OhForAGreavsie

Oscar is a really nice lad who gives his best for the team at all times and does his level best to do as the managers asks. I think it's therefore a bit harsh to talk about celebrating when he leaves. We do need an upgrade but the lad deserves a little love. It's not his fault that he isn't good enough and it isn't his fault that Jose has to keep picking him.

Thanks Hamad, this is interesting. I presume you're talking about his first six months at Wolfsburg because his time at Bremen was widely praised. I watched a lot of Kevin at Werder and felt that he did not really deserve as much praise as he received. Of course there were some good performances but, as I've said before, there were times when I thought he was poor enough to be dropped. He never was of course. For what it's worth, I've only watched him four times this season and have seen him perform well just once. That was the game against Bayern when Pep's boys played right into his hands by repeatedly giving him plenty of room he could run into with his power surges. In fact I'd guess it was from watching this game that Ribery came to realise what KDB does best.

Welcome. You'll get no argument from anyone here about this, of course we have a great deal of catching up to do in terms of league titles. In fact in terms of pretty much whatever measure you choose your club is at the top, or near the top, of the list. What's more, no one can match your club for world wide support and possibly never will, you have a great manager, the basis of a great team and the financial ability to retool the squad season after season. All of this means that you will be perennial challengers and continue winning your fair share of league titles; maybe more than your share. It's hard to imagine that Chelsea will ever catch up with you on that score, but if we do it will take many, many years. For now however we're going to do everything we can to be one title win closer to your total come the end of this season, than we were at the start of it. If we manage to do it, we'll definitely settle for that for now.

This is good to read. The bloke was asked to perform an impossible task. He made man management mistakes, that's clear, but I never felt he deserved the lack of respect shown to him by Chelsea fans. Disagree with virtually everything else you've said in this thread recently by the way. I'm not expecting to read in a couple of years that you've changed your mind about these too, but I live in hope.

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Good point.

I thought Nathan made the key contribution to Reading's goal with a beautifully simple piece of play but, while these comments are encouraging, I find people are sometimes too positive in their early assessments of a new player. I'd be more inclined to take notice of what's being said about Nathan after the honeymoon period is over.

£18m certainly sounds a lot closer to market value than €13m. A lot closer. Am I remembering correctly though that the original source for the €1m loan/€13m transfer figures was Fiorentina themselves? If so that would maybe make it more likely that the numbers are correct.

Thanks Choulo, What is concerning me is the implication in the recent comments coming out of Fiorentina. Those comments make it sound like Fiorentina's options are watertight and that they can exercise them unilaterally. It sounds like they feel the extension of the loan is at their discretion, subject only to Moh's agreement, not Chelsea's. Obviously I hope that we've negotiated some flexibility into the deal. For example, €1m never sounded like a good loan fee for next season but, based on Moh's start in Serie A, it now represents a considerable amount less than his market value. I don't mind if Moh stays at Fiorentina next season but, if he does, I'd like it to be at the right price. Ideally I'd like us to be able to make Moh available for loan or sale across the whole market to achieve the best move for him, and the best compensation for ourselves. Fiorentina seem to think we've signed away that right.

Thanks CL11. You sound as if you may have seen more of him than I have so of course I respect that. I reiterate the opinion however that in the YouTubes I've seen his technique definitely looks limited. He is very one footed, shows no sign of that special balance that gifted players have, the way he addresses the ball is not 'clean' and on several occasions he beats his man because of a miss control rather than any positive movement. Nor am I impressed with his ducking in and shooting, even the ones that went in. To me those looked like the hallmark of a player who takes that option because he lacks the talent to do anything else. Remember, most of the time those shots will lead to nothing more than lost opportunity and lost possession. Look closely at those situations and ask yourself if this had has enough control over body, has the poise and the balance to do anything else there? My answer is no he does not yet I know that 49 times out of 50 he is going to need to do something else from there. Factor in that someone has selected those moments as examples of this lad at his best and I repeat, I am seriously unimpressed by what I've seen. Edit: I've now watched the video linked above, which was not one of the ones I viewed earlier. There are three impressive moments there; the pass at about 1:03, the finish at about 1:50 and another pass, the time of which I didn't note. Still not excited by this lad though.

I think it's a great mistake to decide you like a player based on viewing YouTube videos but I do think that you can sometimes see enough there to give you an interest in the player and to encourage you to investigate a bit more. This is not one of those times. Based on what I've watched I've no interest in Chelsea signing this bloke. Physically good, technically ordinary. Lukaku lite. The original is not good enough for Chelsea and this version isn't either. Best we can hope for is a loan or two and then a profit from his sale. If Kenedy is happy to boast his earnings for a while as that process plays out then fair enough, I don't blame him*. I see absolutely prospect of this lad helping Chelsea progress on the pitch however. *In fact I wouldn't blame him, or anyone else, at all for taking the money. Many commentators talk a lot of sanctimonious claptrap on this subject. They speak as if football is all that matters and want 19 year olds to turn down life changing contracts. If the kid is good enough his talent will see him through, if he isn't then he's banked a wad of cash with which he can kick start the rest of his life. Throw in the fact that if a young man fails at a high profile club he will usually find a second chance elsewhere, and the decision to accept such a move is an absolute no brainer in my opinion. These rent-a-gobs forget that most kids are not going to have stellar careers anyway. They want lads to trade winning lottery tickets for a pocket full of hope.

To be fair, I've said something close to that. I based that opinion on watching him play for our development squads before he started his loans. I simply didn't feel he showed enough quality to suggest he'd develop into a Chelsea level player. While I stand by that opinion, it must be said that Patrick is doing better at 'Boro than I expected so he has already proved me a little bit wrong. If he can go the whole hog and prove me completely wrong, I'll be delighted. I can't pretend that I think Patrick will prove me wrong however. I'm desperate for us to bring in a striker of the highest technical quality. It's something we don't have and which, in my opinion, we miss very badly. Patrick does not have that to offer. Nowhere near.

Thanks Jason. This is really disappointing since it sounds like we are locked in to the loan agreement for next season. We can only hope that Moh maintains his form and preserves his value through next season. Unless he further increases it of course.

If we won at Stoke then Charlie Adam scored from a lot more than 65 yards! I agree with you though, we were better. This was the most enjoyable performance we've produced for a while. That said, I don't think either of us would argue with anyone who believes there is still plenty of room for improvement.

To be clear, I'm saying that I do not share the opinion that Oscar plays well early in the season then runs out of steam. He's just as limited in August and September as he is at any other time in my opinion. I don't believe that Willian has shown my feeling to be right. Despite his limitations, Oscar has often proved the better option and, amid his struggles, has managed to make more happen from the ten than Willian has. When, as on Saturday, Willian adds some productivity to his game, he puts Oscar in the shade, but he just hasn't done that often enough. I think this last point is the core disagreement between us. Willian always looks better with his greater pace, better dribbling and more eye catching skils, but, in my opinion, he seldom actually does better. As I see it, neither of these two is the answer for our team going forward. Next weekend however I'd go with Willian as you suggest.

We have two more matches before we go to the Emirates. If we win both of those we will be at least 10 points ahead of Arsenal with 6 six games remaining. If so we'll have more of less taken the result of that game out of the equation. We have to guard against allowing the trip to Islington to become more important than it needs to be.

I wonder if the club and/or Bamford will believe that a season spent largely on the bench will be in his best interests? I'm not convinced that Patrick will have a long term career here so maybe a season back here might just be marking time for him.

Over two years ago I was telling people that the, "Oscar's tired", excuse was a myth. Before, note before*, Christmas last season I was saying that William was our best '10'. In terms of his qualities I still think that's true but the theory hasn't always borne fruit. I agree with you that Willian's better performances have come as a CAM, but I don't agree that every time he's played there we have played well. I don't believe that's even close to the real story. In my opinion he has frequently been as frustrating as Oscar. Slow decision making, getting caught in possession, failing to see or to execute the right pass, and dribbling into cul-de-sacs. In any case, as I said, our overall form when Willian plays at CAM, is not solely dependent on his own output. I can see why Jose gets frustrated with Oscar and tries something else, but I can also see why Jose has never become comfortable with the something else either, and turns back to Oscar. Willian's outstanding performance yesterday may earn him another try but the experience of having seen him play there a number of times tells me that he is not going to be the long term answer. It remains my opinion that we need a better option for that position. *The tale of Oscar's good form before Christmas every season is another myth. Well it is in my opinion anyway.

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.