OhForAGreavsie

A crucial factor. It should never be forgotten or underestimated. In fact, the importance of such leadership is the only reason Jose brought Didier back. The only good one anyway.

@CaptainConte is providing an interesting, and useful, perspective on several situations. Not to mention the odd translation service now and again. He is a very welcome guest.

Surely all Chelsea fans want that but the priority for me is always the league. On topic; I like Rudi & believe he'll help us in every phase of play. Good signing.

No one who saw it could ever forget it I think. Nor will I ever forget the post match comments of the Schalke coach. Not a single one of his team, he said, would have any chance of getting into that Chelsea line up and, as you pointed out, Sane was in his team that day. This passage of play does though contain a glimpse of an area in which Ruben needs to improve. Having been commenting on this for the last 5 years however, I can't justify being optimistic that the penny will drop. People often observe that Ruben is defensively lazy but I don't really agree with that. My gripe is that he needs to be more active when we have the ball. There are often spells in games where Rubes barely touches the ball and makes no impact on the game whatsoever. He needs to be busier getting open, demanding the ball, affecting play, then getting open again. Notice how, after he has released the ball to Charly, Ruben immediately slackens his pace with a body language which says my work is done. I grant you this is not the worst example of this trait but I'd want to see him determinedly supporting the ball again. It doesn't matter how godd you are, if you don't get on the ball, the game will pass you by.

That's another word now. Are you sure we're not talking about the same occasion, and one or other of us is just misremembering the statement? I'm definitely remembering it being reported that he said a substantial offer, which is an entirely different meaning to suitable. In fact I've been praising Juve for an absolute master class in the way they've handled this negotiation. (From their point of view of course). If he was so stupid as to say suitable then I take it back.

Did he say that? If he did that would be interesting. So interesting that I can hardly believe he was careless enough to go on record with something so helpful to our negotiating position. It's similar to the widely reported "a substantial offer", comment that he's said to have made. Obviously 'substantial' is not the same as 'generous', and both words are different again from 'acceptable', which is the word that matters of course.

Yes he does. What can I tell you? You've seen the same performances I have. If the two of us have different assessments of what we've seen then there is no way to square that circle, but you asked the question and 'yes' is my answer to it.

Are you sure it isn't that the people who always preferred Morata, a group which includes me, are simply having more to say now? Have you seen people making comments which contradict what they were saying last week? I haven't, but then I don't always remember who said what.

That kind of arithmetic assumes we have nothing else to pay for. In fact our wage bill alone is way more than the TV revenue and the Nike deal added together.

If you were manager of our club we'd have thrown a party when you did.

Absolutely correct in every regard in my opinion.

Five paragraphs in and you finally get to the nub of it. 😊

Good. Now all you need to do is work on not winding any of the rest of us up and you're there.

I heard a know-nothing, Arsenal reject turned journalist, explain to the world this morning that Jose repeatedly loaned Rom out season after season. He actually gets paid for this staggering lack of knowledge.

What barrier? You've seen all of the confirmed evidence of bids made above that level. Unless you are suggesting that those bids are made in full knowledge that they won't be accepted and with the sole intent of fooling the football world that we are trying to improve our squad when in fact we are not. Is that what you think is going on here?

He'll do for me however. If we can get him.

That's certainly how it appeared to be last year. After the dust had settled on the summer 2016 transfer window Everton made public the fact that, despite countless claims to the contrary, Chelsea did not bid for Lukaku. Rom is not useless, far from it. In fact he's much better than the Diego we suffered from January onwards in the season just gone. He is not though the man I want to lead the line for us. Given what he can do, I would not have wanted to see him join United, but if it's a choice between that or him coming here then United can have him.

Yess!!

This is a very specific breakdown of the way you think CF transfers are handled. Do you have evidence to support this?

If something isn't good for you don't do it. 😊 When exactly did Chelsea say that? You are seeing ghosts and letting them scare you man. 😊

True That's one possible interpretation I agree, but another is that they're confident because they have a contract.

@akgw13is right. If there was a break option in the loan agreement then Juve could simply exercise it; no need for a meeting. A meeting is only necessary to try to reach an agreement when it does not already exist. It's a reasonable guess that such a meeting would involve talk of compensation. You can imagine that Juve would have had lots of cash from the supposed Sandro deal with which to grease Atalanta's palms. There are examples of this from our own deals, and the loaned player himself might have something to say of course. There seems to have been a break clause in Ake's arrangement, Andreas made it clear he would only return if he would be starting, and Juan Cuadrado simply didn't want to return at all.

No you weren't. You are not alone.

Good for us in one way. If Diego was below Lacazette on Atleti's wish list, he isn't now..

Crespo is the player I had in mind.