OhForAGreavsie

Boga played over an hour for the U21s today so it seems less likely than ever that he'll be involved on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Jose referred to Boga when talking about the decision to release SFL. He said: - "My view is that when you want to look forward, look for the future and have people like Fabregas, Matic and Jeremie Boga, which are the next 10 years of the club, not the next year, that we made the right decision. [To release Frank.]" I wonder if this might be seen as something of a double edged sword? On the one hand, it's got to be encouraging for Boga to read stuff like that but, on the other, might the comment encourage unrealistic expectations in the young man's mind as to how soon his chance will come?

Christensen, Loftus-Cheek, Boga & Solanke all started today's U21s victory over Sunderland. Izzy Brown played nearly 30 minutes as a second half substitute. This probably rules all of them out of contention for Tuesday. Probably.

I agree that it won't happen. We know Cahill is out and Cesc is in. Beyond these, I hope Remy will start and there might be a toss up between Willian & Schurle but, other than that, I can see Jose going first choice wherever possible.

It's a long standing tradition that the Stamford Bridge crowd shouts, "shoot! ", every time Mikel gains possession within 35 yards of the goal. The boos which were heard were not really boos and they were not aimed at any individual player. On several occasions we managed to turn promising possession on the edge of Hull's box, into a back pass and kick out by Petr Cech. It was frustrating and the frustration was audible around the ground.

First, I thought Brana's performance was also very watchable. Indeed I marked him down as man of the match not least because I did not think Eden had an especially good game. Fortunately he did what a difference-maker is supposed to do and produced a devastating piece of play that killed the game. Overall though, I thought Eden was quiet. Second, during the last week, someone here said that we urgently need to add quality backups for the AM roles. I couldn't disagree more. My view is that in; Schurrle, Wilian and, most controversially perhaps, Oscar, we already have quality backups. What we need are quality starters. In my opinion, we have a young man coming through the academy who could start in the 'Jose 10' role but he is at least 3½ seasons short of being ready. Jose will have to judge both if I am right about this youngster's prospects and, whether we can wait that long for him to prove it.

I'd bet a lot of money that this rumour is nonsense. Who should have a better understanding of what Torres has become than a man who watched it happen then was saddled with him a second time?

No, it could not work out. How can we be sure of this? We've seen Torres play. Make a list of all the attributes required to be a successful wide man, then scratch off the ones Torres possesses. Any guesses as to how many items will remain on the list when you've done that? My feeling is that it would be exactly the same number you started with.

Totally agree. Not to mention €1m at stake for winning the game. I know Premier League finances would teach us to sniff at such a figure but this is still a tremendous amount of money. For example, it represents roughly 5% of our academy's reported annual budget. It's definitely not to be sniffed at.

During JM I he said, in so many words, that the academy was useless. As soon as he returned for JM II, he said the academy was better. It is better, that can't be denied but people are getting carried away. According to idiot opinion, endlessly broadcast and published by idiot pundits, the academy is a busted flush that has failed. That idiotic opinion seems to imagine that you spend a few quid on a new building and a couple of years later you start churning out the Lionels. All of us here know better however. Things take time and even the truly great players take 10 years to progress from the age of 8 to the age of 18! There is, in my opinion, way too much impatience for the graduation of the next youth product. The academy has done brilliant work bringing Ruben, and others, to the stage where they are becoming worthy of consideration but that is all that has been achieved so far. I would love to see Ruben make the step up as much as anyone, more than anyone in fact since I've been his harshest critic, but I'll have to control myself. I was angry enough when Ruben didn't start on Wednesday. By the time he did come on my frustration level was through the roof, but I can control myself. We all should.

I followed a link yesterday, from this site possibly, to an article which confidently stated that Milan were paying Torres's "£3.1m a season wages." Clearly, Torres is on a lot more than that so I wonder if we have a first glimpse under the bonnet of the deal that took our record signing to Milan? Is £3.1m the slice of Torres's salary that The Rossoneri have agreed to pay? Sounds plausible. As for Torres being a useful option for us in any position. We must aim to have a squad filled with players of a higher standard than Torres or we will betray the ambitions we've established over the last 11 years.

Wow, I'm going to have to watch the game again to try to understand how our impressions of Cesc's performance on Wednesday can be so different.

Can't believe what I'm reading about Cesc's performance yesterday. For me he absolutely confirmed that he is an option to play at 10. I was one of the 6 people (at time of posting) who selected Cesc as man of the match. His pass completion percentage was down a bit but there were a number of key passes that either put people in, or set up good situations for us. Liked what I saw from Cesc last night.

He was also hopeless at Newcastle. We have to expect this. High level technical proficiency is not his thing. Without that, there is bound to be a wider than usual spread of performance levels.

Yes got it, I see that now. My misunderstanding came from the fact that the first line of the post by LDN Blue that you replied to, talked about us having lost 2/2 of them. That clearly was a reference to the Super Cup and my first reading of your reply was that it was this trophy you were referring to. As I say, I see that I got that wrong.

Believe me, the most impressive play leading to that goal comes before the action shown in the vine.

We have won it. 1998.

Neil is doing the touchline reporting for the UEFA Youth League game at Cobham. By the way, we're 3 up and playing beautifully. If you get the chance, watch the 3rd goal. It's magical but don't only watch the end of the move. Start from when our keeper has the ball, put your feet up and enjoy. 4-0 now. Ever since Jose told us about RLC's involvement in tonight's game I've had a big smile on my face but watching Boga, Colket and Musonda playing together in the midfield is going to improve the happiness level of any Chelsea fan. It's a pure pleasure. On this form it won't be long till Boga earns a chance at first team level. He has two goals himself and his contribution to the fourth was simple, brilliant and devastating.

In case you're still looking: - One or two really interesting things in there, including a repeat of his previous comment that we won't be active during the January window.

I like the weekend review and also find Jody Morris's contributions interesting, His tone is not especially upbeat but what he says shows a lot more insight than most on the channel I find. Friday Night Live should be destroyed and airbrushed out of CTV history. Embarrassing. As for Neil, I know what people mean about his 'cringe worthy' presentation but I find I can put up with it. I sort of file it under 'so bad it's good'. 'Bad' isn't really the right word though. Maybe 'idiosyncratic' is the way to describe his style. Two things definitely worth mentioning in Neil's favour are: I think he really excels at the recall of club history. Obviously you'd guess that he bones up before specific interviews but the way he instantly pulls facts out of the air during off the cuff moments is very impressive.I love his love for the club. That's something we can all relate to.If Neil really is on his way out then thanks for everything Spy. Hope the next chapter is even better than the last.

I'm sad to say that I don't agree with the first two of the quoted tweets from @chelseayouth. Chalobah had some good games at Championship level but, in my opinion, never quite lived up to the praise @cy gives him above. Chalobah's time at Watford was probably his best spell but in the games I watched he was poor more often than he was good. Indeed in the play-off final, with Jose in the stands, his level sank well below poor. I was therefore pretty surprised when Chalobah was preferred to Ake for a spot on that summer's tour and mildly shocked when, at the end of the tour, Jose more or less promised Chalobah a place in the 2014-2015 squad. I'm afraid I was never optimistic that Chalobah's performances would cause Jose to make good on that 'promise' and remember being tarred with the usual, "So you think you know better than Jose do you?", sort of Jibe for saying so. Well of course I didn't think that, I simply felt the boss was only aiming to give the young man a boost and that his words just overshot the mark a little bit. There is a lot to like about Chalobah, in fact there are some things about him which I love, but, sadly, I don't see him as a future Chelsea player.

Surely arranging those six letters in the way it's been done by zolayes in the quoted post is an automatic banning offence? If you don't get banned for that then what's the use of the rule book?

Well with the ball noticeably compressed would be even better timing, but near perfect for sure. The sharpness is incredible, even down to the reflection of the ball on the crossbar.

What a fantastic photograph. Hope it's not 'shopped'.

That's not true.

Everton reportedly paid £28m for Romelu Lukaku but in truth we must have picked up more than that for him. In the previous season, the one he spent on loan with the Toffees, Rom was a much sought after loan target. He would therefore certainly have commanded a significant loan fee over and above having his wages covered. Even in the season before that, it's likely that we got a fee from WBA for the time Lulu spent with them. To get a true reflection of Lukaku's transfer value you have really got to add all of those fees up. If Petr does go to Paris surely we'll get a fee for his loan too.