Viper22

Good god Mikel even manages to look average and pedestrian when surrounded by teenagers. It's genuinely a talent.....

Everyone has to pay their dues. Like playing RCB with Ivanovic RB, you learn to cover 2 positions at once very quickly. Same with playing alongside Mikel.

Awwh so close. Called 5 of the front 6!!!

I'm actually going to enjoy seeing how some of the youngsters deal with their experienced counterparts. Especially the Ivanovic/Clarke-Salter and Mikel/Colkett partnerships. Also, never going to be upset about seeing Boga, Brown and Solanke in our front 4, those 3 are amazing and exciting prospects.

https://www.chelseafc.com/videos/about-chelsea-tv.html?intcmp=FANCLUB_FCP_NEWS_HYPER There's a link to Chelsea TV for anyone that fancies watching it. Coverage starts at 11.45am BST (that's in 20mins time).

They weren't showing up for me either.... They are now though.

Phew. Young team and Mikel, Cech, Ivan and Remy the most senior players starting. That is good. Bring on some of the big boys for the last 5/10mins so the fans there can see them but the youngsters get the needed game time. Perfectl done IMO, always trust in Jose.

Cech ©, Aina, Ivanovic, Clarke-Salter, Ake, Mikel, Colkett, Remy, Boga, Brown, Solanke. Rest of travelling party on the bench, including Azpilicueta, Terry, Matic, RLC, Hazard and Costa.

While his talent is not in doubt, to suggest that he doesn't have serious injury problems is pretty hilarious. According to transfermarkt (in my experience the most reliable place for data) he has been injured for a total of 511 days since 2007. 160 of those days have been in the last 18 months aswell. As for Diego/Remy's injury troubles, I love them both as players, but unless Diego gets his hamstring sorted out soon it'll always bother him (he's missed 126 days due to injury in the last 2 seasons from 7 different niggling injuries) and Remy seems to be made of glass and unlucky enough to always get injured when Diego does too. Bamford is a perfectly acceptable 3rd choice, would be free and has low wages. I know RVP is/used to be good but i'm not sure it's worth the risk for his injuries or his ridiculously large wage packet either. Especially seeing as how old he is and on the basis of this season he's shown nothing to prove he's still good enough.

A move to an up and coming team that have a great manager like Gladbach would be a great move, assuming he gets the required game time.

Ew no. We already have 2 strikers that have spent large portions of their time at the club injured, we don't need the sick note Van Persie.

Good loan for him. Lots of game time for a club in a top league. If he's incredible, he'll be at the club next year. If he's good (likely) he'll get sold, maybe to Bournemouth. If he's shit.... well he'll get released soon enough . Hopefully he does well, haven't given up hope on him just yet.

Chelsea haven't won a trophy in almost a month now. Mourinho out.

That's cool man . My most recent tattoo was to remember my gramps, those kinds of ones are the best. Probably need to put pictures of my tattoos on here but to be honest they look pathetic and small fry compared to the other monsters i've seen over the last few pages!!!

My next 5 days are just going to be spent praying to whichever god decides to listen that Hazard, Matic and Costa at the very least get back in one piece. Those 3 are our most vital players and it worries me greatly that they're travelling and not resting. Dave and JT are less vital but still incredibly important (Assuming Luis staying and another CB coming in as to why they're not vital). Will be pretty pissed off if 1 of those 5 ends up badly injured as a result of this.... No marketing opportunities are worth that.

Inherent masochists are the only people I can think of.

Well for me Ake, Bamford (if he's not going to get a chance at the club right now), Omeruo, Chalobah and Traore need to have loans to decent level clubs where they will get playing time and experience and if they succeed on those loans I could see them having a future at the club. Kalas, Atsu and MVG are coming back from failed loans and all could either sink or swim from here. All likely need loans to clubs which are going to use them more often now. They all still have a good chance but have to come back from this quickly. Pasalic, Baker, Swift, Davila, Delac and Perica all have had loans at low level clubs and need to step up a level. They will need to succeed at those levels first at then move on to decent level clubs like Ake et al. Moses, Marin, Kakuta McEachren and Salah have all been loaned to sell/release. Piazon, Rodriguez and Wallace are almost 100% going to be sold or released, they just haven't developed as much as expected/wanted. Romeu is an odd one, having recently signed a new contract. He could come back to the club to play a role, could leave on loan yet again or could leave the club on a permanent basis. The last one seems most likely but we never know. RLC (if not involved in the first team squad next year), Brown, Boga, Solanke and DaSilva could all be on their way out on loan too, to get some first team playing experience under their belts. As for chances, I reckon that Ake, Boga and Traore have the best chance of making it here. Bamford, Omeruo, Chalobah, and RLC all have decent chances also. Brown, MVG and Atsu have ok chances. But Kalas, Romeu, Solanke, Baker and Pasalic are long shots at best. And the others have little to no chance IMO i'm afraid.

He's still a legend and he always will be, for what he's done for the club. With time the painful memories of the terrible decision he made this season (don't think anyone can deny it was a pretty poor decision, he pretty much achieved nothing but get a bit more cash in his bank) will heal, and in 10 years time or so like some people have said his time as City will be just a footnote in a sparkling career, dominated by Chelsea. What some people seem to be incapable of understanding though is that he lied about not going to another PL club because he wouldn't do that to Chelsea. He said it was just a loan to City to keep his fitness up, it turned out to be a full contract. He said he'd go to NYCFC in January for the start of their season, he extended his stay until the end of the season. Now even forgetting the fact that he actively went out of his way to stop this club winning the title (he'd have to, as a professional once signing for a rival) it is an indisputable fact that he lied to the fans of this club that he professed his love for numerous times. Now it's all down to opinion from here on in. If you're ok with the lying and the moving to a rival then more power to you, it's your prerogative how you feel. But it beggars belief that people act embarrassed and angry when fans who have so much emotional investment in this club are offended by his lies and what he did. I personally am pretty conflicted inside, he was one of my favourite ever players and was definitely one of Chelsea's best ever players. I still love him and always will for what he did for the club. But I don't appreciate what he did as lying to fans of a club you profess to love just doesn't sit right with me. In time i'll likely mostly forgive him because nothing tangible came from it but he still tried means i'll never forget it and there will always be a slight tarnish on my image of him. Btw, I don't agree with berating him for reliving past glories, even though it does reek of him trying too hard to get back into Chelsea fan's good books, i'd say let it lie now.

Can we not pass off Azpi, Cahill and Mikel and big name first team players?? xD. Maybe add in Cech and Fabregas if we have to...

Not particularly enthralled by the idea of doing this, but I trust the club and their decisions so i'll go along with it. I guess the positive is also that we get to watch Chelsea again so soon too. For me: -----------------Beeney------------------ -Azpi---Christensen---Cahill---Luis- ------------Mikel-----Baker------------- -Brown----------Remy----------Boga- -----------------Solanke----------------- Mix of experience and youth. JT, Hazard, Ivan, Matic and Tibo should be nowhere near the team.

I'd take him on a free and for no more than 30k p/w in wages. Other than that no thanks .

Great post, a thoroughly enjoyable read. Having said that I hope you won't mind that I personally disagree with you!!! Firstly, I feel RLC has looked very good in his 2 appearances for us - he has been incredibly solid, made no mistakes, been very calm and collected under pretty high pressure and did not look 1 iota out of place to my eye. And in my opinion, this should be the most important thing for a young player when first coming into a team. Too many youngsters come in and try so desperately hard to impress & end up making lots of mistakes in their over-exuberance. RLC just gave off such an air of maturity, and to me that is key for any player, but even more so a central midfielder. This likely comes from my view that attitude and commitment is 90% of football and I like a player that is so mature and calm beyond his years (Azpilicueta the shining example of this). As for the emboldened part of your original post, I believe the comparisons to Pogba and Toure come due to arguably RLC's best feature; his ability to pull out marauding runs. From what i've seen of the youth teams over the last few years (and i've watched a fair bit) he just seems to hold an air, a presence in the centre of the pitch. Then when he picks up the ball from deep and senses a gap and starts running with those ridiculously long legs of his, not a player can touch him. Yaya was at his best when he was doing this, he was nigh on unstoppable fairly once he'd built up a head of steam & I saw similarities of this in RLC's runs. These runs almost always came to nothing but it showed his commitment to get the team going forwards and give our team (and hopefully in the future our fans) the drive to stand up and be counted alongside him. It's a similar situation to Hazard for me, when that man gets the ball, every person in that stadium is watching him with bated breath to see what he does next. This is due to his ability to glide past players and work through gaps for other players on the pitch or himself. It gives a huge boost to our fans and to his teammates and it's a quality that very few footballers have nowadays (players like Gerrard, Lampard & Pirlo thrived off of this and so became such important players for their respective teams). RLC possesses this ability IMO, he just needs the right coaching and the right guidance to unlock this potential. While RLC is a long, long way from the finished article, I feel like he has all of the tools to be one of the great players of the next generation. IMO he has that 'it' factor that can be neither quantified nor explained, he has the build for a tough intimidating league, as I said before I think that he shows incredible maturity and composure that belies his few years of professional experience, he has a commitment to become the best he can be, he definitely has the talent (he proved this during some outstanding appearances for a brilliant youth team over the past few years) and finally (and possibly most importantly) he has the backing and faith of Jose and the backroom staff. I can see why you think like you do and to be fair a lot of what I have said is opinion and so could well be complete bollocks (I have been known to talk my fair share on occasion) but this is what I truly believe. Finally I hope you do not mind that I agree in hoping that you are indeed wrong!!! I would love to see one of our own in the shape of RLC come through our ranks and become another club legend in the ilk of JT.

At least you're looking for a specific type of player and I commend you for that. He could well be top 5 in the world this year but he has to do that consistently to be seen as a world class player (I know you never said that, but just saying). For instance Harry Kane has been one of the best strikers in Europe this year, we need to wait and see if he maintains it for years to come to decide whether he's just a flash in the pan or not though.. Personally the only CB's i'd personally sign are Varane, Laporte, Hummels or Stones. Any others aren't that much better than Zouma IMO to deserve being brought to the club when hes already settled here. Manolas is as yet unproven (only 1 season at a decent club, no offense to Olympiakos, but it's true) and Sokratis really isn't that good (trust me here I watch a lot of Dortmund as my brother is a huge fan of theirs!!)