OhForAGreavsie

You are welcome to call me a football expert, or anything else, if you wish. I think of myself as a fan with opinions. You and I have often disagreed before and clearly we do so once more. I simply do not see anything elite in Traore. Things sometimes go right for him, as they do for all players. Demonstrating elite ability however is about being able to replicate excellence repeatedly. Traore does not. He has good age, a good profile, great pace and outstanding power. If he also adds elite dribbling skills as you claim then, never mind Europe's second tier club competition, what's he doing in England's second tier league? Why too is there no discernable clamour for his signature? I know that this last point is an appeal to authority which is not usually a sound way to debate but top level managers are not always wrong you know, and they are not wrong about Traore.

I don't see the attraction in this player at all. Simply not talented enough, or football-smart enough in my opinion. Pace, power, and still not good enough.

I like Koulibali. If we can get him, I think we should. After a year out on loan for experience I believe Reece James will be ready to start for Chelsea. At the beginning of the 2019/20 season he'll be approaching his 20th birthday. That's fearfully young for a centre back but the lad is the absolute real deal. He will be a Chelsea player and he will be ready while still a teenager. Dave, Reece & KK as starters, with Andreas, Tony and one other to round out the CB group, would make us really well set at that position.

Add the fact that Dembele already turned us down in 2015 and you speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Sadly.

In fact they go top even if they only draw. That said... In my post above I asked anyone who saw the ladies for the first time on Saturday to get down to Kingsmeadow tonight and lend your voice to the title push. That was on Saturday however. On Saturday it looked like the Huddersfield game was just going to be another end of season fixture with nothing much riding on it for the Blues. Now it matters however so I have to confess that I'll be at The Bridge tonight. The men's game is sold out though so if you don't have a ticket, Kingsmeadow is still the place for you. They are sure to have the men's game on in the bar so you'll be able to catch the whole second half after the ladies' match is finished. Tickets can be bought from the box office stall at Kingsmeadow and cost £6 for full paying adults and £3 for concessions. Box office at the ground opens at 5:30pm, game kicks-off at 7:00pm.

Not to mention that Jay Da Silva has won Charlton Fans' Player of The Season. Another season or two and he'll be ready to to be considered for us I think.

Does anyone know how things stand with Malcolm? Reports say that he'd like to join Munich, but that they are not interested. Any hope for us there? I like him better than Fakir.

That sums up the two ninety minute performances in which I watched him very closely before he joined united. He was great in one and poor in the other. Has he done enough since to get excited about? Not enough for me, no. Throw in that his preferred areas of operation seem to be those in which both Eden and Callum Hudson-Odoi like to function, and I'd say invest in someone else. I know all the usual caveats people would apply to Callum, but I'm confident he'll make it. There are flaws in his game but these are of the kind that can be coached. He sometimes believes too much in his ability and either tries more than he should, or else takes more time than he has. Meanwhile, the things which can't be coached; talent and football instinct, he has in abundance. From comments Jody Morris has made it's clear the coaches are going to work on this issue with Callum and it will be solved. He is the real deal; season after next he'll be ready to be a serious squad member, season after that he can start. Let's not block his path.

Agreed, it was a fantastic moment for them, and for us :). I'm only saying that they'd have won the league with or without us preventing a Spurs win. On the other hand we may well need them to beat Tottenham.

Not really. They'd still have won the league no matter what the result that night. Still, if they want to do us a favour anyway....

Could have been the greatest season ever. Still one of our greatest ever. Think about Michael Ballack that season; Premier League - Runner up, Champions League - Runner up, League Cup - Runner up, World Cup - Runner up. And they were all very, very near misses. Talk about if onlys.

The real slip wasn't the last day, it was dropping home points by conceding a last minute equalizer to Wigan four weeks earlier. Had we beaten Wigan we'd have gone into the last game knowing the title was in our own hands. If that was the case I'm absolutely convinced that we'd have smashed Bolton on the last day.

Yep was great. i have two daughters. The younger one loves football and comes to The Bridge with me. The older one is totally indifferent to the game but she went with me today. What an occasion for your first ever game of football. Her verdict? “It’s a lot better than watching on telly!” As for the double, it’s back to work on Wednesday night for the girls. If anyone reading this watched CLFC for the first time today, I hope you’ll be tempted to turn up at Kingsmeadow stadium in midweek. It’s a must win game and the women could use your help. It’d be great to see as many of you as possible down there. One thing I definitely don’t want to see at our next game is The FA Cup. It’s business time, not party time. The ladies need to have a good night in the office to force Manchester City Women to have to keep winning, and winning well.

My over all point in a nutshell, and this was an under 18's game with a higher than usual percentage of kids in the ground.

Just on the scolding point. No one has ever told me to sit down when I’ve been in the MH lower but it does happen is the West if people overdo it. Thing is not everyone wants to stand but if the lad or lass in front is doing so ‘persistently’ then they are basically saying everyone has to if the want to see. Obviously I get the opposite point of view. Not everyone wants to be left with no choice but to sit. I am genuinely worried though about what we might allow back into the game along with standing. The idiots of the 70’s & 80’s are old now but new idiots are born every minute. Things do become more boisterous when young men stand in large groups of like minded individuals. Allocated seating breaks up those groups, safe standing facilitates them. When boisterous people congregate tribalism rises. When people are shouting wankers at opposition fans and gesturing at them, they are much more likely to be standing than sitting. All of this turns the temperature up and I don’t think the risk is worth it. Remember, it only takes the animosity to be raised in the ground, the trouble can be sparked anywhere. I hope that MP’s are not going to cave on this but, if they do, then I hope it turns out I was wrong to be worried.

Because testosterone is testosterone.

Shame. If this happens I can only hope that my fears about the implications are unfounded. I have little faith in the good behaviour of football fans. At the Emirates the other night there were grown men supporting Chelsea who were chanting F’s and C’s with little Children sat all around them. Last year someone posted a video of Chelsea fans in a stadium baiting fans of the other team. There were F’s, W’s and the obligatory hand gestures. The caption said ‘Great support’. I don’t agree.

The ladies play their third FA Cup Final in four years this Saturday 5th May vs Arsenal at Wembley. Kick off is at 17:30 and a record crowd is expected. We met Arsenal in the 2016 final and their fans probably made up the bulk of the crowd. If you're in London on Saturday and fancy swelling the Chelsea contingent tickets are £15/ £5 concessions and up to four kids go free with every paying adult. Chelsea have sold out but tickets are still on general sale through The FA, or from the Wembley box office on the day. Get down there; you'll enjoy it.

Those clubs are on the ‘list’ because you’ve expanded it to the top 20. (From the top 10 I showed.) Had we looked at 2003’s top 20 I’m pretty sure further English clubs would have been included. The clubs you name are on the list because they are in the Premier League and benefit from the second biggest TV rights deal in world sport. Throw in a big stadium for West Ham, plus a Champions League run for Leicester, and there is no mystery about their turnover. I say again, they are achieving those numbers because they are members of the Premier League, not because Roman bought Chelsea. The question is not that the Premier League is rich; that’s a given. The question is why. You say it’s because Roman bought Chelsea. I say that’s not it. I notice the fact that the league was already rich and getting richer before Roman arrived. I notice too that the growth in TV revenues is strongly linked to the business models of Sky, BT and other ‘media partners’, and I stick to the argument that the league’s continued growth is not because of Roman.

P.S. The 2003 football rich list was calculated and published before Roman bought Chelsea. Its top ten already included four English sides. The Premier League was already big before Roman. Rank Club Income (€ million) Country 1. Manchester United 217.2 England 2. Juventus 173.5 Italy 3. Bayern Munich 173.2 Germany 4. Milan 164.6 Italy 5. Real Madrid 138.2 Spain 6. Liverpool 137.6 England 7. Lazio 125.4 Italy 8. Roma 123.8 Italy 9. Chelsea 118.4 England 10. Internazionale 112.8 Italy

Of course Roman has had an impact, and yes of course he acted as a trailblazer for other international investors in the Premier League. Those are not the points with which I disagreed however. You said. "Look at the bigger picture the reason that English football is so massive is indirectly because of Abramovich." My point is, and was, that the premier League was already massive before Roman and would be just as big as it is now with or without him. To repeat what I said earlier, Roman got into the premier League because it was massive, it didn't get massive because he got into it. The growth in the league's revenues since 2003 are to do with market forces and the changed nature of pay TV, not because Roman bought Chelsea. Indeed revenues had already grown massively between 1992 and 2003, before any of us had ever heard of Roman.

Charly flatters to deceive. Either Rogers was just giving it the big talk, or he was deceived himself.

It's not possible to stipulate that a player must play but we, like all clubs, do put the only practicable clauses in loan contracts. First, clubs are given the incentive that they pay us a lower loan fee if they use our players than if they do not. Second, loan contracts can be terminated unilaterally by Chelsea at the next window, or sooner by mutual consent, if the player does not accumulate a given percentage of possible minutes. Not much else that can be done contractually I think.

Hello Iggy, You’re suggesting that, because of Roman, the Premier League is much richer than it would have been without him. As I said in my first reply, I think that if this is true at all it is true to a marginal extent only. The factors I mentioned, along with the growth of pay TV, played a much, much bigger role. I see no evidence that Premier League revenues would be noticeably lower had Roman not bought Chelsea. Of course Chelsea might not be a power in the league if he hadn’t, but that’s a different conversation. My point re Brighton is that they earned their place in the Premier League and since they didn’t benefit from a greater revenue boost to get them there than any other team did, they would have been just as likely to make it even if revenues were lower. In any case, as above, I don’t think the revenue would be significantly different if there had been no Roman.

To a marginal extent only. It is more true to say that Roman is in English football because it was already big before he arrived. More true, but not wholly so because we must also factor in that Football Association rules and national legislation make it easier for overseas owners to buy in to our clubs than is the case in some other countries. Premier League revenue growth was already well underway before Roman arrived. My own view is that the long standing international popularity of England's top division, which predates the Premier League, is more to do with the emotional attachment people felt towards Man Utd after Munich, the fact that the1966 World Cup was the first to be televised with anything even approaching modern standards, that outside of the World Cup, The FA Cup Final was the only show-piece football occasion people saw around the world, that Liverpool's dominance during the 70's & early 80's made them a worldwide fascination, that the cultural ties between Britain and some of the world's biggest markets were strong, and most importantly there was a gap to be filled. Like The Beatles, English football was the right product at the right time. I don't see why not since it's all relative. Without the huge revenue injections they would certainly have had lesser budgets but so too would the teams they were competing with. In any case, during their rise to the top tier, they have regularly outperformed clubs with bigger resources than they could call on. Let's remember that many clubs have made the same climb before the Premier League came into being, including teams with even fewer resources than those you mention.