OhForAGreavsie

Yep.

Anyone else suspect the booking may have been intentional to control the timing of the suspension?

Yes, I'm afraid I have to agree with this. I'm sold on Reece and I believe in Fik, but the rest of the graduates have much to prove.

I first heard this on Match of The Day, when Gary Lineaker said that Puli was the youngest Chelsea player ever to score a hattrick. No mention of the "in the Premier League bit". Of course that made me ask, "You what?" Jimmy Greaves was younger than Puli is now when he left Chelsea. By then he had scored five in a game three times, four in a game three other times, and seven more hattricks on top of those. We'll give Gary that he meant ever in the Premier League.

We've all been there Tomo.

I saw his contribution in a post match interview with Puli. It wasn't good and he seemed nervous. He's a lot more at home on CTV where he does better. He's not one of the best but he is usually much better than he looked in that segment.

Define 'give'?

How long do we have to wait, for politeness sake, before we expect the Eden back to Chelsea stories?

Both, along with Callum, still have a lot to prove. I think the media is assessing Mason as if he's further along currently than in fact he really is. Callum has shown his fabulous talent but more often than not he hasn't done much with it. Ruben maybe, maybe, was about to have a breakout before the injury but it is definitely still a maybe.

As usual with your shopping list posts, I don't know some of the players you mention but I know enough to be fully on board with the two lines quoted above. The club needs to start singing your favourite tune. Not only do we need to buy smart, but equally important, we need to sell smart too.

Yes, a player does not need to be a goal scorer in order to be a valuable midfielder, or anything else for that matter. What counts is his contribution to the team. Of course. None of that impacts what I said though. I said if Kova had been a goal threat that Madrid would not have sold him and I'm firmly convinced of that. For one thing, they would then have found it easier to play him in the same midfield as Modric. Real clearly saw Kova's quality, hence the decision to sign him, but eventually they had to accept his lack of goal output and consider if, without them, he was the right fit for their squad. He's here so we know their conclusion, but Kova + goals = no Chelsea.

True but... We have to accept that weak area of his game is why he's here. If he were a goal threat Real would never have sold him, and he'd never have left.

I also thought Kova was a candidate for POM today.

Managers always tell players that they have to play well if they want to get into the side. Once you do, they say you have to keep playing well if you want to stay in. We've heard Frank say stuff like that at pretty much all of his pressers, so, he may feel that he has to live up to those ideas and keep Marcos and Willian in the line up. The wild card though is that he could have one eye on Ajax. I can see him wanting to keep Willian fresh for that game, and also wanting Emerson's better physicality for Amsterdam. If that thought process dominates his thinking then I can see Pedro and Marcos in today, then Willian and Emerson on Wednesday.

Ike is on loan in Holland.

Frank wasn't asked for injury updates about them and didn't volunteer any.

If every fan was like me, and presumably you too, it wouldn't be a problem but I know that plenty of fans get agitated about this. I've seen Chelsea fans do it and many footballers criticised for doing it.. Tain't worth it Mason. Leave it out. Don't know where this number came from. I didn't mention a number but if I had, it would have been bigger. You're kidding. Footballers know it's controversial. They often do it in an understated way because they know not to be too brash about it. I said there were a number reasons to avoid this celebration and this is another of them. Getting the home fans wound up is not helpful. And for what? Get out of the habit Mason. Cartwheels fine, a gesture which is seen as a direct comment towards opposing fans is something footballers are trained to avoid. I expect Frank has already spoken to Mason about this. He is not a fan anymore. He is a part of the most highly scrutinised profession in our society. Unjustifiably so I'll grant you, but undeniably so all the same. Idiots surround this game. If Mason had sparked an incident he may have faced an FA charge. Nope. They are not. There are norms, expectations, and regulations. If he wants to sod off to the park and play with his mates on a Sunday morning, he'd have more leeway but he doesn't want to do that. Moderating his behaviour is a part of the price he has to pay for having the third best job in the world.

I mean the cupped ears. It's not how Mason means it, but to opposing fans it is provocative. I'd advise him not to invite the hassle. Celebrate of course but there's no sense in agitating the hard of thinking. If fans are giving him stick, and he's motivated to reply, then the goal has already done that loud and clear.

Also one, but only one, of the reasons why Mason should cut out goal celebrations like that one.

We'd all be stunned, and bitterly disappointed, if this is not true.

Only one of your examples chose Chelsea over City. Walker chose them over us. Once City's interest was known, Stones talked about how lucky he was that Everton refused to sell to us. Danilo claimed that he turned down a better contract with us in order to join them. I think those numbers bear out my claim that Chillwell would almost certainly.prefer City, but hang the numbers. Which club would you bet on in that transfer tug-of-war?

If City do want him after all he'll almost certainly choose them over us. If that's how it turns out then I say we stay out of the race and try to take Angelino from them on the cheap instead.

There is a good argument to be made for this. Indeed the entire, league wide, academy structure could be questioned. There is a fundamental disconnect between the aims of a football club and those of a school, and make no mistake a football club's academy is exactly that, a school. The centre of interest for the club it to meet its own requirements. The centre of interest for a school is the pupil. The promise a school must make to each and every one of its pupils is to help them become the very best they can be. The school has no expectation that the pupil will ever become a teacher. To be fair, I think Chelsea fulfil this role brilliantly. There are a lot of people across the country, and across the continent, who are holding down great jobs and forging good lives because of the grounding they received at Cobham. That's the real measure of an educational establishment and Cobham is simply outstanding. So huge is the gap between what a school must do, and what people expect of a football club that, instead of winning widespread acclaim for its tremendous results, Cobham has been judged by almost everyone to be failing. I don't feel that failing judgement has ever been justified, and have often said so. There are plenty here who disagree with me however. Can I look any of them in the eye and say that they are wrong? They'd be entitled to ask if Chelsea is a trophy chasing football club, or a school. They might point out that BP employ engineers, chemists, accountants, lawyers but they don't attempt to educate them all. I'm proud of our academy. I take pride in watching our lads play good football and win. For me, the five straight Youth Cups is right up there with the best achievements of this club that I would want to boast about. I do think however that it would serve the English game better if the education of young footballers, and the funding required to make it work, were taken away from top level clubs. The NFL have this right. They recruit the top footballers, they don't teach them the game. They concentrate on what they're good at and leave the training, or apprenticeships if you prefer, to the experts Our system, our culture, means it is very hard to see training left to lower division clubs. There would be enormous resistance but it could be done. The key would be to put age limits on who can play in Leagues one and two, as well as the national league. With the most youngsters required, and the fewest over age players allowed, in the National League. The balance would shift as clubs move up or down the league, until the Championship which would be without restriction. The bulk of the playing squad for junior clubs would be made up of youngsters. The better ones would graduate into Leagues One & Two and the best will rise to the top. Just like in the real world. The economics of this would be an issue but it could be solved. That's for another long post however. My point is that whoever the manager was, he was not a million miles away from being in the right.

I think this is why he wasn't tempted, for even a moment, to turn his back on Madrid once they had come knocking, but his transfer had to be at least as much about joining Real, as it was about quitting Chelsea. Yes, I agree. As for his contract, I continue to hope that the rumoured figure was a ridiculous exaggeration. A good contract for a player of his age and profile; fair enough. A monster £9m a year; utter madness if true.

He wasn't being serious. Then again maybe you aren't either.