OhForAGreavsie

Great information. Thank you. Interesting thoughts in this and your earlier post about Lukaku too.

It's not about the striker who scores the most goals; it's about the striker whose contribution does the most to help his team win games. Who can deny that Diego and Rom score lots of goals, but who will deny that, in each case, their limitations also cost their team many attacking opportunities? Who doubts that a ball played into the striker which then results in possession being lost unexpectedly, creates a potentially dangerous situation for the striker's team? It really, really ain't all about the goals an individual scores. In any case, it turns out not to be something that is either/or. The players who have the superior technical skills that help them make better contributions to their team's pattern of play, also tend to score lots of goals anyway. Consider Suarez, consider Ibra, and consider too Morata's goals per minute ratio.

Obviously, like all clubs, we'll have run the rule over those players and for sure there are some interesting looking options on that list. All bar one in my opinion. Rom won't improve the areas in which we think he's lacking. His difficulties come down to talent and, long before now, long before he joined Chelsea indeed, his talent level was fixed. It cannot, and will not, change in future. I offered this opinion about Rom's talent placing a firm ceiling on what he can do, shortly after he joined Chelsea. Some people disagreed, many very strongly, but I'm more convinced about this than I am about anything else in football. If it is possible to improve talent level just by practising, then why isn't everybody as good as Lionel Messi? There are some skills which can be polished, some physical attributes which can be honed, some techniques which can be mastered. Working on any of the things covered by those headings will help, but a player's talent is his talent and he's stuck with it. Based on this belief I made three predictions, back in 2011, about how I thought things would go for Rom: - First, I said that his intelligence would enable him to understand his strengths, work on them, and therefore make a good contribution to his team. Second, I said that no manager of a top level club would ever be satisfied with Rom as their main striker. He might be given a try, but the manager would soon be asking his club to go back to the market for an upgrade. Third, I said that people would still be complaining about the same aspects of Rom's game when he was twenty-five and that many would forget they had claimed he would have resolved those issues by then. Those forgetful ones, who don't accept that talent is fixed, would still be arguing Rom can improve. To be fair, Rom is only twenty-three so is some way short of that deadline, but I'm certain it'll happen. In fact I'll go so far as to say, I know it will.

Your whining if you're wish should fail will be music to mine.

😊

Thanks XP

PM me please Scott if they are still available. I've got two for me and my daughter but a couple of members we watch games with look like missing out.

Not to mention that we are not going to win the league on goal difference anyway. If the title comes down to goal difference, spurs will be champions.

I don't mind rolling down the the local church hall one Thursday night every year, if that's what it takes.

The 14/15 squad was not as good as this one. I like everything we are hearing from Antonio regarding his plans for the summer. Saying that our squad is undermanned, and under skilled, is just a statement of the obvious of course, but the fact that he is prepared to say it anyway wins confidence. Whether this season yields two trophies, one trophy or none, there can be no doubt Antonio is the right man to take us forward. I hope no one in the hierarchy will seek to veto any of his transfer targets. By all means offer an opinion to the manger and try hard to persuade him if you think he needs to change his mind but, in the end, the man in the chair should make the footballing decisions. Anyone feeling they spot a bit of self-contradiction from me here, is correct. I've admitted many times that if I had Roman's money I would certainly have attempted to buy the club, and if that attempt had been successful, I would now be making all the transfer decisions myself. The only explanation I can offer for this hypocrisy is to say that it's about trust. In that fantasy world, I'd trust myself. In this real one, I trust Antonio. The Italian is only the second Chelsea manager, after Jose, to whom I feel a personal commitment, and I go all the way back to Tommy Docherty. That's a lot managers who have come and gone without making a personal impact on me. We have a good one here. I believe he can eclipse even what The Special One was able to achieve. Don't blow it board.

And long may they continue to lack that player!

Leicester is the one exception I referred to. When Blackburn won the league they had one of the two biggest budgets in the country and ditto Arsenal when they were winning all but one of their PL titles. In fact, but for our hoped for triumph this season and Arsenal's in '03/'04, I would have been able to state that, barring The Foxes, the league had always been won by one of its two biggest budget clubs. This season our budget is behind those of the Manchester clubs so I've had to expand that to three. Regardless of the specific budget ranking of various champions, the general point stands. Money talks.

Can't happen. Calm. Work. Focus. No need for crowing folks. Six points from now will be time enough for that.

Antonio will enjoy his family diner even more when he hears about this.

The next 15 minutes are going to be agony.

United are United. In my opinion English football owes them, and Liverpool, a debt for its current wealth. I think it was the huge worldwide popularity of those two clubs, particularly the Reds of Manchester, which pulled in large parts of the international audience and which drove the worldwide coverage of Premier League football. I argue that this coverage helped the growth in popularity of England's other leading clubs because unattached supporters gradually picked a club to follow. I'm not suggesting that other clubs had no worldwide presence around the globe in 1992, they clearly did, but ManU and Liverpool were a long way ahead back then. Untied still are of course.

I don't agree with this. Never have agreed with it and I never will. Goals are obviously an important part of a striker's role, but to say that role is all about goals is equivalent to saying that a centre back's role is all about planting the ball into row Z. Every player has more than one function to perform for his team, and each of them is important. Part of the reason Messi scores so many goals is the fantastic contribution he makes to Barca's build up. He makes his team more efficient in possession and not only he himself, but his teammates too, reap the rewards. Someone at the top of the shape who has the technical quality to receive, retain and redistribute possession is a difference maker for a team. Look what Suarez did for Liverpool. We shouldn't forget either that a player who is good at retaining possession also improves his team defensively. Even if such a player contributes fewer goals personally, his team will finish up with more points. Rom is often labled a good target man but he isn't. The ball bounces off him too often. (As has too frequently been the case with Diego recently of course.) If Diego is to leave, I want his replacement to be an outstanding technician.

I like the way the squad and coaches are looking at it; assume Spurs are going to win all the rest of their games, and set about things accordingly.

So was Palace but I like your positive attitude.

Tammy would not take up a place on our Premier League squad list because clubs are free to have as many such players in their squad as they like. All players in the list are however required to be registered to play for the club. As far as I'm aware, Tammy is currently registered to play for Bristol City, not Chelsea and will be until the season ends. With a bit of luck, one of the journos will ask Antonio about this at tomorrow's press conference.

Yep that was undeniably the case.

Anybody know how to get Dembele to fall out with Spurs please?

I'm fully in favour of the manager getting the targets he wants but it's not as if we here get a choice. In the end we take what we're given, like it or not. I agree with you about the rationale of 'Premier League proven'. It's a reasonable criteria that squad builders should give due weight to, but it's not a magic formula which lets decision makers off hook when it comes to exercising good judgment. My own judgement remains as stated in the post to which you replied. I don't remember if anyone mentioned the magic phrase when I was saying forget Torres, go for Suarez. People certainly told me to stop talking nonsense, count Nando's goals, and try to be as happy as they were. It wasn't long before that false happiness faded. If football was as easy as arithmetic then all those clever people who are paid for their football opinions would be out of work. Rom is a better player than Nando. If we resigned him he'd do OK. We'd win some matches and maybe even the odd trophy. What's the problem then? The problem is that I believe we would be a better team with a technically superior alternative, even if the individual goal return of that alternative player is less than Rom's might be.

Who did you hear it from?

All is well again. Apologies for being so slow on the uptake but I'm up to speed now. I genuinely burst out laughing when I read the comment to which I am replying. In football, people often throw insults around and call it banter. They forget that banter should have some wIt and humour about it. You've had to ladle it on pretty thick, but it's worked. You've helped me see that it wasn't only your jokes I was taking too seriously, but myself too. Good work. I appreciate it.