Viper22

Mata is very good, if you can't see that then you're either being deliberately stupid or not watching him. He was world class while at Chelsea when he fitted into the system, and towards the end of last season (his first 6 months at a new club, a new club that was floundering in the mid-table and a useless manager) he started to recapture some of the form he had shown for Chelsea before. I'm glad he went, because as good a player as he is, he needs to be in a system that suits him. Which doesn't make him the perfect player to have in your squad admittedly, because even if you play with that system then he won't play well in any plan B. But to suggest he isn't a good player is just plain stupid. I have high hopes for Oscar, we just need to wait and see how he does next season. If he plays badly again then he can't have any excuses, but I reckon he'll play well and prove Jose's faith was well founded. Jose is rarely wrong after all. And the dig at how someone watches Chelsea matches being different to how you do might possibly be the childish thing i've ever read. Just.... stop.

This particular jigsaw is coming together very nicely now

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/blackpool-cancel-pre-season-trip-spain-3864096 Poor Blackpool.... Not sure whether to laugh or not.

Or maybe Ba is already on his way?

Like someone said before, this guy will single handedly win us games with his goals or die trying, his has that passion about him. The first time I see a defender pick a fight with him and he goes so mental he makes Joey Barton look like the Dalai Lama is going to make me laugh so much. As long as he hurts/annoys/trolls people in subtle ways (racking achilles, treading on toes, 'accidentally' leaving a leg in, going up strong in the air etc.) it'll be fine. Stoke don't exactly have the referees help and with the shit they get away with Costa will be fine with all that stuff. As long as he gets 15-20 league goals & 5-10 cup goals over the course of the season then it doesn't even matter if he does get suspended a lot tbh. Welcome to London Diego! More specifically the first (and likely only) club from this great city to win the Champions League. Eat shit Arsenal and Spurs.

TOPTB. Guy talks so much sense, and is only seen as controversial because he says what others are thinking but are afraid to.

So hard to choose between Cho and Alex :/.

Thankyou for the nominations everyone. I don't feel like I deserve to be here though, with Seif and Iseah. Good luck to you both . Sorry Mo but my vote for this is going to have to go to Iseah.

I can't decide between him, Azpi and Matic... It's killing me.

Can't wait to get a proper picture of him in a Chelsea shirt. I need it to bait my Arsenal mate (the same one who owes me £50 from betting that Arsenal would finish above us last season). Maybe i'll give him the picture as a receipt?

While I agree that he is a brilliant LB, I don't think he's really had enough games at RB (under Mou, not the fat waiter) to judge whether he's better there or not.

Careful now people.... I remember people laughing off and dismissing this picture as a fake photoshop: Not saying it's true, far from it. But be careful that you don't get too smug in case it does happen, coincidence or not!!

Where have I seen this before.... Uncanny.

Almost definitely going to have no WC players in, so i'm just looking forward to seeing Pasalic, Zouma, MVG, Chalobah and Romeu play.

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So being new to this forum (and forums in general) I feel I have to ask. How does this work exactly?

Happy with what we've got atm tbh. As long as we stick with the 4-2-3-1. If we're going to convert to the 4-3-3 then I guess Vidal. But I reckon Oscar dropping back wouldn't be a bad shout either. Pogba will be far too expensive, as good a player as he is, and Tiago, Khedira and Kroos wouldn't be worth the money (Tiago in wage terms). The only other players that might be available who could work are Hamsik or Witsel, but I don;t think either of them well be as easily gettable as Vidal.

Why Chelsea? Favourite ever Chelsea player? Most underrated Chelsea player in your opinion? Dream job?

There is a risk whatever choice we make here. If we choose Courtois then he could be not as good as he has been for Belgium and Atletico, struggle with the physicality of the PL and all that. And if we've sold Cech we could be up the proverbial creek without any means of propulsion. But also on the other hand, I get the distinct impression that Courtois won't be happy being loaned again or being 2nd choice, so will probably be sold. What happens then if Cech quickly goes downhill in the following season? He showed signs this season of being worse than his previous seasons at Chelsea after all. That would be one hell of an issue once we've sold Courtois and we'd have to buy another goalkeeper, either for mega bucks or one nowhere near the level that Cech and Courtois are now. Either choice we make is going to have an element of risk about it, in football every transfer or choice does. The key thing is forgetting all of Courtois' twitter bullshit and trying to not be too sentimental after everything Petr has done for this club and to make an objective decision based on the facts available. Cech Pros - Massive PL experience, still a great GK, knows the defence well, don't want to disrupt the team too much now we've sold Luiz, Lampard and Cole, could be captain after JT leaves. Cech Cons - Showing early signs that he might be on the downwards slope, 31 years old and like someone else said not all GKs play well into their 30s. Courtois Pros - Young (still room for development), already in the top 5 GKs in the world, played in similar system to us for Atletico and could play for us for the next 10-15 years, future captain? Courtois Cons - Seemed to demand no. 1 shirt earlier in the season, unproven in the PL, still a few issues (like deflecting ball back into box) to iron out. Even with those facts it's so close that it's pretty much down to personal preference. Personally I think Courtois edges it for 2 reasons: 1) I'm trying to think longer term and 2) I think Cech will stick around as a 2nd choice keeper which would solve every issue - if Courtois had problems then Cech could help him out.

We obviously have a pretty massive difference of opinion. So I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree.

POGBA + £10M TO US. Why have you not got that yet? Go back and read my other posts again. We're signing a striker so selling Lukaku and Torres would leave us with the new striker (Costa?), Ba and Bamford/Drogba as our 3 strikers (we're overqualified in that position) and then we'd lose Ramires and gain Pogba, CM for CM.

I wasn't saying it would happen. Just got a bit carried away and was stating my ideal scenario.

Fair enough. Swap deals never happen in real life after all do they?

Torres wasn't even worth £50M when we bought him. Now he's worth between £5-10M. And I said Pogba + £10M for those 3. So we're giving them £50M worth of players for Pogba and £10M.