If like me, you know nothing about Coates' attributes & would prefer to hear a summary from someone a little more qualified than a video on youtube would provide you, I suggest you follow this guy @karlsentk on twitter. His bio explains what/who he is.
Anyway, this is what he said earlier regarding Coates.
- followed him since sudamericano in 2009 - then saw him world youth championship same year + copa america this summer
- first thing i noticed: his amusing running style, hard to describe - looks like he's about to take a seat
- smart centre-back, good positioning sense and fine game reading skills. had the luxury of playing next to lugano at copa america
- lugano the more aggressive cb who won the headers, anticipated, dominated, tackled - coates "sweeped" up around the captain
- coates: calm style, makes good decisions but not quite as physical or dominating as his 195 cm would suggest. ok on the ball
- but tends to drop deep in order to compensate for lack of pace and mobilty (a strategy that won't work in england!)
- lots of scouts from big european clubs have watched him over the past 2-3 years without being totally convinced (i agree)
- general consensus among scouts at copa america: overvalued at 12 million euros (going rate at the time), worth a "punt" ('arry) at maybe 3-4
- personal opinion: not sure coates would've looked quite as good next to another (less dominating) cb (godin, victorino). lugano was inspired
- from what i picked up at copa america, man city were negotiating with coates' reps (even after landing savic) - not sure what happened
- apparently the british sounding surname is courtesy of scottish grandparents
Completely underwhelmed by that.
