OhForAGreavsie

Once, earlier this year, and then only between the station and the stadium. That part was nice enough.

You can take the footballer out of Man City... 🙂

Yep.

I never saw Harvey as a potential Chelsea first teamer. He came on the scene just as I was scaling back the amount of development level football I was watching. Every time I did watch him however I was surprised that this was a player spoken of as having a big future here. I hope wherever he lands next will be somewhere he can play and give himself a chance to settle at the highest level he can.

A disappointing, if inevitable, outcome. I always make a comparison between Tino and RLC. For me Tino has better attributes but he still manages to be less productive than Ruben. Every once in a while he would burst into life and blow people away with what you can do on football pitch. In most of his matches however, he spent most of his time simply not affecting the game at all. I hope he can have an impact for Empoli and perhaps, in time, earn a move to a bigger Italian Club.

Yes, quite.

Do you perhaps mean Jackson?

I was also against the Keppa deal but my objection had nothing to do with his goalkeeping. I knew nothing about his qualities so had no opinion on him, but I was furious with what I saw as a ridiculous transfer fee. I felt so strongly about this that I even said, and meant, that I would prefer to go with teenager Marcin Bulka, rather than pay that kind of money.

Chris Sutton was that moment for me. I was at a mate's house with a can of party seven in my hand when I heard the deal had gone through. The can nearly went through his window. If it had been my own window I fear the worst about whether I would have let go of that can.

I'm sorry to confess, once again, that I was against signing Drogba.

This looks to be adjusted for general inflation. The numbers might look even more interesting if there was a way to calculate for football inflation.

Looked a good buy from the off to me.

We sometimes forget that the expression about 'buying' this or that player is just shorthand for buying the player's registration. As far as fifa is concerned that's what gets bought or sold and only one club can own it at a time. What's being spoken about here is just the 'economic rights' and those can be split up. For example when there is a sell on clause.

I'd say Morata has been the biggest hit on that list up to now. (I hope that's not just confirmation bias since I was positive about his recruitment.) The only name on that list about which I was, or should I say am, genuinely enthusiastic is Neto. We'll see how that turns out. The arrivals of Sheva, Nando, and Lukaku left me raging. Such obviously stupid decisions were hard to stomach. I was against signing Sterling and am against the recruitment of Felix, though the way I feel/felt about them is absolutely nothing compared to the way I saw those other three. The others on that list I was neutral about.

What bugs them the most is that, along with everybody else, they know that Madrid are top of the food chain, not them.

Sell on fee hopefully.

Believe in it? I can't even pronounce it. 🙂

I agree that he is better than the players you name but that obviously can't be the criteria for representing Chelsea. It's a sadness that our squad has been so weak that selecting Raheem has often been the right choice. We have better options now.

With thanks to Chilly for his contribution to the Champions League win, it is the right time for him to move on.

It won't. Only one journalist asked a question about the football match. The rest were all asking leading questions angling for replies which will feed the next bunch garbage they're going to produce for their various outlets.

Like almost all of us, I was against signing Sterling. Like almost all of us I want to see him find a new club. Unlike anyone else I know, I thought the game last season where he missed chances, blazed a free kick almost into the upper tier of The Shed closer to the corner flag than the goal post, and pulled rank to take a penalty only to produce the worst spot kick in the history of mankind, was all deliberate. I really feel he did those things intentionally for some reason. So, I'm not here to defend Raheem Sterling but, in fairness, the manager has left him no choice but to want to leave. When you are told that you will earn zero minutes at a club, deciding that you want to leave is hardly surprising. There's no call for us to think that if that's his attitude, he can go then. His attitude is exactly the right one and, not only that, is exactly how we all want him to feel.

Yes, Gvardíol was playing centre back for Leipzig when I became aware of him. When I posted my left back theory on here there was some pushback. One poster in particular, not you, ridiculed the idea as silly, pointing out that Gvardíol had never played left back in his life. I replied that I didn't care because he had perfect attributes for a left back. Turns out I did a better job of convincing Pep than I did of convincing that poster. Who knew the City boss was a member of TalkChelsea? 🙂 As you know CFCW recently parted company with Katarina Svitkova. I'm convinced this was for non football reasons and said so in a CFCW chat group. Someone replied that she was no great loss because she had been a bit part player anyway. My response was that if I was picking the team she would be way more than that. The same goes for JG. As long as Pep is following my suggestions, he will remain a left back. 🙂🙂

I read on here a few weeks ago that Palace wanted £60m for MG and that we had a 20% sell on clause. I predicted then that Palace would be looking for that amount, net, from the deal. Thus making the full price £75m. By that logic, MG would cost us 'just' the £60m after our discount is sliced off. I would hesitate at that price. I said all along, when Gvardíol was being linked with Chelsea, that I would sign him to play at left back, so I don't see him reverting to centre back. That said, I don't follow closely enough to know if he actively wants to do that. I just know that his attributes are very well suited to the LB roll.

You did. Good shout.

I don't object to this. There does seem to be something about Washington. Giving him time and hoping that, at the very least, he might increase his value is fair enough in my book.