OhForAGreavsie

You and I have disagreed about this before, and I know we will do again now but... Oscar is not good enough to be Chelsea's number ten. That, as I and others have been saying for over 2 years, is clear, but none of the alternative options work out much better for Jose when he tries them. Not consistently anyway. It's not only a question of the player who directly replaces Oscar, it's also about who else comes in and the overall impact of the changes. Occasionally resting Oscar works, but most often it does not. We need a permanent, and better solution, but in the meantime, my guess is that the manager never really feels good about having to pick Oscar. Even so, I feel that I understand why Jose sometimes has to do it anyway.

I don't expect that Jose does. I'd just like us to be able to get full value when Salah leaves.

Juan was hopeless again today, which will make what I'm about to write seem more than a little odd... I was actually quite encouraged by his display against Stoke. Encouraged because, for the first time since he joined, I saw a glimmer of hope. The hope came from the fact that it looked like Cuadrado hasn't acclimatised to the pace of the Premier League. Every time he had settled possession, he wanted far too much time on the ball. If that's his problem then there is at least hope he might be cured, whereas, if the diagnosis is a lack of talent, there can be no cure and the disease would be terminal.

I'm going to say it; Eden is, in my opinion, the second best player ever to line up for Chelsea. It's so much fun watching this bloke play football. I really, really hope we can get him more help next season so he, and we, can truly benefit from his genius. It's well over 50 years since Jimmy Greaves left the club and it may be 50 more before we sign another player of Eden's calibre. We completely wasted Jimmy's talent because the rest of our squad at the time was poor. By no stretch of the most pessimistic fan's imagination could we say today's squad is poor, but extraordinary players deserve an extraordinary platform to display their talent. Let's build that platform for Eden then sit back and enjoy the show.

What a game he had today. Absolutely brilliant.

I hope we haven't signed away all of our ability to negotiate in the agreements we've signed with Fiorentina. I'd hate to think that they have a guranteed option to take him on loan next season for a fee of €1m and another guaranteed right to take him permanently at a cost of €13m the season after. Clearly his value on the open market, for loan or sale, is now well above either of those figures. Let's hope we're not tied in to the Fiorentina deals.

Ditto.

Thanks RB. My understanding, from the post I mentioned, is that Pogba narrowly fails to qualify under the existing regulations.

I don't remember the details but someone posted a while back to explain that, in fact, Poga just missed out on qualifying as home grown.

From the time KDB signed for Chelsea to the time he left, I watched every Belgian international. Over the course of those games I formed the opinion that their team, though good, was not quite as good as the hype. I did start to like their team though so I'd love to see them do as well as possible and I'm a Hiddink fan so I'd have liked to see him working with the Red Devils. It was never going to happen however. Guus had committed to the Dutch Job a long time before the World Cup started, before the qualifying campaign was even over in fact. He was never going to be available.

I gave them up when FIFA dictated that the domestic program had to be messed about with so they can be played.

Last time I mentioned this you disagreed, but your English really is very good. Ah right, thank you. This is interesting, I wonder how they are budgeting for this. The difference between all 96 group games being drawn or all 96 resulting in a win for one of the clubs is a whopping €48m in prize money terms. Obviously there will be draws but since no one knows how many, UEFA can't predict with certainty how much prize money will be paid out. Presumably they will budget for the historically average number of draws but what will they do if there is a surplus? My guess is that they'll bank it as a hedge against a future deficit. That's not quite right I think. I understand that the champions of the 7 leading nations, plus the Champions' League winners, will be the top seeds. So, for example, if Barca win La Liga, and Real win the Champions' league, then both Spanish giants will be among the top seeds. If we were to fail to win our own league, and find ourselves in pot 2, we then face a better than 71% chance of being drawn against Barca, Bayern, Juve, Madrid or Paris. Precisely the teams we'd prefer to avoid if possible. No matter which 5 clubs we might avoid because they are in pot 2 with us, the prospect missing them and facing one of the big five instead, is not a good deal for us.

Agree with points a & b but we need to add that finishing first is necessary: - c) in order to be one of the top seeds in next season's Champions' League draw. If not we'll be in pot 2 and face the possibility of a much tougher group. Also agree with your observation about UEFA syphoning off a greater percentage of England's TV rights deal and redistributing it across the continent. While I don't have any real issue with that, I'm all for football's wealth being spread around, I do feel a bit aggrieved about one aspect of it. As I said earlier in the thread, it's English football fans, not English football clubs, who will foot the bill. The clubs will still get a big revenue increase, albeit not as big as it might have been. We fans on the other hand, will just get a bigger bill for our pay TV services. I don't remember this particular detail from my reading of the announcement but doesn't logic dictate that the prize money for a draw will be €750,000 not €500,000? Lastly, and I only mention this in case it is helpful to you, where you have used the word growed you should say grown instead. As you know well by now, the English language defies logic and there is in fact no such word as growed.

How d'you know? The Doc would be number three on my list. I only saw one full match under his leadership, the 1967 Cup Final. (On telly.) I envy people who saw his team properly. There was certainly no Kings Road swagger in evidence at Wembley that day. What Tommy Doc achieved for the club however, putting us back on the map after the post title slump, and re-establishing a club identity, should never be forgotten. For similar reasons, I rank Hoddle at number four in the list of my Chelsea managers.

Carlo is a relevant example in my book. In my opinion he got lucky and benefited from a massive coincidence. A lot of our players just happened to fall into the form of their lives at the same time. For a few short months covering the second half of 09/10 and the first quarter of 10/11, a group of key performers were firing on all cylinders and powered us (just) to the double. Before and after that period however Carlo seemed little more than a bystander watching a train wreck, but powerless to stop it. I couldn't make my mind up if he was waiting for his luck to change or for his pay-off. I simply don't believe Jose would have been so passive as our post-double season crashed and burned. While the sun shone on his team, Carlo basked in the light but when the dark times arrived he pulled no strings, changed no plans, made no difference. He was a complete non-factor. Not even Jose's biggest critics could ever say that about The Special One.

Tommy Docherty was in charge when I became a fan of this club and I've seen many men move through that office since. If the most I can do for Jose is to describe him as the best of the bunch, the number 1, then, in an effort to keep things in their proper proportion, I'd have to describe the next best (Hiddink) as number 5. Rubbish maths, but everybody gets what I mean. We have a small squad containing many players with admirable qualities but too few of absolute quality. We are top of the league. Jose Mourinho. We were better last season than we had been the one before that. We are better again this season than we were during the previous one. Jose Mourinho. We will be better next season than we are this. Jose Mourinho.

That's exactly what I was thinking while watching his dribble to create the chance at around 4:49 in the video. Brilliant.

I tried to find some video of the game last night but didn't manage to. I'll try again later but it's encouraging to read your comment. Charly has not been at the top of his game for the development squads recently, often starting on the bench of late.

I am not, and have never been, a Mikel believer but, I think we need to be cautious about allowing him to leave. As restated by a number of people in this thread, he has proved able to accept a squad role without rocking the boat. Every squad needs that. There is a balance to be struck between upgrading the talent pool and keeping the group happy. That was why Lukaku and De Bruyne had to leave and it's an important consideration. Meanwhile, I think that Ake would have had more game time over the last two seasons if Jose had confidence in him so, unless Nathan is prepared to do a Mikel and accept a squad role, his days might be numbered. Shame because I like him, but that's how it looks to me. I also don't see enough quality in Chalobah or Baker to give either of them a big chance here. RLC however is different, I've no doubt that he has the talent to make it. The question for him is whether he has the x-factor which will allow him to make the most of his ability. The jury is out on that. I desperately want him to come up with the right answer because I haven't been so hopeful about a Chelsea junior since Clive Walker and that was nearly 40 years ago! (For what it's worth, and more than a little off topic, the excitement about Walker came from write ups in the programme and lasted only till I actually saw him play for the first time in a Youth Cup game at The Bridge. Clive went on to have a good career of course but, in my opinion, Ruben has far more ability and will be a star if he maximises his potential. Can't honestly say I'm confident that Ruben will do that but I'm keeping everything crossed.)

And with Duff at LB.

This seems to me to be a reasonable enough point. I've enjoyed reading your posts even though I generally disagree with your conclusions on this topic. The next bit of evidence will come next season when, fingers crossed, the squad will have been strengthened. If that is so and the football does not improve then you might well claim that would give more weight to your case. I'm desperate for two or three clear upgrades over the summer, which I expect will enable us to play better football more consistently. I'm not anticipating seeing the finished article next term, but I am hopeful that we'll be closer to it than we are now. I'm also desperate that Jose will be the man continuing to lead the development. Next September will mark my 50th anniversary as a Chelsea fan. In all that time Jose is the only manager I've believed in. I'm a tough crowd.

A-den Azar A-den Azar A-den Azar, zar, zar, zar, zar A-den Azar Oooo-Ooo-Ooo-Ooo A-den Azar Can you name that tune before you click on the link?

My argument is that if we played the high press game with our squad we'd concede possession far too often in dangerous situations and get countered to death. Pick the best back five on the planet, put them in that situation and they'd concede goals for fun. If we played that way we'd win as much as Leverkausen do. Sides hoping to be successful playing that style need to be packed with players who are good at recovering and retaining possession. That requires a critical mass of players with high energy, great touch, poise in possession, tight close control, rapid speed of thought and accurate passing. I say a critical mass because it only takes one Ramires, Willian, Oscar, or Mikel to break the chain and we not only have those four, we also have more where they came from. My point re Barca is that most of our starters wouldn't even get in their squad precisely because our lot don't have the qualities to play the Barca way. I know it's only my opinion but I simply do not believe you are right to think that our current squad can be successful playing the way you want us to. The inescapable conclusion is that you rate our players more highly than I do.

Atleti are an excellent team, packed with outstanding players. Leverkausen have won what since 2002 and what in the ten years before that? I suppose the word successfully can be defined in different ways. At Chelsea I think it defines winning trophies. It's up to Bayer fans and officials to decide what success means to them.

That looks like a circular argument to me. Would Cahill have been dropped if Jose didn't feel he had a viable alternative in Kurt Zouma?