Viper22

It'll more be the fact that Adidas likely won't have the shirts ready yet. I assume seeing as our contract with Yokohama begins in July we'll be wearing our new Yokohama sponsored kit for the first time on our USA tour. Adidas have probably been told to have the shirts ready for a reveal on something like the 1st July. So we'll see around the end of June/early July the new shirts I imagine. It's easy to stick Yokohama on some boards around the stadium, less easy to get the shirts designed so quickly .

Who's this Brandford guy? He sounds new, foreign and fancy. We should sign him.

Griezmann? Isco? Reus? ... Douglas Costa?

Also, the idea that teams that have never ever qualified for a World Cup get the same weight of vote as Spain or Italy is laughable. They need to change that system to stop it being abused by leaders like Blatter by paying off the African/Asian countries. How about a system whereby every country gets a vote but the countries that qualified for the previous World Cup get a weighting of 3x on their votes. Therefore the countries that put the most resources into football (and so qualify for the top competitions) get their voices heard more. Therefore its not all opinion as to the weighting of countries.

To all the people saying things like "Everyone only started caring when England, Australia and USA didn't win the world cups" or "Corruption has been going on for years, and only now do people care about it". I can't talk for everyone but I can say that for me and for all my football loving friends we have hated FIFA and known that it was corrupt since the early noughties. It was so glaringly obvious but was ignored because the people losing out had no balls and the others were getting what they wanted - monies! I remember watching the outcome of the bid for the 2018 world cup already knowing that we'd lose and laughed out loud when I saw the dodgy vote patterns. I must admit even I didn't see Qatar getting the 2022 world cup because I thought even FIFA wouldn't be that stupid, but alas... They got cocky, they thought they could make literally any country host the World Cup even if they had 0 interest or heritage in football before the bid. They have fallen due their arrogance of going on that power trip. I would have actually been more concerned if we had won the world cup, because then it would prove that we had bought votes and were corrupt. Us losing just proved that we still believed in the fairness and legality of the voting system which was both admirable and incredibly naiive. UEFA didn't have the balls to do anything, Australia/NZ didn't have the power but thank god for the yanks. USA deserves to be criticised for a lot of things but my god when they want to they get shit done. The 2018 World Cup will never be taken away from Russia, would be too much aggro for the USA and as the preliminary draws are happening soon and some qualification matches have taken place they'd have to do it very quickly. Well and people will likely start turning up dead with Ernst Stavro Putin in charge. The 2022 World Cup is in genuine danger though methinks. Could very well see a revote and it given to a different country. If that does happen though, I would advise England and the USA to avoid running to be that country. Even though we're 2 of the most well equipped countries to host a World Cup everyone will get a little bit touchy and think that we're just flexing our political muscles to win the World Cup for ourselves. Let someone like Australia or Belgium/Netherlands host it instead so we don't get the heat from it.

Now that would be interesting. A loan with a buy option that is activated if they score a certain number of goals throughout the season.

The Sampdoria president best be talking bollocks. Because the ONLY way loaning Zouma out is a good idea is if we're buying Varane to play alongside JT for this season, before replacing JT with Zouma next season. And that is pretty unlikely. But even then, I would hope Zouma would go to a better class team ffs. Somewhere like Valencia, Southampton or Gladbach would be much better, they all have European football next season, great training facilities and great coaches after all.

Fantastic mate. Well rounded and well explained opinions.

Bit annoyed we didn't get him as a squad player as I think he'd have been a great option for us. But I guess if he wanted to start then there's not much we could do. As others have said though, it's good that he's going to Liverpool and not Arsenal as I feel he would have improved Arsenal a fair bit but Liverpool need to buy a defence before becoming anything that even resembles a threat.

I don't appreciate the accusation of Photoshop. This photo is 100% real. On a completely unrelated note, the TalkChelsea awards are going to have to be moved to the winter.

Stingray and myself have a special vote-sharing system. He gives me his votes & I work the shredder, wipe the computers and burn the hard drives.

But seriously, just got paid yesterday for my future summer work.

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Think I can spare £20 to help keep this forum going. How would I go about donating? EDIT: Nvm, worked it out xD

That's pretty impressive to have more people watching us train than City had on average last season during their matches...

Welcome

Matic-Colkett pivot please. Want to see how good Colkett can be alongside a competent footballer considering he was pretty great today.

Ake was pretty poor IMO and RLC has a solid but unspectacular game, overshadowed by Colkett's first half performance though.

Thing is that it was his knees. It was his cruciate ligament back around 14 months ago. His decline has looked a tad similar to Torres to so I'm wary. But like others have said, if Jose and the scouting team think he's good enough then I trust in our medical teams and I trust in Jose.

I never accused you of bias mate. Read what I said again. I said you back your countrymen to the hilt, as does everyone. I'm the same, I'm loyal to Chelsea players and England players and will defend them as much as I can. It wasn't an accusation of bias. It's a natural thing that we all have. As for the minutes per goal thing. Well yeah I agree that's not everything but I don't see what more RVP offers? He's not quick around the park, doesn't work particularly hard with or without the ball and doesn't often get assists. He's an underrated passer of the ball I grant you, but I'd much rather a player who's going to work hard and can score goals when the team is under intense pressure. RVP's greatest strength IMO is his finishing. When on form his finishing is easily one of the best in the world. I mean, look at some of the goals he's scored in recent years, ridiculous. You are right actually I thought Remy was older for some reason. I don't think we should have 2 quality strikers on the bench no, all the players I suggested are not exactly the best in the world!! Ok, Real Madrid have Benzema, CR7, Javier Hernandez and Jese Rodriguez. Barcelona have Neymar, Messi and Suarez. I don't think it's unreasonable to want Costa, Remy and Bamford/Austin/Ings/Icardi.

His injury record since 2007 isn't irrelevant, but ok. I get what you're saying about less strain and better medical staff and that is right. As for him, Costa and Remy being injured all at once, why not? Take last season for example, there was a period around October-November when Costa missed 4 games through injury and 1 thorugh suspension, Remy missed 7 games through injury and in that time period IIRC RVP was injured too. That'd be 5 games in a row RVP would have to have played, even if he was fit. Also in April-May time, Costa missed 8 games through injury, Remy 5 games and RVP 9. There's 1 instance where we would've been without a striker, so I can't see how you could say it would never happen? Also, having only 1 of 3 striker available at any one time is bad enough, you're relying fully on that striker then and have no differing style on the bench. We should want to have at least 2 strikers around at any 1 time. Look, I get that RVP is your fellow countryman and so you're going to back him to the hilt, that's understandable. But I really don't think he'd fit at this club or is what we need right now. Of course his wages would be lower but I seriously doubt if he goes from a club that's competing for 4th place to a team that has just become the champions of the same league he's going to take much of a pay cut. Even if he drops down to 150k p/w that's still extortionate, even 100k p/w is far too much for a 3rd choice and he'd never halve his wage demands. As for him not being good enough to back up... He only scored 10 goals in 29 appearances this season, having played 2197 minutes (that's a goal every 219.7 minutes) which is hardly top class. For comparison Remy got 9 goals this season in 1176 minutes (that's a goal every 130 minutes). Obviously he has been brilliant in the past so i'm not writing him off yet but like you said yourself, the past is irrelevant, it's the now that matters. And the now is telling me that RVP is out of form, on the decline and still has injury problems. If we're going to buy a 3rd choice striker then why don't we actually buy someone young? We have Remy who is 31 or so and Costa is no spring chicken. Why not bring in a youngster rather than another old player? What about Charlie Austin? Icardi? Dybala? Batshuayi? Ings? Tbh my choice is that we don't buy anyone and promote Bamford to this 1st team because he's more than good enough to be our 3rd choice IMO. But if we insist on buying someone I would much rather 1 of the lot i've mentioned who would be far more of a safe choice than RVP or Falcao, much younger and have much lower wages.

That was stunning from Christensen!