OhForAGreavsie

Every organisation has an individual or individuals who are authorised signatories for certain activities and spending. Every club has such a person. This function is being conflated with making football decisions, e.g. player A is better than player B. Marina did not do that. I've argued this often so I won't rehash my reasoning here but the notion Matt Law is trying to push, that Marina made football decisions, is total bollocks. As for contracts, of course she did that. This is a board level responsibility at every club. How could it be otherwise? No doubt Marina made these decisions in consultation with the football people and the owner. Remember that both TT and Emma Hayes spoke glowingly of the way Marina worked with them. When she won at Wembley, Emma kissed her badge, patted her heart and pumped her fist in the direction of Marina in the stands. Our first team managers know the truth.

Perhaps he's refusing to extend and that is the explanation for him leaving the squad? Sounds like there is more news to come soon about Harvey.

At a pinch I suppose Harvey could justify one more season with the development squad but it obviously makes no sense for Billy. Perhaps loans are on the cards for both of them. A loan, with mid season break if he doesn't play, makes sense for Billy. He doesn't want to get stuck in a permanent move to a club where he won't play. Billy won't, at this stage, want to accept a permanent move to the Championship but he won't earn a starter's role in the Premier League. Going for a second loan, giving himself another chance to impress, might make sense for him. Long term I think Championship/Scottish Premier League is Billy's target level. Not guaranteed but a target.

I rate Harvey over Billy but I don't have real first team confidence in him.

I wouldn't be bothered bout that. Don't rate Nunez and don't think Nunes is all that either.

Shame. Looks an interesting prospect.

Took three clicks of the submit button to get the post to appear but then it turned up three times so deleted. 🙂

Someone said above that he has some minor injury.

Crazy

Yes and on the website.

Stream on Chelsea website not working?

I agree with all of this although Dujon was regularly benched allowing Reece, at RCB, to be paired with Tariq Lamptey at RWB. Jody Morris loved 'Duge' (as he called Sterling) but when he picked his top team Sterling wasn't in it. I don't think this is a major criticism of Dujon because Reece and Tariq are quite good. 🙂 By the way, what surprised me most about the loans that season was that Reece didn't go to Derby. If he had Derby would very likely have been promoted that season instead of being beaten in the playoff final. If so the current situation of the club might be very different.

How did the world get so stupid?

I'll have to take another look. I watched a couple of highlight videos and was not impressed.

I saw a link to Leoa eariler. That would be a highly, highly, speculative signing. A sort of here's some money we don't mind gambling away, a last chip on 36 and shut your eyes kind of deal. If we have money we want to spend like that then much, much better to look at Etikike. A clearly better prospect with a much higher ceiling as well as a higher floor. Leoa would be a fools bet, Etitike a thinking man's punt. I would still want to retain Mando however, and since Kai is going nowhere, signing Etitike in these circumstances would imply the club is ready to give up on Timo.

I agree with your first sentence but not your second. Incidentally Pep turned us down at least twice and the rumour was that Klopp did too.

Just need to accept the truth of the song I've been singing for years. We are not an attractive club to top players. They only choose Chelsea when none of their preferred clubs are interested. If they have options, they will go elsewhere. This negative reputation took time to build and it will take time to dismantle.

This accusation can't stick. This is not a story that could be successfully fabricated because people in the game won't take their word for it, they'd ask the player. Either the player is only interested in club X or he isn't. It's not something you can make up. Weather a club is trying to sign a particular player, or simply looking to boost its reputation as a highly desirable destination, makes no difference. Those to whom the lie might make a difference can so easily find out the truth that the lie will only make the liars look foolish and so is not worth telling. It can't be the case Barca and Bayern make-up these stories.

It just a loan and, like any loan, it's all down to weather or not the repayments can be afforded. Given previous experience running the club there should be done very sophisticated financial nous in their team. They should have this under control.

If such an offer does come we must reject it. In fact the bigger the offer the more swiftly we must turn it down. Sounds bizarre but I say remember John Terry. Notts Forrest had made a £2m offer for JT which Ken Bates accepted but JT himself said no to the move. Later Bobby Robson put in a bid of £10m on behalf of Newcastle. This time Bates turned it down because the very size of the bid alerted him to the quality of player we had on our hands. (From Memory the world record transfer fee at the time was £15m. If someone knows better please correct me.) There is no reason for us to substitute the views of Southampton fans for our own but at one stage last season they were talking of Mando as a player who will soon be worth £100m. Who knows if that will come to pass. When we had Mando and Tammy on the books my own opinion was that Mando was the better prospect. The accuracy of this is something else we can't know yet but I believe Mando is two years short of approaching his full potential so I say selling now must not happen.

I don't remember there being any evidence in support of your main point here. Perhaps my memory is faulty on this but I really don't. Ballack was leaving anyway and received offers from a number of clubs before choosing Chelsea. How many other Bayern players have we even tried to sign? I remember a link with Schweinsteiger when, like Ballack, he was on the move at the end of his time with Bayern. In any case how often would Bayern even have needed to turn down a bid from Chelsea? How many established Bayern players would leave for Chelsea? Not many I suggest and even that might be overestimating it. As for the CL final, it has nothing to do with anything. We won the cup yes, but so what? Bayern aren't run by fools and they know where the blame lies for their defeat. They faced a depleted Chelsea side which, even at full strength, should not have been a match for them. As expected they dominated the game on their own turf but failed to win it. Their loss was their own fault, not Chelsea's, and they know it.

Ganarby is my first choice too.

The deal is not exactly free for Inter but what else are the new owners supposed to have done?

To be fair, you've implied what I'm going to say but I'd like to make it explicit. All of us here have confidence in our football opinions, which is why we take the trouble to type them out day after day. 🙂 I readily admit that I have a strong belief in my ability to judge a footballer but, even so, I've made misjudgements. I won't speak for anyone else but I've made mistakes and not quite too few to mention. I think all we need to have is the integrity to say yep, I got that one wrong, and we can get back to listing out all of the ones we feel we got right.

No, I don't think this is true. I didn't know anything about him when he was first linked. It wasn't until autumn of 2011 that we had seen enough of Rom for it to become clear he wasn't Chelsea level. Should have just taken Everton's money two and a half years later and be done with it.