OhForAGreavsie

I really hope the club won't allow this to become a problem. If the ban is overturned or postponed then we should be looking for better/younger alternatives to Kova and Gonzo. If the ban is upheld then discussions about signing these two are moot anyway.

No this can't happen now. The remaining top four place will go to either Arsenal or Spurs. If the one which misses out goes on to win a European trophy then they get in through the back door as England's 5th team in next season's CL. For us to miss out, it would have needed both north London clubs to finish outside of the top four, and then both of them win a European trophy. In addition United would have had to finish 3rd. That way, England's five spots would have been taken by the top three plus Arsenal and Spurs. That would have meant fourth placed Chelsea would have been relegated to Thursday nights. As it is, our CL place is guaranteed.

So striking was the fact that none of the top four candidates seemed capable of grasping the prize that I predicted last week's United game would finish two-all with four own goals, or, as I put it, -2 all. Well we outlasted the other three and maybe proved that we're the least bad of the four chasing teams. That's a deep condemnation of Arsenal, ManU and Spurs but I'm not going to waste time worrying about their problems; we've got enough of our own. For now we have to congratulate our squad and enjoy this good news which definitely counts as a mini success. Now let's go full tilt against Frankfurt and try to make it to Baku. If we get the right results on Thursday then we send the reserves to Leicester. And I do mean reserves. Apart from Gary and Danny no members of the first team squad should even feature in the match day squad.

Second half he did but I thought he was ordinary or worse in the first.

Dangerous, short term thinking. Everton's home ground was refurbished, or perhaps better to say renovated, for them. They baulked at the price and decided to move out. The athletics stadium in Fulham was turned into a (then) modern football stadium for Fulham to use. They baulked at the price and decided not to move in. That left the owners of Anfield and Stamford Bridge with empty stadiums. In each case they decided to solve their problem by forming a new football team of their own to use the facilities. How did that work out for Everton and Fulham? Stadiums matter. They are important. We already have the second smallest Premier League stadium in London. (Watford's not in London.) When Palace complete their rebuild we will also have the worst, and least fit for purpose. It's a problem that we have to solve. It we don't we'll regret it.

Firstly, I would take any of our current squad members over Kennedy. Secondly, although I understand that your criteria excludes them, there are at least two development squad players I'd deploy on the wing ahead of Kennedy. Thirdly from the loan army, I'd turn to two sets of players ahead of Kennedy. The first group includes wingers and attacking players who can play wide. The second group consists of fullbacks whose attacking attributes I prefer to Kennedy's. Putting that into a single list, l would go with any of; Baker, Dasilva, Kylian Hazard, Mount, Musonda, Palmer, Piazon, and Sterling. To be clear, I'm saying I would expect a better contribution from any of those players in a wide attacking role than I would from Kennedy. For good measure, I would also give a squad place to Victor Moses in preference to Kennedy. The Brazilian just isn't a player I like.

The suggestion was based on our ban not being overturned. If you think we'll be challenging for the title with a ban in place, you're more optimistic than most Chelsea fans. Even if the ban is upheld we have better options than Kennedy. I said nothing about how we will do next season. I simply implied that we have an ambition the regain title challenger status, and we do. That's just a statement of fact. We'll all be amazed if CFCM threaten to win the league next season, but we'll be dismayed if we don't at least take a step in the right direction. Including Kennedy in next season's squad will not help with that.

Kennedy is not, and never has been, good enough for a top end Premier League club. If he is in our squad next season it will be an indication that our ambition to regain title challenger status is not going well.

Agreed. You've made an important point about slowing down the plans of Arsenal & Utd.. Also, it would be nice to get to Baku of course. Especially if we can go there knowing that we're only playing for a trophy, not for our Champions League future.

We are so inaccurate with our passing. It completely undoes anything good we do.

This is so frustrating.

That article does not say we have any kind of veto on the buy option and, as far as I'm aware, we do not. Our chance of retaining Ola boils down to our ability to persuade him to turn down the move to Torino. To do that we'd have to offer him a significantly better deal than the Turin club will and hope that is enough to sway his decision. We won't be able to convince Ola based on his likely importance to our squad vs his likely importance to Torino's. He knows he won't get as many minutes here as in Turin. Of course, I'm not saying Ola would certainly be swayed by a bigger contract. I'm just speculating that he won't be swayed without one. All of this is further complicated by the rumour that Nice would want to include Tariq Lampty in any deal for Atal. Tariq's combination of high technique and jet-heeled pace would really please any Blues fans who are not familiar with him. The problem, however, is that he's tiny. Not just in height but in bulk too. I worry whether Maurizio, or any other Chelsea manager, would take Tariq seriously given that drawback. He is a fabulous player though. The club would need to examine themselves closely on this. If they want Atal at Right back more than they want Ola, or Tariq, or Reece playing there, and if they know they will never take a chance on Tariq's size, then they should accept his inclusion in any deal. For myself, I'd have to watch Atal a bit more before forming an opinion about whether he's worth all we'd be passing up to get him.

Agreed. It's usually risky to ignore the evidence of a player's selection record. Not always, but usually for sure.

Another interesting read Versper, thank you. Three things; - Karlo is back with the club after his emergency loan at Sutton. He's going to start the final of the uefa Youth League in an hour or so. I think he'll probably be kept around at the club next year because Chelsea really rate Jamie Cumming and are probably looking for a 2019/2020 loan for him. This add's up to Karlo becoming the senior development level keeper in the squad. Another reason for the guess that Karlo will be at Cobham next season is... Reading between the lines, Marcin is a goner. Unless I've seen bad information, his contract expires in June and, not only is there no news of a renewal, there has been no sign of him on a football pitch for a long time. He isn't playing, he's not been notified as injured and the club are saying nothing about him at all. That's often a sign that they're covering up a dispute between club and player. If Marcin is in his last few weeks as a Chelsea player that's a shame because I rate him. I'll have a friendly bet with you that we'll finish above 7th. Yes?

In my opinion the change wasn't in Aquero's game, but in Guardiola's thinking about the relative merits of his two leading strikers. The rest of my opinion on this comes in two parts. First, Aguero is simply the better striker and always has been. Second, regardless of whether or not he ever becomes City's first choice striker, Jesus at his best, will never be as good as Aguero has been at his best. It is, as I see it, a complete non-contest. To regard Jesus in the same bracket as Aguero is, I think, to overestimate the Brazilian

Update on tickets for the women's semi-final on Sunday. The club has just announced that an extra 250 tickets have been released for sale. If anyone is interested: - https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2019/04/26/women-s-champions-league--limited-tickets-available-?cardIndex=0-0

Are Galaxy chocolate bars available in Budapest? If so, and if we get to the final of course, buy a big bar, bring it to the game, and make friends with the Chelsea fans. The tradition is that every time Chelsea score we pass around the choc bars. Agree with you about Charlie Brown. Was very surprised that he didn't start this game.

And what a game! 2-2 at the end of normal time, straight to pens, fell behind in the spot kicks before a miss and a Karlo Ziger save brought us back to win 5-4 after six kicks each. Definitely a game of two halves. Barcelona dominated posession in the first forty-five although we had some moments. It was from one of those that they took the lead. A header from a Chelsea corner was cleared off the line and from that situation they moved it out to their American right winger (looks a really good player) who set up a sitter. They deserved the lead and should probably have led by more than 1 goal at the break. The second half, particularly the last half hour, was a totally different story. It was played almost exclusively in their half. It wouldn't be an overstatemt to say we battered them during that period. We had numerous chances, keeper made great saves, we missed sitters, were denied a clear pen, saw one shot kicked off the line by a deffender, and another blocked by one of our own players. The Barca coach constatly pleaded with his lads to get up the pitch, in Spanish naturally but it didn't need translating. "Get out, get out, get up!", sounds the same in any language. His charges could not do it though. It was breathless, exciting stuff. Then, almost as soon as our equaliser did come, from a bad pass by their keeper, Barca went up the other end and re-took the lead. I felt our second equaliser, and eventual penalties win, were deserved.

Big weekend ahead for the club kicks off in just over an hour and a half. At 5pm UK (6pm CET) our under 19s take on Barcelona in the semi-final of the uefa Youth League. Our lads will be looking to avenge defeat by the same side in last year's final. We didn't turn up and were convincingly beaten 3-0. I felt we picked the wrong side that day; Ethan Ampadu missed the game having suffered his injury in the semi-final but George McEachran, Charlie Brown and Tariq Uwakwe, who should all have started, were on the bench. Ethan won't be involved today but George and Charlie will start for sure this time around. Barca are favourites but I'm confident we'll give a better account of ourselves than last season. The game is live on BT Sport. Then, at 2pm on Sunday, Chelsea Women, take on European Champions Lyon for a place in the Women's Champions League final. The women, very undeservedly, lost the away leg 2-1 last week in front of more than 22,000. (A record for a women's Champions League game outside of the final itself.) Lyon are widely regarded as the best female team in the world and are three time reigning European Champions. Even so, we did not look second best to them last week despite the loss. They caused us problems of course but we had the better of the game's chances including a missed penalty and a one-on-one from which Maren Mjelde looked set to score but her shot was well saved. Meanwhile, their goals were fortunate. The first came from a shot which our keeper had covered, and which would have gone wide anyway, but it was delected into the net by Magda Eriksson for her second costly own goal in a week. (Her 93rd minute own goal from a harmless cross cost us the FA Cup semi-final against Man City.) Lyon's second was from a corner which took a double ricochet at the near post to bamboozle its way past our goalie. The game at Kingsmeadow is sold out, the first time that's happened. Then of course there's the latest 'last chance' for the men to claim a Champions League spot. They owe themselves a good result don't they?

According to a report in Italy, via The 5th Stand app, Fiorentina will try to persuade Ola to choose them over Torino. As we've discussed earlier in this thread, if Ola wants to go, there's nothing CFC can do to resist the binding buy option agreed with Torino as part of his loan deal. That does not mean however that we can't ask Ola to stay here rather than accept the move. I think he'd be a good squad player because of his flexibillity, but a place in the squad probably won't be enough bait to tempt him unless... Unless this rumour has been planted by his representitives looking for leverage to negotiate better terms with the Turin outfit. If we wanted to compete on pay we probably could. Best contract, plus a part of the rotation is at least something we could make a case to him about.

I wouldn't want to lose Azpi. We need some 'glue' in the squad; some people with feeling for the club. Not enough of those currently.

It might be ludicrous, or it might be right. I think it's right, but I accept we don't agree about that. If I tone it done a bit and say that he's one of the best, who should be a member of the squad next season, then maybe we can agree about that.

Pace is a big part of his game. At youth level his football when bringing the ball out from the back was an important contribution to the development sides he played in. I don't think it'll rate as outstanding at the top level however. He won't be a liability though.

Reece is a better player than either of those two. By that I mean he's better at playing his position than they are at playing their's. Indeed Reece is better at playing Kurt's position too. I've stated this as if it's fact but it's obviously just an opinion of course. An opinion I'm really confident about though.

I hope the good season's had by Tammy, Reece and Fik means we'll hear no more of the nonsense idea that our loan players are sometimes overlooked for selection because managers would rather use players who actually to belong to their clubs. If a CFC player is not being selected by his loan club it's because the manager does not believe he deserves it. Plain and simple. Managers want to win football matches. They'd pick me if they thought I could help them do that.