OhForAGreavsie

I hope nothing I've written today comes across as me suggesting that we should not criticise Willian, or any other player come to that. I've criticised Willian many times myself over the last six years. I just don't think we should be aiming personal insults at players. In my book criticism; fine, insults; not fine.

I've just seen a typo in my post which probably prompted a part of your response. Where my post said, "...not the sincere faith I'm an honest man", I wanted it to say, not the sincere faith of an honest man. I've edited the original to make that change.

Thanks Iggy, OK, I accept that this is your view but I see a clear difference between opinions of a man, and opinions about what he thinks. I have friends who support Spurs and perhaps you do too. I have a deep dislike for their team, but that doesn't impact what I think about them. Of course they don't like Chelsea anymore than I like their team, but when they attack Chelsea I know it's not personal and I don't take it as such. I had in mind that my second paragraph was a clarification, not an apology.

Thanks Mana, I see a clear distinction between my opinion of the man, and my opinion of what he believes. An analogy from the world of football: - My favourite contributor to Arsenal Fan TV is Moh. He hates Chelsea with a passion but I admire his lucidity, his integrity and the passion he shows for his team. I have no respect for his views on Chelsea, but I have a great deal of respect for him.

I have never, and will never, understand how a supposed Chelsea fan can write about a Chelsea player in this disrespectful way. Willian may not be your idea of what Chelsea need, just as he isn't mine, but come on. Note, if people read disrespect into my comment above then that disrespect should be seen as being aimed at what I regard as the stupidity of religion, not at the sincere faith of an honest man.

I'm not a superstitious man myself, but if people want to delude themselves about magic fairies in the sky that's their right. I therefore hope that the baptism was a wonderful experience for Willian and I wish him well.

A few weeks ago Crystal Palace were rumoured to want Reece as a replacement if they should sell Wan-Bissaka. I've also read of the possibility that we could buy the Palace lad and send Reece in the other direction as part of the deal. Those ideas were always non-starters for me, but anyone who saw last night's U21 international would question them too. While I agree that it would be stupid to judge on one game only, based solely on last night's display, Wan-Bissaka isn't in Reece's league. In fact on that outing Wan-Bissaka isn't even in Jay Dasilva's League. The young right back may be a better defender than Jay, but our LB looked so far ahead of Wan-Bissaka in possession that the prospect of spending £50m on the Palace player must really alarm ManU fans. Again, to be clear, all this is based on last night's effort alone. Even excluding the OG, which might raise concerns about W-B's one footedness but which could happen to anyone, the Palace player looked poor.

Like. Three if we count midfield where he did well for Wigan. So well, that a strand of Wigan fan opinion believes Reece is wasted at RB. Of course the main thing which ever prevented Reece being selected at RB for CFC development sides, was that he's so brilliant at CB. To be fair we must remember that Reece played CB in a back three for our age group sides, not a back four. Even so, I still believe he can play CB at Premier League level.

Depends primarily on the number, or rather percentage, of competitive appearances and the ranking of the national team. For young players this can be overridden by the judgement of a government sanctioned, FA appointed, panel of experts. A permit can be granted if they assess a player to have outstanding potential. I may be misremembering, but I think we got Oscar's permit on outstanding potential.

In fact he had the medical yesterday. If news of the outcome has been made public I haven't seen it. Martel, who also attracted interest from Aston Villa and Fulham, is one of a number of good young players whose contact expires at the end of this month, and who will probably be leaving.

Reading your posts is like transfer p**n for football fans who haven't seen a quality player in years. You read about a party where all the beautiful people are but you don't want to get drawn in because you know this never ends well for the hero. Still, you can't help your nature and you dig into the post. Soon your mind's eye sees the hero rocking the west stand to the rythmn of perfect football and, though you fight it, the hope grows. You get lost in it. Hope and our hero are never friends for long however. The soft focus fades, the camera pans out, and you see poor little Stamford scanning the internet for news of Ross Barclay's fitness. He knows his boys are not going to take the 7 points they need from games against Sheffield United, Crystal Palace and wolves without Ross, and without those points there will be no Europa League football next season. You bend your mind back to the names on the screen and you're only too willing to get lost again.

I like Aouar too but, if I had to choose I'd go for Ndombele. That said I wouldn't be averse to taking both of them, especially if I couldn't get Saul as my Aouar alternative. I prefer the Spaniard's extra physicality because I think we'd achieve a better balance that way. I'm taking nothing away from Aouar however. He's a terrific player.

I doubt there's anyone left who still believes that there's anything fair about uefa's FFP regulations. It's one thing to accept that less wealthy clubs can't spend as much as the monster clubs. It's another thing altogether to say that they are not even allowed to. Yet that is exactly the situation with FFP. Real can't be punished because the regulations allow them to spend more than almost every other club so they won't have broken any rules. Even if this spending took them close to the limit, they still have time to complete some sales and balance the books a bit.

No prizes for guessing who would be the weak link in that quartet.

I haven't fact checked myself but I think I remember someone suggesting exactly that earlier in the thread. That if Ola had been a Torino player, instead of being on loan there, Chelsea would have tried to buy him. Either way, good luck to the lad.

Good luck Ola and well done Cobham. Cobham can't promise to make youngsters into Chelsea calibre professionals, it can only promise to make them the best they can be. Every time a Cobham graduate gets a good job it's a feather in the cap for the academy. It was completely revamped in 2007 after the old setup was condemned by Jose, saying there was no one at all in the system who could possibly help him. The first class of 8 year olds from 2007 are now aged 19/20, and the six year olds are aged 17/18. We've had to be patient but we've reached the stage where we can begin to judge the new academy. I think they're doing OK.

Surprised you'd go to even that much.

I thought the world, including Chelsea, had moved on from Bailey. Sounds like agent puff to me. Perhaps one working for Laverkusen.

That would have been a better winter market for sure. The only defence I'll offer for the club is in regard to the Gonzalo signing. There they seem to have been deferring to the manager's wishes.

If it's true that he's off to Munich then that's a big disappointment for us. We need to talk about Bayern however. Bayern are the unrivalled team in one of the world's most powerful economies. As a result their titanic sponsorship income helps keep their overall revenue near the top of the football rich list. They are an attractive destination for the world's great players and routinely have the pick of all the best young talent in Germany at little or no cost. Given this I think we must ask, are Bayern the biggest underachievers in European football? Being dominant domestically is no challenge for them, but what do they achieve in European competition? Nowhere near enough given their resources and advantages. Their fans are being short-changed.

That's what Wigan's previous first choice right back, as well as Wigan's manager, thought when he turned up for pre-season training last summer. Let's not get carried away and start thinking of Reece as the second coming, but let's not underestimate him either. He's the real deal.

Each to his own. Good luck to Eden. Hope he does brilliantly and turns up at The Bridge with Los Blancos one Champions League night.

I'm sure workarounds can be found but I don't think it's possible the way you described. I think we'd have to register a player before we can complete an outgoing temporary transfer for him. On the other hand, I can't see how FIFA could stop us signing a binding contract now with a player and his club saying that he would be transferred to us in summer 2020.

Deleted because it made me sound an even bigger pratt than usual. Apologies to anyone who read it before I saw sense and hushed it up

And the slow drip, drip of information on this case continues. We can't know definitively whether the Telegraph story about there being no request to delay the implementation of the bans is true. We do know however that none of the earlier reporting has been entirely correct. That suggests there's no reason to put a lot of faith in what the Telegraph said either. It seems Chelsea have played this one close to the chest all the way along. The upshot is that, for now, we're still free to have fun speculating whatever incoming moves we like. That'll be good because the transfer forum has been deathly quiet for a while. Let the fun recommence. :-) UPDATE: it seems CAS has confirmed that we did not (yet )apply for the ban to be suspended. - Well played Telegraph.