OhForAGreavsie

No we weren't. We got more points than other sides but that's not the same thing at all. Watch the games, we won the league because of the genius in the dugout.

I've no idea about those other debuts. I didn't see them. I have seen better debuts than the one Charlay had for Betis but I don't expect better than that. This is why I described that performance as OK for a debut. There is a big difference however between me not expecting the performance to be better and you asking me to pretend that I thought it was better than in fact I did. I called it as I saw it. You saw it differently and I can live with that. Though there is nothing desperate about it, of course I want to be a realist. If I didn't then surly everyone would feel even more justified in dismissing my opinions than they might already feel inclined to do. If Barcelona give youth a chance it's because they feel those youngsters are good enough. No magic or mystery there. It is the business of their manager to make player choices taking the circumstances of his team, and his league, into account. It is the business of Chelsea managers to do the same for us. Successive holders of that post have all made similar decisions.

I fell in love with KDB's game after watching a few of his performances while he was back on loan at Genk. So much so in fact that I then watched every single Belgium international and as many of his matches at Bremen as I could. (Basically every Bremen game that didn't clash with a Chelsea match.) The opinion I formed during that period was that Kevin did not really deserve the amount of praise he was getting for his efforts in Germany. There were many times I felt he must surly be dropped after the display I had just seen, but he never was. Despite this I remained optimistic when he came back and my optimism went into overdrive after that simple looking, but actually genius, assist in his debut. I have to say however that what else we saw of Kevin, what little else for those who would prefer to put it that way, tended to back up the thoughts which began while he was in green. By the time he was allowed to leave I felt I could understand Jose's decision and I'm not the only one. If you read Man City fan sites you'll find that many of them, a majority as far as I can divine, also feel they can see why Jose did it. The consensus opinion among them seems to be that, with everybody fit, KDB shouldn't make their team. Juan Mata was just a question of managerial preference. Someone has to decide; Jose made his choice and he won the league. Won it in fact by more points than Man City have in all their Premier League triumphs combined. This despite the fact that most appear to feel that City's squad in each of those seasons was far batter than Jose's last year. As far as Romelu is concerned my perdiction when I first saw him play for us was that, though he might make a contribution as a squad player, he would never hold down a place as a starter for a Champions League level club. That any manager of a Champions Leage team with Romelu as his best option would always be urgently seeking a better alternative. This prediction is still live, still out there to be proved wrong, but it hasn't been proved wrong yet and I stick by it.

Looks like @Iggy Doonican wrote my post for me above. I would only add that it makes the hairs stand up when the Osgood song is sung by lads & lasses whose dads weren't born when Ossie first played for Chelsea. It's natural and right that younger fans should have their own heroes but I really hope that song is sung at The Bridge forever. Heroes don't have to be perfect and Ossie certainly wasn't that. Nor was he (in my opinion) the best player to play for this club, He wasn't even the second best but he was, and is, The King. May he reign forever. Sorry about the hair in the video but that was the 70s for you.

By the way, should a mod consider moving all of these posts into Charlay's main thread?

There were times when Charly didn't even get into the side for development squad games, or was subbed when he did. What is more those decisions seemed to me to be justifiable. We must guard against getting carried away. It's not about looking good, it's about being productive. There is a great deal more I'd like to say about this, and notice I wrote that I thought those decisions were justifiable not that they were correct. To unfold my argument on this however would take a very long post and, though I've been wanting to say it for years, I find that I can never be bothered to get into it. One day maybe.

This may be true of course but I don't think it is. My own view is the youngsters are not getting games because they don't deserve to. Some evidence of the reason for this difference of opinion between us comes in our assessments of Charlay's displays so far at Betis. I did not see the Gijon game but I saw the performance against Depor and I watched an all touches video of his debut vs Valencia. You feel that he has been fantastic but my respective ratings of those two outings are; OK, for a debut and very ordinary. There is perhaps no point in arguing whose assessment is right since we have both seen what we've seen, and think what we think. It is though some sort of explanation of why we see the bigger picture so differently. I don't think I watch any less academy football than many around here and suspect that in fact I watch more than most. Even so, I don't share the general clamour that the kids must play. My call is that our kids must get better.

Surly Guus doesn't have much choice does he? He maybe has a few exotic options like playing Kennedy at left back, Aina at right back or Miazga at CB and restoring Brana to the flank but none seem too likely. Hope not anyway. Huge match for us and I mean huge. I've seen nothing in the last five encounters which encourages me to believe that we'll beat Paris next month so this game could be our season. Of course I can conjure up reasons to hope we'll progress in Europe, but hope is not belief.

Just an example of the many factors. Here's another, which player wins this stat category is likely to be influenced by possession stats. And another, most sides have a preference for attacking on one flank or the other. A defensive player on the chosen flank is likely to have more chances to intercept. We've all seen how often it is that when a side gets thrashed, it is their goalkeeper who is their outstanding player. The more shots come at you, the more you might stop but does that mean the other keeper is not so good?.

How on Earth do you interpret that stat? It can be affected by so many things which are beyond the player's control that it is almost meaningless. For example, it would be interesting to look at the interception statistics of players who have faced a Chelsea side with Ramires in the line up. I think Baba was decent in Paris and that those who felt he was excellent are guilty of seeing what they wanted to see. They would not agree of course.

Perhaps they are seriously considering signing him permanently and believe that a two-and-a-half month trial is better than no trial at all. Perhaps too the loan fee arrangements take account of the fact that, while the rules required the signing to be completed by 1st February, the two clubs were aware that Pato would not be available for several weeks after that.

I won't be making many changes, hardly any. How can you not love Guus?

There are so many people here that hate him it must feel like pins in their eyes each time Stamford Bridge sings Jose's name. Sorry lads we're going to be singing that song for years to come and the more you moan about it, the louder we'll sing and the more we'll enjoy it. One of those who disrespect Jose posted recently to say that Guss has done ten times better with this squad than Jose did. I'm a Chelsea fan so I love Guss but I also passed a few maths exams and I'm not falling for nonsense like that. What is more, I know how to use Google so if I ever suffer amnesia like that lot do, I can quickly remind myself which team are the current champions of England. Still standing for The Special One.

Especially if Spurs finish fourth.

Matt gets a game if any member of the back four goes down, not just those two.

Last April, before he moved to Juve, I posted this: - And then this: -

That's still not buying them because they are superstars. It's buying them when they are superstars. There's a difference you'll agree. That behaviour is in furtherance of the club's philosophy and, in its own terms, makes sense. Real aim to exploit their position at the apex of the transfer market to minimise their risk, as they see it. Just as I say we should not shop for ready made superstars because we don't quite have the pull to attract the genuine article, Real reason that they are the big beasts in the market so they don't need to take punts. Where we must try to find the soon will be a star player, they choose to wait until the player is established and, in their view, proved. They calculate that they can afford that policy, that it will ultimately mean they waste less money than they otherwise might and that their spending will be offset by the extant commercial value of the players they acquire. You talk about shopping with a philosophy, that is their philosophy. What's more it works. They have for long periods been a better team than Barca. It's only Barca's unrepeatable crop of in house monsters who have tipped the balance. Those monsters are are already growing old.

But who does that though? Who looks at a player and thinks, he's completely wrong for us but he's a superstar so lets buy him? Chinese or MLS clubs maybe and what's more they are right because what they need from a player is different to the requirements of key clubs in Europe.

I'm talking about buying 'good' players regardless of whether they are superstars or not. My argument in that initial post is that if you buy quality then whether they are superstars or not isn't going to matter. Barca didn't buy Ibra because they thought he was a superstar, they bought him because they thought he was better than what they had. Just because they were not proved entirely correct does not mean their motives shoud be recategorised. They just got it right with Suarez and slightly wrong with Ibra. Exact same motives however.

Suarez? Neymar? Even Rakitic, Ter Stagen & Sanchez? Bear in mind too that they have been stuffed with a freakish number of home grown superstars. That won't happen again and to maintain their status they will shop even more prolifically than they already do now.

Don't tell Barcalona. Or Paris. Or Munich. Or Madrid. I'm guessing that you probably mean unsustainable for us which may be so of course. Personally I don't think our problem has been the category of player we have signed, our problem is the quality. It matters not if a new arrival if reputedly World class or regarded as a nobody. What matters is how good a player he is. Get that right and not much else is going to matter. As Real Madrid's bosses say, it's the expensive superstars that work out to be the best value for money. That said I have long held the view that we should not pay superstar fees for anyone. I say this because of the belief that such players would be wanted by one of the clubs higher up the food chain and they would always prefer joining one of those teams over Chelsea. If we get 'em it's because none of the dream clubs want them badly enough and if they are not wanted there's a reason for that. In terms of recruits for the first team, we seem to be addicted to names. Names are known quantities. They either have the requisite quality and the dream clubs will nab them or they don't and we'd be wasting our money anyway. We need to shop smarter and that means finding the superstar players before they have identified themselves as such. Easier said than done but we seem to be especially bad at it. Look at the scores of never had a hope of reaching Chelsea level players who have populated the loan army.

The application was submitted on 1st December last year and is presumably under consideration.

Very ordinary. He moves beautifully so he always looks good when carrying the ball but the goal was pretty much the only productive thing Charlay did all game. He struggled to get on the ball particularly in the first half when he was clearly under orders to hug the left touchline. When he did get into the game, there was nothing particularly noteworthy from him; a couple of nice runs maybe but they fizzled out as he ran into traffic. He was not outright bad however, there were no big opportunities lost because of him. The closest being when he might have ended one of his runs by feeding the runner through the inside right position but either didn't see it or else didn't feel he could organise his body shape to play the pass so didn't try. That run ended with Charlay running into traffic and being dispossessed and led to the only passage of play where Charlay might, I say might, be due some criticism. Having dispossessed Charlay, Deportivo moved the ball to a player who carried it about sixty yards from the edge of his own box to the edge of Betis's. Like so many players do when they are guilty of loosing possession, Charlay chased the ball carrier all the way and, though he was not able to get in front of the player to make a challenge, his pressure did cause his opponent to hurry and Depo's attack broke down. So far so good by our lad. From that breakdown Betis launched a counter that ultimately led to their second goal. As the counter developed there was a huge gap in the region that Charlay would have occupied if he'd joined the break. I kept expecting him to appear in the top corner of the screen but he never did. The attack ended with Betis winning the free kick from which they eventually scored. It did seem to me that there was enough time for Charlay to make up the ground and join the attack. Perhaps that's true and perhaps he just didn't have the legs for another lung busting run straight after his first but I can't be sure. The camera followed the ball, so exactly what Charlay was doing as the counter swept upfield, I can't say.

Ah that's what 03/02/2016 means. I was wondering. Sorry.

There's a 21s game on Wednesday. Maybe they'll get minutes there.