Some Assorted Gary Cahill Thoughts
by Graham MacAree on Jan 16, 2012 6:32 PM GMT
in Chelsea FC: Players
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So the Gary Cahill move is all official and stuff now, and that means I've got some opinions! They say that the human body is 80% water, but I'm at least that much in opinions and pithy comments, so clearly science is a sham. We'll have a long chat with Lion of Vienna Suite about our new defender later today, but for now let's just do some bullet pointing...
- First of all, Cahill's had an rubbish season. Whether or not that's because Bolton's two best players are out injured, thus leaving the defence exposed, is up to you, but I find it staggering that anyone could compare Cahill's play to any of Chelsea's four centre halves and pencil him in for a starting spot on the team. He's made more mistakes than any of them. While it's nice to have another England international around, it's difficult to see him slotting in as first choice immediately. On paper, he's CB number three at this point, and I find the thought processes of anyone praising Cahill while calling (say) David Luiz a liability utterly baffling. But hey, opinions, man.
- The main asset Cahill brings to the table is his aerial ability. With the fullbacks having issues with crosses and the defence as a whole struggling to deal with long balls, having Cahill around to mop things up could be very useful if Chelsea are expecting an aerial bombardment. In much the same way that Carlo Ancelotti used Branislav Ivanovic at right back over Jose Bosingwa against bigger teams, it wouldn't be crazy to field Cahill against, say, Stoke City. And, of course, he's helpful in dealing with set pieces at both ends of the pitch.
- Stylistically, Cahill's a reasonably close match for John Terry, and it wouldn't be particularly difficult to see a long-term partnership of David Luiz at left centre back and Gary Cahill on the right if Terry's missing for whatever reason. With there being some question (to put it delicately) on how many more games Terry will be able to play this year, this moves makes a lot of sense in that sort of context.
- With Cahill earning £80,000 a week and Chelsea paying Bolton £7M for his services, the overall package is about £30M. Manchester United paid out a total of £31M to acquire Phil Jones over the summer. Jones is a comparable player right now with a significantly brighter future than Cahill (on account of being more than six years younger). This deal looks significantly less attractive with that in mind.
- While the £80,000 per week figure seems outrageous compared to some of Chelsea's other buys - Ramires, Juan Mata and David Luiz are on significantly lower wages - I'd question whether it's fair to compare guys moving from other leagues (especially the Primeira Liga) to established Premier Leaguers who also happen to have regularly played for England. The amount of money Cahill got makes a little more sense when you remember that he's played more than 150 games in the league.
- This doesn't make a bit of difference to Tomas Kalas or Jeffrey Bruma. If they're not good enough to force Cahill out, neither is good enough to play for Chelsea anyway.
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About Phil Jones
His salary might be a bit on the lower side this season,since he wasn’t really established then…but I bet he’ll be looking for a significant hike by next season. In which case the 31m figure won’t last long. But he’s a better talent than Cahill,no doubt about that. But 80k is still about 15-20k too high IMO.
He might be looking for a hike, but United aren't obligated to give it to him for a while
Similarly with Cahill – if he’s as good as his supporters think he is, he’ll be looking at raises too, and he’ll be using 80k as his base.
by Graham MacAree on Jan 16, 2012 6:40 PM GMT up reply actions
Right now I'd rather have Cahill as a third choice CB...
than Phil Jones as a first choice CB. He’s not really good enough yet. The amount of crap Luiz gets compared to Jones is soo unfair. I’m fairly happy with this deal even if it’s slightly on the expensive side. I can’t see Terry playing every single game and in a year and a half Cahill could be starting along side Luiz as our first choice pairing which would mean Hutch, Kalas, Bruma and the other hot CB prospects could be used as cover and eventually slotting into the side..
I mean that’s what you want. Younger players taking over from older players who become back up then leave then even younger players become back-up and repeat. I’ve never thought that Cahill was as good as some people seem to believe but i think he’s definitely a good enough player for our squad. Then again I’m not paid thousands of pounds to decide whether a player is good or not and I think there’s a good reason for that too.
You never know he might be amazing played in our squad which in every position is miles better than Bolton.
I suppose 30 mil is a little too price-y,
but as for the split (80K per week plus 7M to BW), I’d rather he get the money than Bolton.
Remember that's 30m over 5 1/2 years. I don't think it's too difficult to imagine us...
…clearing his wage and getting a decent fee for him selling him before the end of his contract.
Author and Official Fernando Torres Apologist for We Ain't Got No History!
by Kevin Kostka on Jan 16, 2012 9:49 PM GMT up reply actions
2nd coming of Torres sounds scary...
But if he scores as many as Torres that’s a good thing.
by Sabrina Dessipe on Jan 16, 2012 6:54 PM GMT up reply actions
I see what you're trying to do there
But I was strictly referring to this in the sense of marketing/big-name-player-signing…wherein I find it hilarious that the official web presence has the gall to pump up Cahill in a Torres-esque fashion.
oh I see
No need to hype of Cahill. It’s not like he was playing all that well before you signed him.
by Sabrina Dessipe on Jan 16, 2012 7:51 PM GMT up reply actions
That could have been well understood as
“Start to commit suicide, dear friends of Chelsea, the second Torres is here” Iiieeeks
Tor ilisar'thera'nal!
Hm I originally understood
that he only meant the marketing part because of the megastore … and that is funny but a bit drab – but your interpretation is much cooler!
Tor ilisar'thera'nal!
Hurry up and order your Cahill shirts before they're all gone!!!
Selling like hotcakes, they are….
by Sabrina Dessipe on Jan 16, 2012 10:19 PM GMT up reply actions
OK, mixed with "Start commiting suicide, Torres II is here!"
I get the call – my feelings toward Cahill were only a fraction of my feelings toward Torres last year but at least it’s both heading the same direction
So marketing Cahill shirts like this makes perfect sense to me :D
Tor ilisar'thera'nal!
Where's alynne?
I don’t imagine she’d want to miss the second coming of Torres…
by deg0ey on Jan 16, 2012 8:10 PM GMT up reply actions 1 recs
Strange! Whilst there was the open invitation
“Help us fund the insane fee” last year with Torres I would have thought Cahill was funded from the coffee box :(
Tor ilisar'thera'nal!
I am getting the impression that you are Anti - Cahill
When can i get my Dwight Howard Brooklyn Nets Jersey?
by AmbassadorAmeer on Jan 16, 2012 6:55 PM GMT reply actions
im still not convinced
from cahill’s point of view he is absolutely right to demand(who wouldnt) but chelsea should have been strategically a foot ahead of everyone during this deal(or any deal)..anyways hope u do well for us
A sound signing
In my opinion, this is a signing that makes a lot of sense for Chelsea. A homegrown player who can compliment any of our first-team squad CB’s; he’s comfortable on the ball and offers a decent goalscoring threat too (I think he has a 1 in 10 scoring ratio). To be honest, I think most CB’s would struggle in the Bolton side this season! He has looked more comfortale at International level and I’m hoping that playing with better players at our club will improve his game too.
There are two stats which are positives….he doesn’t seem to pick p too many bookings and he has a very good interception % which points to having good awareness/anticipation.
Let’s not get hung up on wages as no-one really knows what he’s getting.
Yes...also...
….in the coming years English players will have a higher premium than others due to the roster requirements.
Phil Jones
I don’t think Phil Jones is all he is being made out to be. Give me David Luis any day. Far more upside. I think Jones is way over hyped. He had a couple of decent games with Blackburn, and he started ok with United. But I haven’t seen him stand out iin quite a while. Some United friends of mine seem to think he’s been found out.
I have also seen that Benfica game, and while it’s awful, let’s remember that it’s only one game. We have all seen great defenders have those sorts of games. In the same way we want to buy someone for a spectacular shot, or a nice bit of trickery, only to discover that was a once in a lifetime thing, we may want to apply that to the Benfica game too and not write off the possibility for David Luis. However, he was playing on the left side, and it appears that that is not where we need the cover.
Apparently he was really good at LB against Liverpool
But I still think his position is CB. Phil Jones does get far too much love compared to Luiz. United don;t have a good, fit CB. Rio is too old, Jones and Smalling are both too young. Luiz is one of the more underrated players in the league. Any time he makes a mistake pundits attack it.
don't kill the messenger.
I have a funny feeling that the other job Abramovich gave AVB was to break the power of the old guard at Chelsea as they were become a barrier to progress by feeling they were more powerfully than the manager. So Abramovich has decided to break that powerbase. In jan he brought in Torres in Drogbas position. In the summer we bought Courtois and sent him on loan. But you’ll remember he claimed that the goalkeeping coach at chelsea said he would be the starter in 2 years because Petr was starting to break down.
In the summer we tried desperately to get a new ringmaster to replace lamps (Moderic) and got Nereiles when we couldn’t. And AVB has been playing lamps only sporadically. Then there is terry. The one player who wasn’t replaced and on the leader of the quartet of dressing room powerbrokers. And we’re wondering why we bought a player so similar to terry to play beside him???? It won’t happen in one go mind you but Cahill is Terry’s replacement. Mark my words. The club is also aware that Terry may well be done for racism. Minimum 8 game suspension ahead? I think the players have become far too powerful and needed to be relieved of some of there influence. No one is greater than the club.
My II sense
by joady on Jan 16, 2012 8:14 PM GMT via iPhone app reply actions
He does seem to be a replacement for Terry yes.
But I think it’ll take a while. If Terry does get done for racism and Cahill plays well I think he’ll struggle to get first choice back. He might Rotate the three of them a lot for the season but Terry can’t play too often for much longer.
I think the reason why we seek to replace Lampard, Drogba, Terry and other players
is probably because in the first place they are declining, or will be declining, or because they can’t play week in week out 3 games a week like they did when they still were 28. I know we don’t know anything for sure, but besides the overblown reports “Drogba says Chelsea squad is divided” (which was debunked since he never said that) and “Frank Lampard wasn’t celebrating the Chelsea goal” (fuck yeah!) and that some journos want us to believe we are down because the players think they run the club … that whole player power thing seems so overblown out of proportion and made up with heat
Tor ilisar'thera'nal!
Also Lampard and Drogba havent made it hard to replace them on the pitch.
The good performances weren’t as many as in previous seasons.
Terry on the other hand made it very difficult to be replaced
there is a deserved legacy with him and he had very very good performances even this year that I will remember for a long time. Pretty big shoes to fill….
In fairness, Terry is a couple of ears younger than either of them
And he plays a position where guys tend to age better
by Stephen Schmidt on Jan 16, 2012 10:14 PM GMT up reply actions
Erm...
I know that his play isn’t always great and he doesn’t necessarily fit AVB’s long-term style – but geez, Frank does lead the team in goals (with 11). Would we really say that’s not hard to replace?
And the comment above, AVB playing Lamps “only sporadically,” really? He’s not automatic, but he’s still one of the leaders in minutes played.
Despite the media talk, it’s not like he’s been kicked to the curb a la Alex.
Yes
AVB said just recently only Cech and Terry have featured more games than Frank Lampard. So I wouldn’t say that he is played sporadically this year, although of course he maybe should get a rest when we play 3 games a week
Tor ilisar'thera'nal!
I'm not even talking about respect, just stats
I mean, there’s a difference between “he’s a legend for the club and deserves to keep playing, even if he’s not good” and “he’s still productive and has contributed.”
We’re nowhere near the former, because he’s still good.
Perhaps a bit respect at least
not to crush down everytime (like the Mail likes to do) when Lampard or Drogba say they want to play more minutes and point fingers screaming “player power” and “selfishness”. It’s utterly natural they want to play more; if they deserve to is another thing
Tor ilisar'thera'nal!
No disrespect intended.
I’ve been cheering Lampsy on since i was about 11. But he’s not the player he used to be and shouldn’t be “untouchable”. I know he’s been getting the goals but he hasn’t been adding a huge amount to the team. I’m not convinced he can’t play in AVB’s style I just think he’s happy to play his usual game. Maybe if the whole team starts improving he’ll adapt. He’s too good not too. But he can’t play as much as he used to anymore.
Thanks for mentioning the "he won't replace David Luiz part".
Everyone, everywhere thinks he’s there to replace the Brazilian. All I can do when I hear that is double facepalm.
This “David Luiz is prone to mistakes and everyone else is not” myth is a whole lot worse than the old “Mikel only passes sideways” myth. I’ll be super happy the day this myth dies.
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