Viper22

Would love that too but i've just had to come to the realisation that Jose thinks that Ivan is undroppable and a key player. So upsetting but just something we'll have to accept.

I would love to help if they wanted me to but I don't feel like i'm online enough or as well respected around the forum as the 4 I mentioned.

How upsetting. That was a Gerrard level slip on my part.... Not used to him not being here yet .

xPetrCechx, Madmax, Skipper or WHS would be the best choices IMO if any of them are willing.

My prediction is for us to lose 3-2 AET. I'm not usually a negative person nor do I think Arsenal are better than us at all. Just think that they're more up for it than we are (unfortunately) and have had longer back in training. Hoping we can beat them with a solid performance though! COYB!

IMO: --------------------Courtois---------------------- --Ivanovic---Zouma---Terry---Azpilicueta-- -------------Matic-------Fabregas-------------- -Moses------------Willian-------------Hazard- ------------------Costa/Remy------------------- Subs: Cech, Cahill, Ake, RLC, Oscar, Remy/Cuadrado, Falcao.

Hugely underrated player that i'd love to have here (depending on price). Like someone said above a pure RW with great crossing ability. A better RW than everyone we've got except Willian and i'd say at RW he's about as good as Willian (I feel Willian is better at CAM). Would be an upgrade to Oscar in our starting 11 on current form and would definitely improve our squad if we're going to sell one of Moses or Cuadrado.

Sad news . All the best mate, hope that all comes well for you and we see you back here soon. You'll be missed my friend.

Had a picture with Wenger at the same event last year. Other than that the only thing I can think of is when I met a fair few Southampton players but they're hardly our rivals. Tbh to me i'd love to meet any footballers. Obviously Chelsea players much more so but they're all pretty famous!!

Genuinely my 2nd thought after having the picture taken with him was "xPetrCechx and Alex on the TC forums are going to be pretty jealous after this!". Sorry that you've never got a chance to meet your hero but trust me, he's a lovely lovely bloke. I was in the Diamond Club. A family friend works at Fly Emirates and can get my family tickets for the Director's box, Diamond Club or Fly Emirates box on occasion when they're not being used by others in the company. Met Arsene Wenger last year in there and saw Sanchez but didn't get a chance to collar him for a photo. This time saw lots of people come through including Cech and got pictures with all of them (except Ozil, he was rushing).

Was at the Emirates Cup on Sunday and met some famous faces as well as an absolute legend!!

So I actually met the legend. The man himself. What a gentleman he was. I'll be honest I was like a child. Could hardly contain my excitement. Met him when I was at the Emirates Cup on Sunday (met other players too, the pictures are in the Mugshots thread if anyone is interested) with my missus, dad and brother. My dad showed him his Chelsea tattoo and bless the man he apologised profoundly to us for leaving. I said to him to not be silly, that myself as well as almost every other Chelsea fan with a brain still viewed him as a legend of the highest order and wished him the happiest in life no matter where he went, and that he more than deserved to choose where he went. I hope he listened because he really is an amazing gentleman and a Chelsea legend. Was a fantastic experience meeting him!!!

How anyone can get upset at the result is beyond me!! xD. Just watched the match and not only is it the first game back with only like a week of training but we outright deserved to win that game comfortably. Not that it matters but good god their first goal was lucky as sin due to the ball cannoning off Begovic, off the striker and back to his feet. The 3rd goal was even worse, a flick off of Matic's heel, a missed overhead kick then hits 2 players who are not even expecting it and falls straight to the feet of the striker free in the box. And the icing on the cake their 4th included a Ramires error (never!) followed by a double deflection forcing it through Begovic's fingers. Add on top of that the fact that Chelsea deserved at least 4 goals from the game (Costa and Moses in particular were really unlucky) and 19 times out of 20 we'd be coming out of that game with a win. One thing I would say is that hopefully Tibo and JT got their respective brainfarts for the season out of the way in this game because both made pretty horrific mistakes that would give me an aneurysm if they did that in a match that mattered. I would say the same for Ramires but we all know what he's like!! I would be more surprised if that was the only one he makes. Can't believe people are reading into it that much tbh, I've been missing Chelsea as much as the next fan on here but pre season friendlies are just that - friendlies. If you stayed up to watch it then sorry but that's your bad. You should've known that watching Chelsea pre season is nothing more than an extended training exercise and the only scouting that can truly be achieved is watching to see if partnerships work or if anyone does a specific part of their game exceptionally better than they have done before.

Lol looks like I dodged a bullet going to sleep and not watching this xD. The mental implosions from some in this thread are pretty hilarious though!

Team to play New York Red Bulls: Courtois; Ivanovic ©, Zouma, Cahill, Azpilicueta; Fabregas, Mikel; Moses, Oscar, Traore; Remy. #CFCTour Chelsea subs: Begovic, Terry, Aina, Clarke-Salter, Chalobah, Matic, Loftus-Cheek, Hazard, Diego Costa, Solanke. #CFCTour Looks good to me. Can't wait to see how Traore does.

Well they've just arrived at the ground. https://vine.co/v/e69KZUXl69J

Still no team news? KO is in like 80mins. I'm waiting for it to decide whether to stay up and watch it or not.

If it was down to me there's a fair few players in the squad (including Cahill) who should be off but i've come to accept that he'll be around for the foreseeable future now .

If he's concerned about having guarenteed first team football for a chance to get into England's Euros squad then just sign him and loan him straight back to Everton. I reckon the toffees would be more likely to accept the transfer then; they have another year of their best defender and can spend that year looking for a replacement. For us it works too; with JT, Cahill, Zouma and Stones 1 is going to miss out quite a bit over the course of the season. JT can't keep going forever and (although I seem to say this every year) he may well decline this year and need to be replaced next year, when Stones will be ready to step in alongside Cahill and Zouma as 3 of our 4 CBs. (I'm assuming Ivan will be available for 4th choice CB cover in this scenario btw).

Tag me in your post when you make it please . I think it's an interesting idea that has been ridiculed when I've mentioned it before so it'd be interesting to have a debate about the pros and cons of it.

Spot on IMO. Have 30 or so academies around the country run independently of clubs and teach the young footballers there. They can teach them far more than to be better at football too; they could teach them how to save their money as a footballers careers are short, teach them how to deal with the press, the pressure of playing for so many thousands of fans, the general do's and don't's of how to be a professional footballer (Sterling could have done with that). Then when they reach 21, they become free agents and clubs can offer them contracts based on what they've seen during trials. Hopefully the education they receive will make them chase first team football rather than money and whilst the top youngsters may go to City, Chelsea, Utd etc. some of the slightly less talented ones will go to lower level PL teams like Palace, West Brom or Spurs and get first team football there and try and work their way up. You could even incorporate some kind of draft system, whereby the teams take turns offering a contract to their favoured player of the group at the end of the season in which they have turned 21, then the next club offers one to their favoured player and so on. I really don't know what would be better or if it would work at all but it seems like a sound idea to me. And i'm pretty sure it would be of far more help to young players coming into football than the current system.

Can't wait to see him play in pre season. Such an exciting player

You could even say they need a quality CB too. Mertesacker has the turning circle of a battleship and if he ran any slower he'd be going backwards. As soon as the ball gets past him (as it does quite often) he's useless. They need (literally and figuratively) a spine to the team, which they just don't have right now.

Holy shit is that actually their 2nd kit? Good god that might well the ugliest kit i've seen in a long time.