Yeah, I quite agree with you, but Ake wasn't regular starter for Man City more due to Guardiola's heavy rotation policy, but he still played as many as 14 games in the Premier League and 6 games in the Champions, I think those are greater numbers if you look the number of CB Guardiola had in his possession, Ake was regular starter for Bournemouth for 3-4 years, and he played whole 38 matches in two consecutive seasons for Bournemouth before moving the City, that should indicated he good he his and the experience his gather for those years would have also made a more complete payer.
Ake isn't a really good Back players, that's why Guardiola didn't list him as the regular starter. He just a substitute player or only placed if Manchester City face a weak club, so they didn't need their best players to play. Oleksandr Zinchenko, Aymeric Laporte, Ruben Dias, and Joao Cancelo are Back players who often listed as regular starter, it's hard to replace them since they were so good.
I think Chelsea going for Ake is just because other defensive players transfer aren't looking like it'll be successful. Assuming he was a priority, would have negotiated a deal as we were also negotiating that of sterling. He isn't worth that much I don't understand why Manchester City is placing that much fee on him when they aren't broke like Barcelona.
Chelsea is lack of Back players, so Manchester City force Chelsea to pay them with higher amount since Chelsea doesn't have any choice. Not really sure how many Back players they want, but they seems will sign Kounde soon, if they need 2 players, we can expect Ake or De Ligt.
