The Chels

But Luis is better than both of them.

Why's King Filipe on the bench again!

Why? They'll be happy on the bench collecting their pay cheques.

Falcao, Aguero, Dzeko, Jovetic. Wow that's unreal.

The beauty of football is that no team is perfect or unbeatable.

Much better with the Arabic commentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=GofK5OkXc4I#t=138

That was Liverpool's official reason for pulling out of the deal but other reports say it was an issue with wages.

I wouldn't even be surprised.

And Sunderland wanted to buy Borini for £14m(!) speaking of which there is a funny rant about the whole thing from a Newcastle fan who also disccusses Loic Remy.:

Imagine saying before the window opened that we'd be bringing in(/back) Courtois, Luis, Fabregas, Costa, Remy and Drogba as well as getting rid of deadwood (notably, Torres). We're definitely being spoilt if we moan about Remy or whatever considering that.

Don't know much about him to be honest apart from what I've read here and on the other forums. Newcastle fans seem to rate him highly as do QPR fans but they think his performances have been crappy for a while because he's been edging for a move. I've read that he's also apparently a mercenary, rapist and banned from driving for being over the drink limit.

That reminds me, Rob Beasley was wrong about the permanent transfer (£10m fee of which £6m is severance pay) while the rest of the media were right about a loan. Guess Rob's not as ITK as he likes to think.

Can't blame them for holding out hope. We've been doing it for years. LMAO what was your exact wording? You might be able to get out of it on a technicality if you said 'sold'!

Well Mourinho thinks Destro has the potential to be a top striker and the Guardian say we will maintain interest in him so I'd say it's quite likely we'll buy him next season assuming Drogba leaves.

Costa, Destro, Remy? Sounds good.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/aug/29/chelsea-fernando-torres-milan-jose-mourinho

The DM are hyperbolic - 'completed his move'. I'm pretty sure he's not had a medical yet.

Mata's coming back.

That's my point. He completely forgot/ignored the striker situation. We are well covered elsewhere.

Mattia Destro. Roma's president today said he's not for sale - see: www.metro.co.uk/2014/08/28/chelsea-warned-off-mattia-destro-after-roma-president-says-hes-100-per-cent-not-for-sale-4849555/. Given that they bought him for £16m, don't have a replacement ready and don't need the money after selling Benatia it'll be interesting to see if we do actually manage to get him and how much we'll have to pay.

If you look at 'Torres v. ....' highlight videos you can tell that even in his peak he really wasn't a great all-round striker. He was just a very good finisher and once he lost that, he lost everything.

We definitely would have done better with a decent striker last year, most likely enough to win the league (to get 16/18 points against the other teams in the top 4 and not win the league is remarkable). The attitude problem is a concern though. How many times did we seem not bothered in the first half last season? I hope this season we're not going to again limit ourselves to just 45 minutes to try to win because a draw/loss becomes ever more likely in that case. We didn't pick up the pace in the Burnley game till we conceded and in the Leicester game we waited till after half time. I think I remember Mourinho saying he does all the tactics in the morning and leaves the players to it before the match. Does that mean he doesn't give pre-match talks? That might explain why the players tend to perform better after half-time.

I agree but the drop in quality in the striker department between Costa and Drogba/Torres is immense. I found it amusing the way Pat kept stressing the point ('name me one position where we'd struggle', etc) when it's very obvious where we're lacking. The qualities that Hazard and Fabregas offer are also difficult to replace but not to the same extent. Our squad is definitely better than Arsenal's and Liverpool's but I'd say City's is slightly ahead of ours.