nikno

Does anyone else think that Arteta, Wilshere and Benayoun sounds like a better middle three than Mikel, Ramires and Lampard (in his current form)?

... and then sue the pants off him, hopefully.

And where are we supposed to get the money for all of these players? The money is tight, and even if we sell 4/5 players, guys like Aguero are going to be costing £40m+, the guy is the next big thing and Atleti know it, Benzema will not be cheap either, and we can forget about Bojan coming here. Added to that, even if we do want to make a big money signing, you can bet your arse City will do the same, and just jack up the price.

When is he back? Will we see him on the pitch at all this season?

Is there any reason Deco came off? Was he playing bad, injured or was it just a tactical thing?

ESSIEN!!!!!!

Yes but Vidic wasn't bought to replace anyone, just to strengthen the squad. The fact that he was so good was just brilliance on Fergie's part. And as for Ronaldo, why would United sign an 18 year old for £13m and give him the number 7 shirt? Every big team in the world had scouts on him and he was destinted to be world class. Remember this was before prices on players inflated so this was a lot at the time, you just wouldn't pay that much for an "unknown" player at that age.

But we signed Cech when we had cash to burn. That's not the situation now, if we sold Terry we'd need to buy a defender who is big. You bring up United, but when they've sold big players they've always replaced them with big players. When they sold Andy Cole they replaced him with RvN, Stam with Rio and Beckham with Ronaldo. They spent a lot of money on those replacements, which we wouldn't be able to do.

It's a tough question. Normally I'd say no, but with the crazy money that some people are quoting, why not? That being said, however crazy City are, I don't think they'd spend that much on JT. Regardless of whether or not they did, we'd not only be losing one of our best and influential players, we'd also be losing our captain. You also have to take into account the man's friendship with Frank Lampard, I'm not saying Frank plays well because of JT (far from it, that'd be outrageous) but to be able to play on the pitch week in-week out with a guy and make such a friendship (which we're led to believe they have), it'd surely knock him a bit. I'm not so sure that the benefits of selling him outweigh the negative points. However much money we get for him, it'd affect the team as a whole, he's our captain and there are no big influences in our team, not even Lampard could fill his role as a permanent captain, he's just not as big a character. We say we need the money, really we don't. Roman's goal is self-sufficiency, if we made anywhere near £50m (which just wouldn't happen), how much of that would go towards a new defender, or a new captain, or just a new player in another position? Not much I bet. We were £60m off break-even point this season, despite the fact that half of it was due to managers, that's still £30m off, even if we improve on that, we wouldn't be spending a big amount of money as there's still quite a bit of a way to go to break-even.

Why do we have to dwell on the negatives? Mourinho's been sacked, that was a huge fuck up, but that's gone, Grant was never going to stay, and Scolari was just a mystery. They lost us a lot of money, probably half of what we lost in total. Last year we lost this plus £10m more, so we're on the up. Think positive.

It's obvious that we're just trying out zonal marking. He used it with Brazil, it's what he knows and now he's using it with us. To get a whole squad of players to swap from man marking to zonal takes a while, the reason we're conceding so many goals from set pieces is because of this, the team needs to get used to zonal marking and be able to use it properly. Until then we'll be vulnerable to set pieces, but Scolari is taking the risk for the rewards that should come next season, those being that the team can zonal mark, and do it well and won't concede as many goals from set pieces.

With all that's going on at City, there's no doubt talks of Robinho joining us will start in the papers. Thing is, I can actually see it happening, and hopefully for a cut down price. I know we've been told there's going to be no spending but if we can get Robinho, I think Roman will open up his pockets.

Lol, what a goal!

He's not really saying he should have punched Vidic though, the title is misleading. He's saying that if he knew he was going to get sent off for the slap, then he might as well should have punched him. Not that he was ever going to or thinking of.

Yeah, that's what my last line was about, I'm not complaining at all. However you'd think at a club as big as Chelsea, they'd have readily available disabled service for the tours.

That's all well and good, but they should be like this for the stadium tours too. When I went for the tour during the summer, I asked about my brother (who would have had to gone the day after once he got let out of hospital) and they said they would be able to do it as long as they had notice (which I had given them, in saying my brother would be coming the next day). However, what if I were to go there with my brother on the actual day without warning them, would they have just turned us around? Obviously it's hard to navigate a wheelchair through the stadium, but I don't think there was anything they would have been able to do. And let's just say my brother wasn't able to go at any other time apart from when we were there, then we really would have been in trouble. I'm not complaining, as he got to see it, but maybe they should improve the facilities in the tour for disabled people.

In oil reserves alone, ADUG manage $1trillion - that's £555billion - which, in itself, is 40 times the wealth of Abromovich. Look at who's behind ADUG (the Royal FAMILY - not one individual - of Abu Dhabi, the second largest producer of oil in the World) and you'll get a sense of the sort of wealth that you're talking here. They have a further £500 BILLION in assets. The combined wealth of Abromovich, Gates, Buffet and Slim Helu (look him up) do not touch these guys. It's not an individual, but an investment group, and it has _limitless_ funds. Absolutely nothing on God's Earth can touch their wealth.

From the last two games at least, I can see Scolari meaning bad news for Essien. Essien just didn't fit in as the defensive midfielder and today he was completely innefective apart from one move (which I can remember at least). There is no doubt in my mind that Essien is the best midfielder in the world, but if he can't fit into this system, he might be surplus to requirements.

He's not a bench warmer, he's one of their most important players.

Number 4 should be retired in honour of Maka, the greatest Chelsea player of the Abrahmovic era bar none.

When I went on the stadium tour last month Helena the tour guide said it was retired :S

It's not Chelsea's choice, it's Adidas' decision to make the training kits. Although I'd never buy them, they are way too expensive.

I'm 99% sure that the number 25 is retired anyway, they wouldn't bring it out of retirement.

Do you honestly think Roman bought the club expecting it to break even within 5 years? He first needed to buy players to make it a world class team so it could start winning trophies before he could even think about breaking even. He's done that now, and he'll spend a bit every year as maintenance by buying new players, but we are spending less every season because we don't need to be spending as much anymore. We already have an incredibly strong base. You don't buy into a company, pay off all of its debts and think you can break even immediately, Chelsea is probably a 20-year + investment for Roman. I seem to remember Kenyon mentioning something about a 10-year plan when he first joined, I doubt we'll see it that soon. The fact of the matter is, he won't walk away, because he's invested too much money and he'll leave at a loss, it won't affect his bank account much but will certainly affect his business credentials, he's in Chelsea for the long run. The only thing that would separate him from the club is his death.

I was on a tour at Stamford Bridge when Deco's number got officialy announced - we were the first group of people to know he got the number 20!