OhForAGreavsie

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.

I might find that approach more appealing if we get past City but for now I prefer the standard Chelsea way, i.e. full speed ahead on all fronts. On second thoughts I prefer the Chelsea way full stop. Give maximum effort in every competition. OK, we know that this year maximum won't be enough but even so.

I've only seen him play once and to be fair I was really concentrating on Baker & Solanke in the Vitesse v Ajax game before Christmas. He caught my eye though and was a step above our lads. If we signed him he'd have a much better chance to start than say Lewis because, based on what I saw, the Ajax kid is a lot better than him. A lot.

No it absolutely would not happen. How often do Chelsea players get booed by Chelsea fans? A team performance, sometimes but an individual player? Except for the protests over the Mourinho sacking*, only twice that I remember and I go back very nearly 50 years. One of those was The Drog for rolling around too much after going down and that happened just once. The other was Butch Wilkins's older brother Graham. I was disgusted by it but The Bridge took against the lad. If Charlay played like he did in his Betis debut everyone would be delighted and heap praise on him. Look at the extravagantly positive reactions to some recent RLC and Baba Rahman displays. If, tweny matches later Charlay was still making the same bad decisions then he might expect some groans but by then they'd be justified. Chelsea's home fans, me included, are not the best at vocal support and great atmosphere building songs but in backing our players and standing by them, I put us second to none. *Since the protest was registered, Stamford Bridge has gone back to giving full vocal support to Cesc and Costa.

In that case you are going to be unhappy no matter who we appoint. Those three won't all be starters here next season, and nor should they be. One of the sharpest press conference comments Guus has made so far was concerning the youngsters although very little was made of it. "The less the youngsters play, the better they get.", he said. He meant better in the opinion of the people who want them all to be starting, not in his.

And he's off to a good start having already broken Diego Costa's nose in training! Jake can play. I like him a lot. He lacks physical stature and experience but he has plenty of tools. A good talent. Very brave, strong in the tackle, reads the game well and has a knack of getting in good blocks when required. He is also good on the ball. A lot of positive attributes for his coaches to work with. Edit: Press now reporting that it was Fikayo Tomori, not Jake, who broke Costa's nose which was my inference from Guus's press conference comments today.

It's not a rumour. Our squads for the second half of the season, inclining the Champions League list, were announced a week ago.

Fair chance that's exactly what will happen when season 2016/17 gets going in Spain.

If Pogba is a target then it would be ridiculous to imagine that the board would not consider linking the two deals. Of course they would but they will also know that it won't help them one bit. After all, what does Pogba care where Juan plays next season? If Poba is as widely coveted as his agent wants us to believe, the former Man Utd man will decide his next destination himself and it won't be Chelsea. Juan Cuadrado's future will be a complete non issue in his decision.

No.

Can't really help you with a complete list but look up the starting XIs in last weekend's Premier League games and you'll find at least a dozen. Extend your search beyond the Premier League and you'll only stop finding additional alternatives when you get bored of the exercise. Not by me, or by anyone whose opinion I respect on this subject. I will grant you that six months before that many would have bought into the claim. I can accept all of this as your opinion. Just don't try to present it as fact. Well that's a little disrespectful but I'll have to live with it. I happen to think that my opinions are considered, balanced and well judged. I suppose I would though wouldn't I. Who do you mean? Fans who don't watch Chelsea or pundits who make their living repeating clichés and passing comment on games they haven't seen? In fairness I accept that there are probably some people who think Matic is among the best. I'm not one of them however.

I'm afraid there is plenty of doubt about it. Never mind in the outside world, just check the number of TC members who clearly doubt it. Matic has had one good season at Chelsea. (Actually two half seasons.) Since Christmas 2014 his form has been below Premier League standard and way, way below world class. We were not ruthless last season. We had an inspired start followed by a general drop of form most of the way towards our current standards. The odd good performance in the second half of the season does not disguise that our players needed to be dragged over the finish line by a genius of a manager. I'm happy to accept that it must not be true but, anyone reading the post to which I'm replying could be forgiven for thinking that you can't tell the difference between what is a fact, and what is your own opinion.

Firstly, thanks to @DaddysHobby for finding and posting this video. There are some nice things here although none of them occur in the first 4 minutes of the video. Yes, those 240 seconds contain some evidence of Charlay's silky skills but that's something we know about him already. We also know that such skills do not, in themselves, make you a player. I didn't notice how much game time it covered but that opening section of the video contained nothing that was both productive and above average. It is, I think reasonable to put that down to a young man making his first-class debut but it's a mistake to then ignore it and say that the performance was fantastic. It would be a more sober judgement to say that Charlay did well, for a debut. To go beyond that is, in my opinion, pure honeymoon syndrome. As I said, there are some impressive things here, particularly the run at about 5:28 which @Stats described. The flick leading to the goal however is not special in my view. Most players in that situation would try it and most times most of them, including Charlay, would not get it exactly right. Charlay did get it right and he deserves credit for it but Oscar pulls off things like that more often than most yet none of us would say he's a good player because of it. I know this post reads fairly negatively but I don't think it does Charlay any favours to allow him to think that what he did yesterday is all he needs to do.

You may be right but this would in no way be opposite to what I said.

It's all opinion of course but... If both are at maximum level I pick Jed. Twenty minutes of full on Boga destroys teams but it hardly ever happens. Charlay is more balanced because he has a better passing game and is equally comfortable in the deep laying play maker role. In fact based on what I've seen, that may be his best position. The top two performances I've seen from Charlay came when he played the Modric position. The two games were many months apart mind so it does not seem he's being considered seriously for that role. Both players have talent but they have to learn effectiveness. Neither has scored sufficiently highly in that regard during development games. Indeed there was a time when that lack of effectiveness led to Charlay being regularly selected on the bench or being subbed off if he did start. I would not say that he is the complete package. Not yet anyway.

Thanks Gilvorak. I opened this thread to ask if anyone had watched the game so this is great info.

See what I mean about the honeymoon syndrome?

This is encouraging to be sure but we need to be wary of what I call the honeymoon syndrome. There is a period of time during which a new player, particularly a young one, gets excessive credit for everything he does well, and a free pass for everything he does badly. Fans' opinions eventually settle on a more balanced view of course so it will be interesting to read the opinions of Betis supporters after Charlay has played a dozen games for them. As I say though, it's encouraging that he started and that he played all 90.

Reading the thread it's clear that mine is not a common opinion, but I really like Pedro. He is a purpose built tiki-taka player in a team that generally speaking couldn't play tiki-taka against a bunch of 16 year-olds. We all want to see dramatic improvements to the squad over the summer. If that happens Pedro will fit in rather better than he does now. I hope those improvements happen, and I hope Pedro stays. I'm not suggesting that tiki-taka is Chelsea's future but a team with better possession players who can move the ball more quickly, and with greater accuracy, will take better advantage of what Pedro brings.

All fair questions and fair points. I take the line however that since two managers have now made the same choices viz RLC, Brana & Baba, there has to be a reason for it. They must both have seen/be seeing something that convinced/convinces them that these decisions were/are correct. The only alternative is the idea that someone else is picking the team. That someone could only be Roman yet every manager we've had in the last twelve years has made it crystal clear that Roman does not interfere with team selection. In any case the evidence is against that. Jose sometimes picked Kurt, Guus always does. Jose seldom picked Mikel, Guss clearly regards him as first choice. A different mind is obviously in charge of team selection these days. Different minds which nevertheless agree on some things.