OhForAGreavsie

An update about tickets and club organised travel to Manchester for the key WSL showdown with City, and to Nottingham for the League Cup Final against Arsenal, plus a changed kick-off time for The FA Cup game at home to Liverpool Women. https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2020/02/05/conti-cup-final-ticket-news--subsidised-coaches-available-for-fi Please note, you do NOT need to be a CFC member or season ticket holder to book a seat on one of the club coaches but non members/STs will need to make a telephone booking rather than an online one. The girls are playing well, scoring lots of goals and face a month of big matches ahead. Throw in the affordable travel and, if you haven't been tempted to go to a CFCW game before, now's your chance.

Highlights of yesterday's win over West Ham.

Wonder how much PSG would want for Marcin Bulka? I'm not being serious. There was obviously a big falling out between Marcin and the club last season. There's no way he would come back. It would be easy to guess that the falling out was mainly Marcin's fault but who knows. It's not unlikely that the club wouldn't want him back either.

I hope Ruben does not play the way he played last season because I think his output was overrated last term. Still all to prove.

The women return to league action today having progressed to the 5th round of the FA Cup and the final of the League Cup in the two games since their last WSL fixture. They face West Ham at Kingsmeadow this afternoon. Kick-off is 2pm. It's shaping up to be a great title race between Arsenal, City and Chelsea. We're one point behind our two rivals, but with a game in hand over both of them. If the girls can take care of business on the next two Sundays, they will go to Manchester on 23rd February for a crunch game with City. Chelsea are running supporter's coaches to that game if anybody here want to lend their support to CFCW's title push. Book places for the trip at: https://etm.eventsair.com/chelsea-supporter-travel/. The best way to get tickets for the game is via the Chelsea Women Supporters Group on Facebook. They are buying block tickets to secure a discount for travelling Blues.

I think the first assist was a run of the mill, some you hit, most you miss, corner. On the other hand, I thought the second was a beautifully struck example of seeing the picture, picking the target, and executing perfectly. A really high quality moment from Mason. I don't think we can state often enough how important Mason is to our approach out of possession. In my opinion however, his high grade in that regard gets dragged down to such an extent by his lower grade when in possession, that he simply is not earning his place in the team.

No argument from me about any of this.

Just watching the first half now. Reece showing why Tariq Lamptey had to think long and hard about his future here. I wonder if Jody spoke to Frank about the 2017/2018 youth team? Of all the good age group sides we've had in the last decade, that was the best. That team usually played with Reece in a back three and either Tariq or Dujon Sterling at wing back. It also deployed Tariq as a wide right player higher up the pitch. Oh well, water under the bridge now.

Be fair, how many of us care about the other thirteen? Thank you Slippy G.

You mean you'd trade that for wins over Utd, Spurs and Bayern, since we'd have to beat the German side before we could loose to Barca.

Being young can't be the only qualification for getting into the team. Players have to offer more than their birth certificates. Yes, mangers can give young players development minutes. Minutes they might not fully deserve on performances alone, but that should only happen when the manager judges the player's potential is worth developing. It seems Frank believes this is the case with Mason, and fair enough, that's his decision to make. In my opinion however, Mason has to do more to earn even 'development' minutes, and a great deal more to keep his place purely on merit.

I have not yet seen the first half, and may not bother now, but from what I have seen I think we are more deserving of a point today than we were at The Bridge. They played much better that day and absolutely battered us, especially second half.

Mason is benefitting from the ghost of KDB, from the fear of repeating the same mistake. Thing is it is clear, and always has been, that Mason is not as talented.

This game is very worrying for the Premier League. Third and fourth?

Quoted the wrong post? Think you must have. Oh, I get it now.

Lol!

Strongly disagree with you about Emerson but I reckon we'll both be glad if there is an upgrade in the summer.

I've never personally said that he can't, but one delivery proves nothing either way of course.

Such a shame but good luck to Tariq. He deserves this and I hope it goes brilliantly for him.

The interview I think I remember was about the permanent move, not the loan. Absolutely agree.

I agree that Jovic on loan would be worth consideration. Am I remembering correctly an interview in which Kova explained he had made it clear to Real that he was not interested in going back there? If so, it's probably more true that Kova's stance sorted the move than that we did. Either way, if Madrid recruit one of the big hitters then Jovic probably won't see much future there either so I think you are right about us having a chance.

This is really something. Let's hope the club can build a truly exciting side which will cement this interest into sold fandom. If we can, it'll be an increasingly important boost to our profile, and therefore attractiveness to sponsors, in coming years.

Well they seem a more relevant sponsor than Yokohama on the face of it. In the end though, most of what I care about is the money.

I did say above that I think it's a legitimate subject as far as its impact on transfer regulations is concerned, but I'm obviously happy to go along with whatever the majority wants on this.

Fiscally, it does not matter where a taxpayer was born, just that he or she pays in to the revenue. All established Premier League players are multi millionaires and if a club is unable to fill its squad with overseas footballers it will fill it with domestic ones instead. They will still be paid and they will still be required to pay taxes. It might be tempting to argue that salaries for non domestic players will be higher, and that tax revenue from those players will therefore be higher too. I'm not sure the data bears that out however. The cost of employing homegrown players is already disproportionately high and driving up demand for their services would drive up their costs too. I don't know what the data shows regarding this next point but it seems to me that non domestic players are more likely to set up legal offshore pay arrangements for a portion of their earnings and avoid income tax altogether. What must be sure is that they will spend much more of their disposable income outside the UK. This means that indirect tax revenues will be lost, as will be the economic benefit of their spending circulating in the UK economy. Lastly, there is the clear win for UK revenues of transfer spending staying inside the country and that money circulating around our clubs generating more transfer levies and further economic activity. It can't simply be assumed that fewer overseas players means less tax revenue for the government, or reduced economic benefit to the UK economy. It could even be that the exact opposites are true.