OhForAGreavsie

Yes, they were granted special permission to wear the badge against Wolves on 29/12/2019 but they did not wear it in the actual game against Chelsea. Only for the trophy lift afterward. I really didn't care before reading this but I do now. If we are not allowed to wear it this will be far from the first time it has been one rule for Chelsea and another rule for everybody else.

Good information. Thanks. The Wiki article I read said that UEFA gets eight qualifiers but didn't break down how those places are allocated.

Presumably the denial is based on Premier League rules. As long as the rules have been applied consistently, i.e.. that Liverpool and Man Utd were also denied permission, then I don't care. Let's wear it when it's allowed and not fuss about it when it's not. On another issue. Is it next season that the format of this tournament changes and, when it changes, will the current holders automatically qualify? Edit: According to a Wikipedia article the reigning champions will not qualify.

ET

Be fair that was just a slip by Callum.

Never a foul but it seems refs, particularly outside the UK, do tend to buy those.

Worst thing likely to happen now is that they realise they have been paying us far too much respect so far.

Sadly, that's the story of his career up to now.

54 minutes later, finally a bit of quality. From the player most guilty of failing to deliver that quality up to now. Well done Callum. One bit of good output every 54 minutes won't even get you a gig in the 23s however.

Embarrassing was the word I used at the end of the game. The quality difference should have been stark and clear but it wasn't.

That may be but he wasn't today. Today his poor showing was against a League One side.

The players are what they are. The problem is the decision-making of the people who sign them. For a while now The Bridge has been turning against Rom. That process is moving all too quickly towards its conclusion. His name was not chanted once today and the groans were very, very clear every time something went wrong for him. No booing yet but I think it's coming soon. Not least because of the way he moans at his teammates when he doesn't think they've played the ball he wanted. Add a ponderous, lumbering display today and a move which, up to now, would have to be labelled "unsuccessful so far", may soon have to be accepted as disastrous.

Really interesting post. I am the generic person you referred to who watches youtube highlights and forms opinions from them. Once I would start with the highlights then, if I liked what I saw, move on to all touches packages. If I was still on board after that I would watch full games if they were available on any platform I had access to. Sooner or later I'd catch up with any player I found interesting. That stopped in 2017 however when I bought a CFCW season ticket and started following them all over the country. 'Going away' is something I never did with CFCM and it turns out that it takes up all of the time I used to spend watching other football. From highlights I confess I do really like Sosa but I'm aware of the danger. A danger well illustrated in a highlights video of Reece James I watched recently. People might remember that I championed Reece as a future first teamer since his youth team days so I hope no one will take it lightly when I say that my reaction to those highlights was, "Reece isn't that good." He looks an absolute world beater in that package but we all know this is at least a little bit over the top. Even if I didn't know it before, watching that video of Lauren's brother would make me very aware that Sosa isn't going to be as good as he looks in his videos either. Here's the thing however. To my eyes at any rate, Sosa looks even better in his videos than RJ does in the over the top one. Both are capable of producing sumptuous deliveries into the box and of being a factor going forward. Sosa's pace is good and that gives him more confidence to try one on ones. Where Reece is more likely to check back, find a pass and look for another way to progress, Sosa accepts the challenge to break through. Among the the questions to answer if researching the player further would be do those adventures go wrong? Does he loose possession and put his side in trouble? Is he as useful defensively as he looks going forward. In raising reasons to be cautious, your observations about Sosa are really good ones, especially the age:caps ratio. They bring me back down to Earth about him but he is definitely someone I would want the club to run the rule over.

I'm not necessarily arguing against your overall opinions in the post I extracted this sentence from but, I don't think that this one narrow point is true. In fact I'm certain that it isn't. Granted, a youtube video will present a player at his best, so there is an ever present danger of overrating him but if that player has no special talent there can be no demonstration of special talent to put in the vids in the first place. Two topical Chelsea examples and a high profile non-Chelsea one that people might want to argue with me about. I dismissed Kennedy as a Chelsea level prospect after just a couple of minutes viewing a highlight reel. Even though it showed him succeeding at things you have to look at the input, not the outcome. Just because something good happened does not mean the player who did it must be special. Although I obviously wish him well, Mason Burstow's very limited highlights video makes him look like he has a great deal of work to do to graduate to the Premier League. Viewing it would not have made me want to take a closer look at him. I'm stunned that Real took Camavinga. As I commented somewhere here, watching his videos I saw a player desperately trying to make it seem like he meant to do whatever fortuitous, but uncontrolled, thing just happened. Naturally, the fact that Real did take him causes me to consider whether I was right but that was my conviction and I stand by it. Even if time proves me wrong in this case I think it still disproves the claim that highlight videos make everybody look good. I say this simply because the video did not make Camavinga look good to me. Nor was I alone because at least one person liked the comment after I posted it.

I'm only speaking from memory and even then memory of newspaper reports but, didn't Salah refuse to come back when it was being considered?

I'm sure a tour of the US is on CFCW's post pandemic wish list. 🙂

The women have been playing two games a week. After a poor, but winning, FA Cup performance at Villa yesterday they face two huge fixtures in the next seven days; United in the League Cup semi-final and a resurgent City in the League. I skipped the trip to Walsall yesterday but I'll at the games against the Manchester clubs.

The scenarios I painted were meant as examples of the kind of consideration which will impact loan deals. I've never seen an actual loan agreement but to me, and I'm guessing to all of us here, it is intuitively obvious that these examples are sound. As are the ones you've given. There will be others too. This is what I referred to as the hierarchy of wishes and red lines. All parties throw their wish list on the table and who gets what in the final deal is determined by the negotiation. Unless they're making prime Eden Hazard available for loan, the lending club will have to compromise to get the deal done.

I'm very surprised that Barca want him back. Up to them.

All transfer deals, be they permanent or temporary, are a subject of three-way negotiations. Each party will have their own hierarchy of wishes and red lines. It is obvious that Chelsea would ALWAYS like to include a recall clause but we will also want to prefer a loan destination where the intention is that the player will start over any where the player will be a squad player. If the side offering starts insists that they can't offer the player starts if there is a possibility of his being recalled then Chelsea have a decision to make. If Chelsea choose a club willing to accept the recall clause but which is only offering a squad place then the player has a decision to make. Why leave one club where you won't play for another one where you won't play either? My claim is that it isn't as easy as it might seem to drop whatever clauses you want into these deals.

And then there's that ugly, eyesore of a lake a couple of hours up the road. 🙂

I first came across him when watching Rennes to follow Boga. At first I just tuned out again when Boga wasn't starting but eventually I saw Dembele play and was sold instantly. From that moment he was a high priority target as far as I was concerned. It was discouraging however to read claims by his agent (his dad or brother at the time) that they had turned down a move to Chelsea the season before. I'm in favour of trying again.

Man I love this forum. Post after post is worth reading regardless of whether I agree with the poster's opinion or not. Thank you SB, and for the record I agree with virtually every word you wrote here. I don't doubt the contribution Ben was making in the run up to his injury. My concern is whether that was merely good form, or a genuine demonstration of his level. Obviously we would all like it to be the latter but I won't believe it is until that level is maintained consistently. I can't set aside the fact that Ben was regarded as second choice earlier this season. Whatever TT's thinking might have been behind that decision, the decision itself is at least an amber warning for me. Especially when we consider that any manager who selects Marcos Alonso does so in full knowledge of his strengths AND his weaknesses. Given my pre existing questions about Ben that amber warning flashes bright with me.

I have to confess that I've been a non believer from the start. After his mooted move became public I watched his Rangers academy highlight videos and commented that he would find a lot of youth team players at Cobham that were more talented than him. As for the video watching challenge, I will if you will. For me, the Liverpool game was good (not withstanding the fact that the most memorable moment benefitted from a slice of luck) but not as good as billed, the Toffees game was not as good as the Liverpool one and the England game was a dramatic example of 'overhyped'. An unspectacular performance in my view As you can tell I have watched those videos but I will watch them again. If you decide to do the same, I'd be really interested to know what you think about the Grimsby game. I left the ground that night really buzzing about Billy's performance but for me that display looses a lot of its sheen in the cold light of the day.

I hope no one will want to respond to the comment which follows by warning that everyone looks good in their highlight videos. That's simply not true. This kid looks special in the vid I watched. If he's even 70% as good in reality he should be a high priority target. If we land him, and he lives up to the promise, then I reckon it'll have to be a contract extension for vesper on 66% more dosh than her current TalkChelsea deal.