BloodIsBlue

Aperently they boast that because of registered 'socios' or members that they have, paying memberships as well. Bayern will usurp Benfica shortly in having the biggest members club. Last time I checked Bayern were in second with 217,000 registered members and we had 240,000 at Benfica. We have a lot of these guys though, lies, there's only 1 Paulo Parreira <3. It's only biggest club by membership, not through history, records or financial power.

Levy is scum.

He would be good if the club had a different plan. I think the defense can suffice without the addition of a 26-28 year old defender. If we weren't so hell bent on making a team that will last for '10 years' he could work but for his cost he's just not worth it in the progression of this team. A leftback would be far more important and that would leave Ivanovic more chances to appear in the middle for days where Zouma isn't ready. If we are going to sign a new CB Id rather us not deal with a rival as we will always get a bad deal. It would be far more valuable to go in for Varane. With all the youth we have sitting around it would be wasteful to go for Varane but still a winning strategy.

The hooligan fight in that video was weak, all I saw was a lot of barking and plastic-char throwing. A bit off topic but I present to you the most beautiful hooligan fighter ever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiyVyn7nRSo <---- WARNING: A bit violent Latin America absolutely has the best football supporters in the world, the games are a party. Brazil can be somewhat violent as we seen in that head-stomping episode a while back. San Lorenzo is especially my favorite, European football supporters could learn a thing or two from them and the other festive teams like River and Boca.

Drogba an idol of mine, but as a club we shouldn't dwell too much on our history (even if it wasn't that long ago). The most important thing is the present and how we're progressing towards the future. I won't be clapping for anyone scoring goal against us not even Didier.He could score a hat trick against us and I would not consider him a traitor, he should thank the fans by playing his best and trying to beat us although I wish the opposite to come true. He'll obviously get a good reception but everyone wants Drogba to lose and not score against us. I don't the boo's will be necessary because even if Drogba does score against us at the Bridge I doubt he will celebrate.

Mourinho keeps his cards close to his chest, the media is always going to try to make sense of things. Their agent will always keep Mourinho and Falcao linked but I don't think for second the club is going to sign Falcao, we don't want someone who will be in their 30's at the end a short contract with us. EVERY other option intrigues me more through either the benefit of a young player or a far cheaper option than Falcao. Cavani would obviously make us a really feared team but PSG isn't that type of club and unless Cavani is so unhappy he becomes useless we don't have a shot at signing him for any reasonable fee. That leaves Costa, Balotelli, Mandzukic, Doumbia and L. Muriel all look to me as better options. Monaco also have Falcao spoiled as I read somewhere that he makes 12m tax free, we would have to put him on 450k/week to match his pay in London apparently. So Falcao has the potential to worse than 100 Fernandos should we experience the worst case scenario or a Torres like scenario. Falcao sold out moving to Monaco these are the kind of moves that create the Torres effect in players as they get greedy, can we really expect a goal machine when it looks like his motivation to be best has been replaced by his motivation to the richest?

Me too, its Spain's loss.

I think that first swipe was meant for Andre's head.

It couldn't have been anybody else.

What about Oscar's interception just now?

Well it wasn't. It's to stop clubs from spending more than their worth or better put more than they can generate themselves. Our club like many others over last decade benefited from liquidity injections but those do not count toward FFP regulations. You still require some liquidity injections if you want to be in the higher tier/bracket of spending for the rules. If you don't have billionaire to back you up the FFP regulation is much stricter. It doesn't stop a big club like ours from doing anything as long as we keep our debt accumulation within any three year window to below 45 million euros. I'm not sure on the exact figure but if you can afford it FFP doesn't stop you from doing squat, its spending over your means that it controls.

I prefer collars 10 times out of 10, classy as hell. I would prefer if the collars had 1 or 2 colored striped running along their lengths. They aren't so modern but especially as a team I like the kind of vibe they give off.

http://blogs.chelseafc.com/?p=3249 Interesting piece on how Chelsea almost copied Inter Milan's kit and because of one bad game we avoided black on away kits until this modern era. I for one really like the recent black the away kits I just wish they'd include more blue accents with the black.

I'm a sucker for collars.Anything is better than the kits some of us saw all throughout the 90's in football all over the world. I do hope the home kit is a fake however.

I know those first games Varane played he had some obvious simple slip ups, but Mourinho clearly had faith in him to play him. Zouma + Varane looks like Terry+Carvalho 2.0. I wouldn't be suprised, Mourinho had A LOT of faith in him at Real and the fact that he is French makes a lot of sense. If this is ever confirmed (and we'll have a long wait to see) David Luiz will become instantly expendable (if he isn't already). Varane has a great balance of strength and speed.

Nevermind. Admin pls delete.

Why does it matter? What does it have to do with fashion? And yes Mourinho does own a dog, a Yorkshire Terrier.

FFP has never been as much of a reality as it is right now.

I really hope they got it wrong here. If Mou wants Zanetti as part of his staff team, that's great but I doubt the actual conversation involved him signing let alone ever playing a game for us. Chances are the talks were probably about Wallace or maybe someone else (Guarin?). It wouldn't be right for Javier not to retire at Inter and join their coaching staff, it just doesn't make sense unless Mou truly sees himself leaving Chelsea for Inter in the future. If JT is having a hard time getting two years and Zanetti even gets 1 year I'll puke.

As long as Diego Costa doesn't go to the WC he'll stay under the 40m range (come the next window), his stock will rise if books a trip with Spain or if more than 3 clubs are dead serious on signing him.

Where is the evidence that a little bit of praise from Mourinho about Rooney didn't set all the BS tabloid sources into one of their wild circle-jerks. Was the club ever seriously perusing Rooney with a real offer or at least some probing low balls during the Jan window? Who knows what the summer transfer window will hold before and after the world cup, so I'm skeptical of any rumors about our club at this point in time despite how much they make sense.

I just feel like a lot of clubs will be in the striker market this summer so maybe if you are going for the Cavani and Suarez type players there won't be an inflation of price, but their fee's are ridiculous already. Mandzukic will cost at least 30m and Costa at least 40m after their respective bidding wars are all said and done. Still not Fernando Torres money but not far off. Gambler's mentality, something I do not posses. Should they fail we are are still in a position to make profit or at least come away clean, if they came here with a huge bill we will never recover all of it. Ideally you don't care about recovering any cash you just want goals, but that isn't ideal thinking for clubs other than ours. To be fair watching Diego Costa a bit while he was in the Portuguese League has always made it easy for me to brush him aside, he proved me wrong and became a far better player than I expected. Mandzukic just doesn't have enough talent for the player I feel we need to fill the role. The more I look around at the options, the more I feel they are scraps. The club will likely go for a big name signing, I just think my route is affordable and unexpected I'd also expec it will probably have similar results (any other group of strikers would have a much higher goal tally by now). Lukaku would be national sensation by now if he had been with us since September.

Of the group of targets that we can get Mandzukic and Costa are the most probable, we can't be so sure they will perform and Costa is going to be a least 40m in the summer. Di Natale says he's a champion so he's not going to be a nobody. You sort through all the 20m striker options in Europe and he shines brighter than the rest. My assumption is based on the guess that when Lukaku comes back he scores a few more goals. Muriel I wouldn't consider a stop gap, for the time being he would worth it if only to keep Lukaku on his toes with some competition. It could end up being a lucrative signing as well. Guarin is totally a stop-gap signing but not in a bad way at all, by the time his contract is up I think more young eggs will be ripe. As for Guarin. Firstly he is probably available which is more than one can usually say. Secondly he is that rare CM/DM player that we have in Ramires but who can shoot very well. If we are getting rid of Mikel he is the kind of player that we can actually use. He's the kind of player you can trust to start or to perform as a substitute and he provides immediate depth. He plays the DM/CM/AM roles all very well. He's also the type of player that is highly sought after in the BPL. If we had signed him in January along with Matic I think we wouldn't feel as wobbly right now, or at least Ramires' form would not have as large a contribution in that wobble (I'm not extremely worried but the toughest part of the season is only just beginning). If we do go through with signing a 40-70m striker signing and they flop like Fernando, it'll be dejavu all over again and another dark-age for the club (a bit of an exaggeration I know). If we keep the entire window's spending limit to that range (of 40-70m) for a couple players it will be much healthier for the future for the club.

Although Real and PSG will be eyeing him down he is one player I would like to keep for as long as physically possible. Keep Lukaku and his brother close and he'll have to think long and hard before leaving as long as we're paying him well enough.

We have Lukaku and we'll probably still have Torres kicking around somewhere. I've been thinking it would be smart to block Liverpool's backup to Suarez leaving for months now, Luis Muriel. The more you look at the situations behind our striker targets Suarez, Rooney, Cavani, Mandzukic, Costa or Balotelli the transfer look increasingly fictitious. Lukaku alone will feel like a new striker signing so for us to spend big might be too passionate and rash of a decision. I agree with the idea that Kroos isn't the right type of player for the system taking hold here. The other three seem perfect but not really possible. I don't this club to be the guinea pigs, finding out if he can recover from this injuiry. Vidal or Pogba would be perfect, I only see Pogba possibly leaving but for a ridiculous fee I wouldn't be interested in. Vidal will be impossible to pry away from Juve. My choice would be Fredy Guarin.