Viper22

I guess it depends if he's happy at PSG playing second fiddle to King Zlatan on the wing. If he's not happy then I could see him going, especially if Ibra has a few more years in him (which it does look like). If he wants to leave then i'm sure PSG will want to at least recoup the £50M they paid for him, but I would hope we could squeeze them for under £60M. All of this relying on Cavani being unhappy there though. Clutching at straws and all that...

Please Jose.... Out: Mikel, Torres In: Cavani/Costa/Mandzukic/Benzema & ANYONE

Is he a still a ball playing midfielder then? Or is he more a holding mid anchor man now? I haven't really been keeping up with his development lately I must admit...

Sounds like everyone is in agreement tbh. We need Luiz in midfield alongside Matic, and Terry back at CB. With that I think we'll be ok whoever we play up top.

Please dear god for the love of pete, shut up and let it go. Only post in here again if your statement regards Chelsea vs Everton. It's like listening to a child always having to get the last word, it's pathetic.

Must win game now thanks to the recent City, West Brom & West Ham results. Hope we can pull it off because Everton are nothing but pushovers! Cech, Azpi, Terry (If he's fit. God I hope he's fit!), Cahill, Ivanovic, Matic, Luiz/Lampard, Willian, Oscar, Hazard, Torres. Schurrle to come off the bench if it's not going right after about 60mins should do it.

Respect for admitting you were wrong! Never liked Mikel. Only ever passes sideways or backwards, and is useless to poor at picking up runs. Got to go.

Thing is though, taken in isolation, a 2-0 loss away to City isn't that bad a result. Just been made to look worse due to the fact that we beat them not long ago. Problem here was though: Terry Out, Mikel In. That's like removing the engine from your car and replacing it with a mouldy banana. We quite desperately need a 3rd choice CB that isn't David Luiz (he's a decent holding mid but unconvincing as a CB) and Van Ginkel to come back from injury.

Mikel at fault for both goals for not tracking back. How many games (and probably trophies) has that useless twat cost us over the years?

Let's be honest though, since their last trophy he's spent horribly: Reyes for £10.5M, Hleb for £11.5M, Eduardo for £7.5M, Arshavin for £15M, Squillaci for £4M, Gervinho for £10.5M, Ozil for £42.5M and the crowning turd in the water pipe Andre Santos for £7M. He could have spent that ~£110M so much better...

Maybe he should play better then . He should fit right in at United, competing for 6th place, he was at his best for us when we were finishing there after all.

All very good points, but I would just say: Dante just isn't very good.

Hes still young, and knackered after such a long run of games I agree. Not sure we can afford to bench him though. Maybe drop him into CM to play as a DLP for a while? That would put a bit more impetus into our attack and also put less pressure on him at 10. Then we could play Matic/Oscar in CM and Hazard/Schurrle/Willian in AM. Would that work?

Why does everyone claim that Mikel/Luiz are scapegoated? When players play badly, they get criticized. Luiz and Mikel have poor games more often than some of the other players. Therefore they get criticized more often. Why is that so hard to understand? I think Luiz is a decent footballer, anything but reliable, but whne he plays well, he plays BRILLIANTLY. My personal opinion though is that £30M from Barca would be great if we could then reinvest that in another CB who maybe isn't quite so eccentric and a bit more reliable. If they want to pay us £30M though, any less and i'd be skeptical, after all, he's still a pretty good CB and a great DM.

I think my patience for Luiz has worn too thin.... He was pretty poor today, and could easily have given away a pen for shirt pulling on that useless Anichebe. Not just today though, he hasn't been great this season either. Would anyone out there really complain if we sold him in the summer? Especially if Barca make another £30M bid they were rumoured to have made last summer? We have Zouma and Kalas and I would be happy with those 2 alongside JT and Cahill for next season, maybe add Ake in there as well. I've defended Luiz all the time since he joined, but I think my heart will be happier if we have a more solid CB that doesn't worry me all the time.

Well what could you sing about if you support West Brom? Boring, shitty football played by boring, shitty players cheered by boring, shitty fans in a boring, shitty stadium.

Woot

COYB!! As a side note, you say that Chelsea are live on BBC1 in the UK? Is this true?

Is it just me that thinks this is the best I've seen Chelsea play since 2006? Common denominator - Jose. My god I love that man and his mind games.... I'm not sure its healthy how much I do.

Bundesliga is nowhere near the quality of the EPL sorry mate... Dortmund and Munich are amazing, Leverkusen and Schalke are alright, everyone else is awful. Chelsea, City, Arsenal, Everton, Liverpool, Man Utd, Spurs and maybe Southampton are all better than Schalke and Leverkusen, the Premier League is the most competitive in Europe. Not laying in to you, just giving what I see as facts.

Probably. Hardly stopped us with AMs last summer though!! In all seriousness though, like hjper said we'll loan him out and see how he goes. Omerou, Kalas, Ake, Zouma (maybe Chalobah - although he might be a midfielder now) are our prospects now. I imagine Mou will assess them in pre-season and see which ones are ready to be in and around the first team now and which to loan out. Then if they don't fulfill their potential they'll take the Bruma route.

Two sources, not exactly reliable but it's been widely reported that Chelsea's scouts were at a few Sheffield United games recently. http://metro.co.uk/2014/02/05/chelsea-step-up-interest-in-sheffield-united-star-harry-maguire-with-scouting-mission-4291238/ http://hereisthecity.com/en-gb/2014/02/05/sp-manchester-united-target-stars-as-chelsea-tottenham-and-arsen/ What do you all reckon? Next John Terry is a bold claim, but if there's even a small chance he could be anywhere near as good as JT then £3M-£4M wouldn't be bad I reckon. He also looked pretty good against Fulham in the FA Cup so there's that too.

Ricardo Rodriguez looks quality too I agree. Under any other circumstances I would be crying out for him. But Shaw is English, and we need some more English players because 1) We're an English club and 2) We need it to fill a quota for competitions. On top of that, I don't think Shaw is any worse than Rodriguez (remember Rodriguez is playing in a poorer league), so for me Shaw all day.

Diego Costa or Cavani. I think Costa is a bully, the kind of striker we need. And while he might be a douche, it doesn't mean Mou can't sort him out a tad and anyway, he'll be one of those strikers that defenders HATE playing against. But like the OP said, always played with a strike partner, bit of risk there. Cavani is just quality. Would fit our system very nicely, but it just remains to be seen whether the transfer demands will be obscene which I wouldn't doubt. In conclusion; Costa has a semi-reasonable buy-out clause but would be a little bit of a risk talent wise, Cavani would be brilliant talent wise but PSG could want a ridiculous transfer fee and he could be on huge wages that we'd have to match/better. Either one would do me fine, with Ba and Torres being sold to help fund the move and Lukaku & Feruz as the squad players for the striker role.

No, he's saying that when push comes to shove, UEFA are more than likely going to overlook Man City's blatant fiddling of the books. Out of all of the top teams in the PL over the last 3 seasons, they have spent well above what they should have. Mou is just saying he hopes UEFA take a tough stance if City are found to have flaunted the FFP regulations & kick them out of Europe next season or something, but he doubts it.