OhForAGreavsie

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.

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.