair to the club, you can't force players to come or force clubs to sell. Sanchez for 25 million would be a bargain (plus signing on fee and agents fee and high wages though) but if he wants to go to City what can you do? Apparently we wanted Van Dyke but Liverpool paid an astronomical amount of money for him and he clearly wanted to go to Liverpool. Aubamayeng is nearly 30 and looks to be heading to China for a 70 million odd fee. Juve wont even let a left back go for 60 million, I'm sure the club know where we need to strengthen but it's hard getting top players in, especially in January. Plus we are trying to balance the books and are starting to finally give some youth more of a chance in Christensen and to a lesser extent in Ampadu, Kennedy, Musunda. We can't have it all. Who does?