OhForAGreavsie

I really hope that the consequences of stupidities like these will force football to wake up at long last.

So bad.

Is this real or might this be Barca holding a gun to La Liga's head and asking are you really prepared to loose the jewel in your crown or can we push you into blinking?

#Two Toni Rudigers# #There's only two Toni Rudigers# #Two Toni Ruuud-i-gers# #There's only two Toni Ruuud-i-gers#

Yes I am telling you this. SFL is an extremely intelligent man who made the absolute most of his abilities but, for example, he did not strike a ball with same timing that Gerrard did. This isn't to say that Frank didn't sometimes get it right and Gerrard sometimes get it wrong. If I need someone to score the goal Gerrard did against West Ham in Cardiff however I'd call the Liverpool man. Some things you can learn but some you can't. I think the very fact coach and player are still having to work on this nine years after I made the point that it would remain a problem shows that I was right. What's Rom going to have learned in the last 12 months that he didn't learn in the previous 108? It won't surprise you to read that I don't consider myself to be naive. Anything can be worked on but not everything can be fixed. Believing that would indeed be naive.

I've picked out this sentence to respond to before reading the rest of your post. I'll read on shortly. I'll respond by asking the same question that I asked in 2011 when this point was made. If what you say is correct then why don't all players simply practice until they are Lionel Messi? The reality is that there is an underlying level of talent which underpins and anchors what a footballer can do. Based on how hard they work and how well they apply lessons learned, players can force themselves to the top of their talent group, or slide towards the bottom of it, but they won't jump groups. Hakim Ziyech is a talented footballer but no amount of extra work after training is going to turn him into Zinedine Zidane, never mind Messi or Pele. I said a decade ago that Rom is an intelligent bloke who would learn his lessons well and make the most of what he was given. He has done that. This may make him the best available solution for Chelsea now but he is not one that will satisfy the club's manager for long.

I agree about Mbappe. Looked very worrying indeed. The talent was there but the footballer wasn't. Overplaying and complaining summed him up.

Prime Diego is who I'd like us to sign. Who should we look at to find those qualities?

Of course he is. That is why United weren't too fussed when he left and why, despite posturing to keep his value high, Inter aren't too bothered now either. I believe that Rom is the same player he was when I wrote him off as a Chelsea prospect in 2011. I had endless discussions at the time with people claiming he was young and that his touch would improve. I said then, and believe just as strongly now, that players' innate qualities become fixed and permanent way before the age of 19. Experience and training can teach a player how to make the most of what he has but what he has, his basic talent level, isn't going anywhere at that age. In the winter of 2011 I said that Rom would make a career for himself because some of his attributes are outstanding but that he should not be at Chelsea. I claimed that any manager of a top level club finding himself with Rom as his first choice striker would soon be looking for an upgrade. So I think it has been and so I think it will be with TT next summer if we sign Rom now. The Belgian will score goals for sure but he will leave everyone feeling that we need more up top. If Rom wants to return it'll be because he feels Inter's less than 100% commitment and because he likes the jingle of the proposed pay packet. It won't be anything to do with him feeling that he has 'unfinished business' with Chelsea. It's far more likely that someone at Chelsea has unfinished business with him.

@MoroccanBlue will have his own ideas in response to this but I base my opinion on the players' characteristics. On that basis I have preferred Mando's Chelsea chances over Tammy's since the former was playing development football and I said so here at the time. Will Broja get the nod from TT? I can't say of course but I'm convinced he has a better chance than Tammy.

Your memory is better than mine because I don't remember ever seeing this. Fair question and fair point but I felt Broja is the better player even before he'd played a single first team minute. I think Mando has better tools and uses them. Whether watching live or on TV he has never disappointed me.

I understand your point but this is all speculation. So many variables that we do not and cannot know. Are City planning to buy both or are they pursuing two understanding that they can only land one? Are both offers purely cash only or will both include one or more player? Both Kane and Grealish really want the moves and are pressing their clubs to release them. Haaland may be more relaxed about Chelsea and so will take a way more expensive personal deal to prise him away from BVB. Etc.

This is clearly true. Dortmund's position is completely transparent but be careful. If @Jas reads it he's likely to reply with some ridiculous gif as if it's a punchy rebuttal.Yes Jas your response when I made the same point a couple of months back irritated the heck out of me and, as you can tell, it still rankles. 🙂 This forum is a place where articulate people debate their opinions. I've read your stuff Jas and this most especially applies to you. Disagree by all means, even when you are as spectacularly wrong as you were in this case, but you have the ability to express yourself man. Any old body can post a gif.

I don't loose any sleep over Marina's work. If you are to be a good negotiator you must establish a reputation for being honest, straightforward, reasoned and firm. That sometimes means walking away from the table if minimum requirements are not met. These requirements are not pulled from thin air either. Rather they are the result of cold calculation. People calling for players to be dumped at low prices recognise that signing them was an error but are arguing that the club compounds that original mistake by making things worse. Agreeing a poor deal now is just throwing good money after bad. You can't fix the mistake you made a few years ago by making another mistake now. In each case the club will consider the pros and cons of any purchase offers versus any loan offers and choose the one which makes better financial sense. We here don't have the numbers so we can't judge. We can complain but in doing so we simply advertise the fact that we don't know what we're talking about. As for the impact of having these players around the squad, this is virtually never a problem. If a suitable sale can't be found they almost always go on loan. They therefore don't bother Thomas Tuchel and they don't bother the players who are staying. That means they don't bother me and hopefully they won't bother you either.

I'm with you but you have the first and last words the wrong way around. Your post should start with 'Too' and end with 'to'. I realise that you copied 'To stingy' from the post you replied to but two wrong 'to's don't make a 'too'. 🙂

Dear Luca & Harry, If you think you have a deal with Daniel Levy, but it isn't unambiguously written down, signed and witnessed, then feel free to think whatever you want. Just don't be surprised when the alarm wakes you up and it's time to get ready for work. Regards,

I would say that you are a bit more generous towards Camavinga than I am. Others, yourself included, would probably say you are just more realistic to make allowance for his age. Either way I don't believe in Camavinga any more than you do.

I agree that if comparing playing styles there is more similarity between Lewis & Kova than there is between Lewis & Billy.

Just for the record, I prefer Lewis over Billy if it comes down to one or the other. Sadly it does not seem any Chelsea manager will have to make such a choice for real

If this is true then it could be a big positive. To rotate him in against specific opposition and see him perform in those games such that we rest players without jeopardising points, would make him an incredibly valuable squad member. How many times did he put the ball in the net from an offside position? A reasonable percentage of those offsides were avoidable. The right little tweak in his game leads to enough extra points to make a difference of 1, or maybe even two, league places.

Yep, we have a good side and I'm with those who believe that Timo and the Kaiser will be more productive next season so making us more competitive. It's only natural though to want to see additional improvements

Difficult, not impossible. 🙂

Whatever the reason that Tino has not had a look in yet the matter now seems to have been taken out of TT's hands. Training with the 16's is a very, very bad sign

Very difficult actually. See Real Madrid and Gareth Bale. Our players are not earning Bale size money but the problem remains the same . They won't take pay cuts, potential buyers won't pay their wages and will start negotiations from position of asking us to give the player away plus subsidise his wages.

The vaccine does not prevent everyone getting a covid-19 variant but no vaccine against any virus even claims to be able to do that. The percentages are heavily in your favour if you are vaccinated however vs being unvaccinated. Just looking at the Pfizer vaccine, more than 19 out of every twenty people who died of covid last week were not fully vaccinated. That means that your chances of dying from covid is more than 19 times higher if you are not fully Pfizered than if you are. The vaccine reduces your chances of contracting covid in the first place and reduces your chances of dying from it if you do.