As you say Lanzo - opinions.

It's a tough call but my thinking (if we have to lose one of them) is:
1. Guehi is defensively more solid than Andersen
2. He reads the game better and so is not caught out as often as Andersen.
3. Guehi, who will be turning 23 next month has the bulk of his career in front of him, whereas Andersen, having turned 27 in May, has entered his peak years. Consequently, Andersen's transfer value isn't going to increase much (if at all) from how we value him now, whereas Guehi's could increase significantly if he continues to improve.
4. Guehi qualifies as a home grown player whereas Andersen, of course, doesn't.
5. I acknowledge that we would lose Andersen's passing skills but believe that Johnstone has shown that he can pick a pass and that both Guehi and Richards are good enough to develop longer passing skills due to their comfort on the ball which enables them time to assess passing options.

some good points, and IMHO losing Andersen rather than Guehi would make more business sense.

However, whilst Guehi's passing game may develop without relying on Andersen beside him, Richards seems very limited in this area. The few games he has played he looks like an old fashioned defender get the ball and give it to the person closest to you.
IMHO he looked uncomfortable on the ball and reminded me of Tomkins. Happy to be proved wrong [/quote]

A game of opinions indeed palace99!

When we first got Richards my assumption, which came off a platform of complete ignorance about the player, was we'd get some sort of NBA near miss in the American Richards - an astounding, real athlete albeit with little footballing ability.

Personally, perhaps as my bar was set so low, I have been pleasantly surprised by his footballing ability, especially given he has played very little and had numerous injuries in his short career. Equally happy to be proved wrong but I've rarely if ever thought him to look clumsy or lacking in technical ability.

Edited by Nicholas91 (23 Jun 2023 10.53am)

Edited by Nicholas91 (23 Jun 2023 10.53am)

Now Zaha's got a bit of green grass ahead of him here... and finds Ambrose... not a bad effort!!!!

Personally, I think both Andersen and Geuhi are overrated. If we can rush Newcastle, Spurs, or whoever, £40-50m for either of them then we will have pulled off a coup to eclipse even the AWB deal.

For two years now the lazy journalistic narrative has been that Palace are a team transformed from dull, defensive, and old to exciting, skillful, and young. There is some truth to this of course, but our centre-backs reputations have been artificially inflated along the way.

It's not quite a case of 'the emperor's new clothes' but were it not for the team's current media image I think both Andersen and Geuhi would simply be seen as unreliable, mid-table level defenders.

Geuhi is mobile, competitive, and can bring the ball out quite well. He is also too short for a centre-back, regularly loses headers and/or his man when defending crosses coming in from our right flank (I feel certain opposition coaches have been targeting the Guehi/Mitchell area with deep crosses for ages now), and I question whether his media and international recognition has more to do with his age, nationality and background (i.e being on the FA radar from a young age) than his actual performances.

Anderen has a good long passing range but falls far short of punching his weight defensively. He should be our main aerial presence but loses so many headers that he seems to get shorter when he jumps.

They are not bad players, but they are certainly not excellent ones. They are almost un-dropable not because of performances but because we made so great an investment in them, and have no obvious alternative in the squad.

The far cheaper, lower-profile centre-backs we have had (Cahill, Tompkins, Dann, Delaney, etc) were not as good on the ball but were better defenders, and we achieved the same mid-table finishes with them as with the current players. I feel that we could replace both Guehi and Andersen easily enough and make a sizable profit if we were prepared to go back to signing journeymen. That is not without flaws as a strategy of course, and Brentford and Wolves will not make any money from selling on Ben Mee or Craig Dawson for instance, but both those are better defenders than ours, and relatively inexpensive. If we were to go back to signing that type of player then we might be able to sell one or both our current centre-backs, replace them for a fraction of the fee, and have cash to upgrade in the centre-forward and (post-Zaha) left-wing areas, making us a noticeably better team overall.

My only reservation about selling either centre-back is that it may start the dominoes falling. We would suddenly become a selling club, and Eze and Olise would want their move soon after. That would be far harder to recover from than losing Andersen or Guehi.

Edited by TheBigToePunt (23 Jun 2023 1.11pm)

Personally, I think both Andersen and Geuhi are overrated. If we can rush Newcastle, Spurs, or whoever, £40-50m for either of them then we will have pulled off a coup to eclipse even the AWB deal.

For two years now the lazy journalistic narrative has been that Palace are a team transformed from dull, defensive, and old to exciting, skillful, and young. There is some truth to this of course, but our centre-backs reputations have been artificially inflated along the way.

It's not quite a case of 'the emperor's new clothes' but were it not for the team's current media image I think both Andersen and Geuhi would simply be seen as unreliable, mid-table level defenders.

Geuhi is mobile, competitive, and can bring the ball out quite well. He is also too short for a centre-back, regularly loses headers and/or his man when defending crosses coming in from our right flank (I feel certain opposition coaches have been targeting the Guehi/Mitchell area with deep crosses for ages now), and I question whether his media and international recognition has more to do with his age, nationality and background (i.e being on the FA radar from a young age) than his actual performances.

Anderen has a good long passing range but falls far short of punching his weight defensively. He should be our main aerial presence but loses so many headers that he seems to get shorter when he jumps.

They are not bad players, but they are certainly not excellent ones. They are almost un-dropable not because of performances but because we made so great an investment in them, and have no obvious alternative in the squad.

The far cheaper, lower-profile centre-backs we have had (Cahill, Tompkins, Dann, Delaney, etc) were not as good on the ball but were better defenders, and we achieved the same mid-table finishes with them as with the current players. I feel that we could replace both Guehi and Andersen easily enough and make a sizable profit if we were prepared to go back to signing journeymen. That is not without flaws as a strategy of course, and Brentford and Wolves will not make any money from selling on Ben Mee or Craig Dawson for instance, but both those are better defenders than ours, and relatively inexpensive. If we were to go back to signing that type of player then we might be able to sell one or both our current centre-backs, replace them for a fraction of the fee, and have cash to upgrade in the centre-forward and (post-Zaha) left-wing areas, making us a noticeably better team overall.

My only reservation about selling either centre-back is that it may start the dominoes falling. We would suddenly become a selling club, and Eze and Olise would want their move soon after. That would be far harder to recover from than losing Andersen or Guehi.

Edited by TheBigToePunt (23 Jun 2023 1.11pm)