OhForAGreavsie

Depends what you mean by kid. There are two Dembeles, at least, at Celtic. The 'kid' is 14 and he's going to be an unbelievable player. Some time last year I posted to say that if there was a more talented youth level footballer anywhere in Europe than Diaz of Man City, then I hadn't seen him. Well I have now. Serious, serious talent.

We also wanted him on 2011 but he chose Arsenal.

Leaving aside Diego's situation, that would have to start with us actually wanting Barkley. Ronald Koeman's comment, quoted above, gives me hope that in fact we don't. Unless we've decided, for tactical reasons, to place our bid on deadline day.

Answer your question without mentioning squad depth? It would be extremely impressive if someone could answer by mentioning it. How is Chelsea's need for squad players ever going to be an answer to a question about Danny Drikwater's motives? Our need for squad reinforcements explains why we might want to sign Drinkwater, but it's never going to be an explanation of why he would want to join us. Think you've confused yourself there for a minute. You say Drinkwater is the complete reverse of the type of player we should sign. It would be interesting to see your filtered list of the players we should recruit for that role. Filtered first by removing any names we can't attract and second by purging any players who would not accept the possibility of being fourth on the depth chart. It would then be fun to debate which of the players remaining on your list are better than Drinkwater. Drinkwater is no Naby Kaita but I think he's a better player than you give him credit for. I can't convince you of that, but Danny Drinkwater probably will. I fully understand that your real point is we should be shopping for a starting player whose quality meets with your approval. For whatever reason the club has gone for Bakayoko to fill that need. By all means criticise the club if you think that is a bad decision, but don't let it cloud your judgement of what Drinkwater can do as a fourth, or even fifth, choice CM. Your posts in this thread do read as if that is what you are doing.

Every time I see that avatar pic, I can't help wondering how the family of the poor girl who died in that accident must feel. Of course Marcos should not be expected to stop his life, but pain like that family suffered never goes away and an image like that is bound to set off a feeling of deep and tragic injustice.

Fair comment.

I now know that Ben Ramsey is a telegraph reporter. This means he must know that FFP is not applied on a deal-by-deal basis, yet his tweet implies that an individual deal can be examined, and should be rejected. FFP does not give uefa the power to examine an individual deal so neither of those things can, or will, happen. Let's give Ramsey that he didn't mean it like that; that he was just using an expression and that what he meant to say is something like, 'Come on uefa, you know PSG is just messing with you and your rules now. Show some guts.' PSG are messing with the regulations. The problem is that loans, or temporary transfers as they are officially known, are perfectly legal and, as long as the costs of that loan don't take PSG over their allowable FFP expenditure, then uefa can have nothing to say about it. FFP is assessed on clubs' annual accounts, not on an individual deal. Even then, the figures for any particular year are allowed to fail the test as long as the club's results over a rolling three year period balance out. What does balance out mean? uefa allows clubs to make a €5m FFP loss over those three years, but that can go up to €35m if the extra €30m is a no strings cash injection from the owner. Obviously PSG's owners will put that money in. How can a club hope to stay within a €35m loss if they spend €222m on a single player? Remember that, regardless of whether a transfer fee is paid in full at the time of the deal, clubs are entitled to amortise, or spread, the cost of that payment over the length of his contract when reporting it in their FFP numbers. Instead of €222m appearing in PSG's accounts for 2017/2018 in respect of the Neymar deal, a portion of it will be reported in each of the next five annual results. That's €44.4m per year. Even with just a slice of the Neymar deal to pay for, PSG clearly can't afford to add another €36m to their costs, and still stay within FFP. (€36m would be the annual FFP cost of Mbappe's transfer fee over a five year contract.) Setting up a loan deal therefore is a clever, and entirely legal, way to get around that. It means that, although whatever loan fee has been agreed with Monaco will appear in this year's books, the transfer fee won't come in until the 2018/2019 figures. That, in effect, gives PSG two years to sort out their figures. They might: - Edit: I typed bullet points here giving examples of what PSG might do to improve their FFP situation but a glitch in the system has chewed them up. No time to retype them now but I may re-do it later. PSG would not have entered into these transfers unless they felt they would find a way to squeeze them through FFP. Ramsey must know this. He can read the FFP rules just like I did and he probably has. He should therefore pass on accurate information about what it is and how it works. He could even use the position he's no doubt worked hard to reach, to call for a different set of FFP rules if that's what he wants to do. The one thing he should not do is perpetuate any lingering myths about FFP by tweeting silly comments like the one I commented on above.

Anyone who can write such drivel clearly has no idea how FFP works. When you don't know anything sit down and shut up. Instead, this idiot is advertising his ignorance on Twitter. P.S. I see that his account is described as "verified". Presumably this means he's well known though personally I've never heard of him. That doesn't mean he's not entitled to an opinion, but nor does it mean he should get a free pass when he's talking rubbish.

I think there could be some truth in this, but for non-footballing reasons. If he goes to Liverpool AOC will have fewer problems in his day-to-day life than if he moves across the capital. Ask Sol Campbell or Ash. I see this notion crossing his mind more than once.

If he joins, Sanches may start off higher up our depth chart, but my expectation is he'd soon play his way down it again. While I have to acknowledge that many, many people believe in this lad, I must also state that I can't see why. More hype than substance there in my opinion.

Well, I am yet to see the supposed excellence in Gabriel Jesus, and quite a few City fans have begun to express doubts about him too. Even so a sizeable percentage of those doubters on Bluemoon still prefer Jesus over Aguero. Their posts express love for the Argentine, but they'd rather see the youngster in the team. This opinion isn't unanimous among City fans by any means but there is enough of it to make us stop and think. If a player City fans think still has a lot of developing to do before he reaches the desired standard, is nevertheless thought to be a better option than their long term centre forward, then what does that tell us about Aguero's recent contributions?

In fact it's for our medical department to try to convince the Red Devil's medical team that Eden is unfit to play, and for our manager to try to persuade Belgium's manager that it's not sensible to select Eden even if he is technically fit. In the end however, the national team makes all the decisions. If Belgium's doctors don't accept the opinion of our doctors, Belgium are entitled to call up the player anyway so he can be examined by their medical staff. Antonio can recommend that Eden is not ready, but Martinez can overrule him and select Hazard anyway. If we refuse to allow Eden to go when selected, Belgium can inform FIFA and Eden will be suspended for the same number of competitive Chelsea games, as he missed for the national team.

You seem to me to believe in fairy dust. Look what happened when Andre Villas Boas tried to play the right kind of football with a squad that lacked the talent to do it, and look what happened when Robbie Di Matteo adopted the pragmatic approach required to cover up that squad's deficiencies. You are not alone, we all want to see our team play that football, but we live in a world where Joseph Heller's paradox bites. Any fool can set up to play the way you, me, and millions of others would like us to, but Chelsea can't hope to win playing like that. We don't have the players to do it, and we can't attract those players because, among other reasons, we don't have a reputation for playing that way. If those other reasons prevent this being a true catch twenty-two situation, it's probably not much less than a catch twenty-one and a half.

I completely agree in principle, but would add a note of slight disagreement. What you say here makes perfect sense to us. Not because we are football geniuses, although we are of course , but because it's a statement of the obvious. It's obvious to you, it's obvious to me, and it's obvious to every member of the board. I know some views expressed around here make it sound like Chelsea's executives can't tie their own shoe laces, but no one can really believe that. These people can't, on average, be any less bright than the average poster here. Yet, they have not been able to do what obviously needs to be done. There has to be a reason for it. If there were an unlimited budget available, if the owner was willing to spend it, if we could attract all the players we wanted, and if the money could persuade their clubs to sell, then why wouldn't the board just hoover up all the quality and the trophies that go with it? Clearly there are limitations on the budget, on the willingness of other clubs to sell to us, and on the attractiveness of our club to players of the highest calibre. For example, according to a 2016 story, Ousmane Dembele's agent says his client turned us down in summer 2015. He said that Dembele's dream was to play for Barcelona and that he saw Dortmund as the perfect place to develop. I've been dreaming of our club signing this player since I first became aware of him a little before Christmas 2015 but the board has to deal in realities, not dreams. These days, I'm dreaming of Chelsea signing another Dembele. This one plays for Celtic. He's only 14 but he looks to me to be a very special player in the making. If that assessment is right, Barca will want him too and I'll be left to dream on once more. The world in which Chelsea operate is real, not ideal.

If he'd had our view he clearly would have had to give it but, although by the time Eden hit the ground the ref had come into frame, at the moment of the challenge he was a good way behind play and at a tougher angle. Even on TV, the tackle only looked 'suspicious' until the third angle which made the foul abundantly clear. If that decision happened on Sunday afternoon I guess we'd both be a bit more bothered about it, but last night was very much mission accomplished. Eden:- Put minutes in his legs, ✅ Blew off some cobwebs. ✅ Showed glimpses of magic. ✅

Something else to remember about Renaldo's record compared to Greavsie's is the fact that when the Madrid striker broke Jimmy's record, he was already a year older (32) than the age at which Greaves retired (31). It was sixty years ago yesterday that the greatest footballer ever to grace this club was given his first team debut. Seventeen year old Jimmy Greaves made his first appearance away at White Hart Lane against Spurs. He scored of course. Here is a nice article from TOCWS.

Of the two, I prefer Dembele.

Thanks.

Southgate has always been a big fan of his. I wonder if a conversation with the England boss might not have played a part in Nat's insistence on joining Watford? Pure speculation but possible I suppose.

I was there following on twitter. And an absolute joke it was too. Twitter took at least a minute to update the draw with each new tie, and several minutes between some.. Just as well I didn't actually wake up for it. Meanwhile a little sympathy for Arsenal please. They've picked up what counts as a tough draw for them; a mid table, League One team. At home of course.

If he did, and it was made public, then I don't remember it.

Only if we change shape. Azpi is not a good wing back.

Just from YouTube highlights it was easy to predict that Gabigol would flop. I would boast of having done so, but in fact my prediction was slightly wrong. My assessment of him, on here (I think) and definitely on WAGNH, was that, "I'd be amazed if any top club signs him." Well a top club did take him but they must be regretting it. I'm a Gabriel Jesus non-believer too as I said before he joined up with City. There is a quickness and an industry about him that opponents will always have to contend with. A good player, yes, but his touch is too loose to qualify him as a 'gem' in my opinion. A watcher of Brazilian football, whose opinion I generally respect, posted to say that Jesus was a terrific player and would be a big success here. I could never see that myself and was happy with the idea that he might keep Aguero out of their side since GJ is a clear downgrade in my opinion. Having been very excited about him during his honeymoon spell, City fans are beginning to sober up. They are recalibrating their opinions, and starting to trot out the excuses for his his displays.

Leicester were always going to play hardball come what may. They don't want to sell and don't need the money. What other type of ball would they even think of? As for Drinkwater being a Matic downgrade, let'a see about that.

You mean we should have held out for more?