OhForAGreavsie

Some things that fit my template, but one that I know will irritate me if he joins. Technical excellence. ✅ Ability to do ordinary things to a very high level. ✅ Uncomplicated. Moves the ball quickly, decisively and accurately. ✅ A competent, not excellent, defender. Two footedness is a great attribute for any player but a near essential one for fullbacks. ❌❌

If TT sees those three the same way that I, and others here, see them then being clear with them about where they stand is the right thing to do.

Gvardiol clearly has the attributes to play at LB if required, even on a full time basis.

My opinion is that, like hundreds of players before, Ben has been boosted by his injury. Boosted in the sense that his reputation was enhanced in the eyes of many while the team struggled in his absence. Because Ben's injury came during a spell of mostly good form, people forgot and forgive his long spell of indifferent form in a Chelsea shirt. The truth is our high league place in the winter belied the way we were playing and was never going to last even if the wingbacks had stayed fit. What looked like falling off a cliff because Ben and Reece were missing was in fact mostly about our results catching up with our performances. I've said all along that if we sign a LB/LWB it needs to be an upgrade to Ben, not a backup.

Fair enough.

I'm feeling much greedier than that and would definitely look for both if available. It seems Fofana can only happen if he pushes for the move. This makes the reports that he won't do so a big problem. I suspect Gvardiol is impossible. It's likely to take an outrageously massive figure to tempt RB and the new owners are bound to be somewhat risk averse given the expensive consequences of many bad transfer decisions they are having to deal with. Worse than that, I doubt Gvardiol will accept a move here. I'd love to be wrong about that but I fear I am not.

He does look great in the highlights doesn't he? (And, no, NOT everybody does.) From those clips I think he would probably work at LWB also. In other words, a potentially great squad addition. (Subject to full match scouting for confirmation.)

6 x 9

Were you on the pitch after the Hull game? Great days.

So far this summer CFCW have signed: - A top player A very good player A good player And a young prospect from Sheffield United.

The women are going to open their league season against West ham at The Bridge on Sunday 11th September. I'm curious to know how many, if any, here will be tempted to the game?

To try anyway. Assuming we haven't already had a no from club or player that is.

I really enjoyed reading @Vesper's post, had my say, then really enjoyed reading @Magic Lamps comments but I knew we were in for a telling off. 🙂 Back to the football it is.✔️

No he didn't. 🙂 At best it could be said that the US played out a draw but even that is not really true. Britain achieved its aim of holding on to its remaining North American colonies and had enforced a naval blockade which was strangling the US. The fact that the US did not suffer punitive terms in the Treaty of Ghent was more to do with the fact that the British people hated the war. They saw it as a waste of money at a time when the nation's real enemy was Napoleon. Even after he abdicated there was no British enthusiasm for the war of 1812. Of course he would soon be back from Elba anyway to grab all of Britain's attention once more. The fact that the US won the last big battle of the war gave rise to the idea that they had achieved overall victory but this is not so. In fact the battle of New Orleans was fought after the peace treaty had been arranged. In the board rooms of Ghent the US negotiated terms that looked like a draw, but on the pitch they were beaten.

Then he won't do. Technical excellence has to be the mantra. It's not an add-on, it's an entry-level requirement. At every position.

Danny Murphy revealed that even before then when his ex Liverpool teammates spoke about Torres they talked about what he couldn't do on a football pitch, not what he could. Then before even that there was me telling people that Nando was not the player people thought he was. Anyway, ancient history now.

Well this is the big test for new management then.

To be fair I think people are unhappy about us failing to secure our transfer targets, not about who the players are.

I hope you're wrong too. If you are not it will be a doubly but outlook. Not only will it fail to solve the situation, it will also suggest that the people in charge are not of the right calibre to fix the problems. I see no reason to doubt that they are capable people so I would hate to be disillusioned this quickly. I believe that they'll stay calm, work through the issues and set us on a better path.

This is nothing new.

Todd is an experienced business head and won't panic. Nor should he. It'll take time to work our way out of this. Silly attempts at quick fixes are not required nor, I hope, wanted by genuine Blues fans. The contracts which are causing us difficulties will eventually run out even if we can't solve them before then. Stay calm and find good players that bigger clubs don't want. Retool the squad then start working our way up the food chain. Let's avoid the mistake of pressuring the board for silly, emotional, reasons.

Is it confirmed that Kounde will join Barca? If so, it won't surprise any of us I think. Barcelona are, and probably always will be, a far bigger club than Chelsea. If they genuinely want a player also targeted by us, that player will virtually always choose them. Nothing even slightly humiliating about it. Just a fact of the football world. There is nothing new about this either. We wanted Ronaldinho, they took him. We scouted and wooed Neymar for a long time. As soon as Barca came in he lost all interest in us. Not that he was overly keen anyway after Pele told him to avoid us like the plague. Barca have in fact been very clever and have used their power very well. They have allowed us to be the stalking horse in negotiations with clubs and players then, once we'd established the acceptable figures, they've come along and tried to use the fact that the player is 100% committed to them over us to negotiate down from the numbers we'd agreed. It's just good business. Leeds could see what they were doing and were having none of it but good work Barca for trying.

Amid the doom and gloom maybe it's time to say thank --- for the women. Champions in four of the last five seasons, double winners in each of the last two and having a good summer. They've signed; a top player, a very good player, a good player and a supposedly bright young prospect (I know nothing about her) who will head out on loan. When you reach the point when your soul urgently needs to see a Chelsea team win, the girls are your go to option.

Yes, looks a really good player to me. I also think the lad West Ham just bought looks decent. The consolation in that second case is that, if reports are true, West Ham preferred Mando.

It's a bit like people speculating that RLC was finally getting it together last season when the reality was as I and others said, if Ruben is good enough to get in our team then that is not a good sign. Well, if Michey is good enough to make our squad, we won't need signs. It's game over