MrExcalibur100

Kelechi Iheanacho.

We apparently just reached an agreement to sign another promising Brazilian player in addition to Kenedy a few days ago. This time, it's Nathan (19). I remember watching him in the U17 world cup two years ago, he was quality, arguably Brazil's best player but apparently, he's yet to make serious progress in his club since then. We pounced after a contract dispute with his current club, Atletico Paranaense. http://globoesporte.globo.com/futebol/times/atletico-pr/noticia/2015/04/atletico-pr-e-nathan-fazem-acordo-e-meia-deve-defender-o-chelsea.html(source) (video)

No worries. Jorge Mendes is now his agent meaning he'll always get a good loan. Those two leagues you mentioned won't be good for him though.

Has Azpilicueta really been that good this season? Certainly not an automatic pick.

Fuck, I didn't realize my post was so long, lol. 4:35 am were I'm at, but still typing on my phone about summer transfers. It's all out of love for the Chels. Freakin' love this football club.

How do we change the fact we only have two reliable goalscorers in the starting XI? Creating chances is not our problem, we are in the top 5 bracket in Europe's top 5 league's in that department this season, yet if you look at the teams we're ranked with, they've all scored more goals than us. In 2015, our goals scored record has been underwhelming. We aren't an efficient team. Yes, an improvement on last season thanks to Costa and Fabregas, but we can be so much better. Signing a reliable 3 goalscorer is a must, that was one of the reasons we struggled vs Paris in the home leg. All of the other top sides have more than two goalscorers in our starting XI. Signing Koke or Pogba will make us stronger but it won't improve our goalscoring by a great deal, which is what we need to take us to an even higher level. Both are also likely to be sold for an insane amount and Pogba will pick Barca or Madrid ahead of us, anyway. Most of this is down to the fact Willian and Oscar have terrible scoring records this season. Between them, they've scoered 9 or 10 goals all season. That's unacceptable. Schneiderlein, I'm not against. But we have to go all out for Reus or Greizmann if he's more realistic. Get rid of Oscar in the process as well. Painfully average, except for a few wonder goals here or there. Willian can do his pressing job in the 10 role if Mourinho insists on utilizing it so much.

Hazard in comparison to his age bracket using all relevant stats for attacking players (Gotze has fallen off. Might as well have replaced him with James Rodriguez): http://www.squawka.com/comparison-matrix#la_liga/2014/2015/neymar/136/136/5001/0/p|premier_league/2014/2015/eden_hazard/126/126/454/0/p|bundesliga/2014/2015/mario_götze/129/129/133/0/p|bundesliga/2014/2015/marco_reus/129/129/131/0/p|la_liga/2014/2015/gareth_bale/136/136/843/0/p#attack_score/total_forward_passes/chances_created/assists/key_passes/pass_completion/goals_scored/successful_take_ons/successful_take_ons_%#avg

A cheaper alternative to Varane.

Some interesting Hazard stats. http://www.squawka.com/football-player-rankings#performance-score#player-stats#top-5-european-leagues|season-2014/2015#all-teams#all-player-positions#16#44#0#0#90#08/08/2014#09/04/2015#season#1#all-matches#total#desc#total (Squawka highest performance score for the season) http://www.squawka.com/football-player-rankings#duels-won#player-stats#top-5-european-leagues|season-2014/2015#all-teams#all-player-positions#16#44#0#0#90#08/08/2014#09/04/2015#season#1#all-matches#dribble#desc#total(Squawka dribbling stats for the season. Amazingly, Hazard has completed 144 dribbles compared to Messi's 140 and has a success rate of 65% (!!) compared to Messi's 55%. He is clearly the best dribbler in the world now) http://www.whoscored.com/Statistics(Whoscored highest performance score for the season)

He's a very good player but nowhere near the media, particularly the Brazilian and even foreign media make him out to be. And you fall for it when you say he singlehandedly carried Brazil to the semi's, which is a bunch of nonsense. He's not the new Pele, or anywhere near Ronaldo or Ronaldinho for that matter. The amount of media hype he receives far dwarfs his actual quality, that's always been my problem with him and that's why I call him a myth. Will he be in my top 10 players in the world? No. But that's just my opinion anyway.

He really is a very good talent, isn't he? Lille seems to be a good club to loan young, talented players to. We loaned Joao Rodriguez to Bastia and the lad rarely got a game.

The muppet actually confused Hazard with Kane, he confirmed it on his twitter. He meant it to be Hazard - POTY and Kane - YPOTY.

I agree that ideally we should sign both a world class winger and a world class central midfielder, but it will cost too much money, unless if we are really clever. We might have to prioritize one over the other. Koke is a top player but Bale or Reus are the more pressing issues right now.

It's either you want a world class winger like Reus or Bale who bring something different and are big goal threats or you want another world class centre mid, in addition to Cesc. We can't have both. Will be too expensive. Judging from what I've seen since Mourinho came back, the former makes more sense and is more of a pressing issue, IMO, our biggest issue. Signing Pedro will take us nowhere, like signing Cuadrado or Douglas Costa. That's the brutal truth We need "world class" and "consistent" in those positions behind the striker. Then a new centre back.

I kindly disagree. For one, he looks to be a shadow of the player he once was. More importantly, our primary objective should be another world class attacker, a Bale or Reus. We need another consistent scorer besides Costa and Hazard. We also need an attacker behind the striker who offers variety to Hazard and Willian.......who can be effective without having the ball at their feet all the time. Schurrle, Salah, Willian, Oscar all to varying degrees have not been good enough. This team is crying out for another top class winger. That's what we need to take us to another level, not Gundogan or Pogba or Koke. They'll make us stronger, but not as much as a Reus or Bale would. These should be our number 1 priority, our marquee targets.

Speaking of which. http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/new-messi-19-players-took-5472311

Borderline RAWK levels of delusion.

Yeah, you heard it here folks! Despite awful after awful performances, Mourinho is to blame for the failings of Oscar. He's of course, holding him back. Of course, it's all Jose's fault! Who else could possibly be to blame? It's true Mourinho is to blame........For consistently giving this player a platform to bottle it and let the fans down. Of course, the evidence used to support this ludicrous claim is some Mickey Mouse tournament in London. I wonder why Hazard for example, a player of similar age to Oscar and who was bought in the same transfer window as Oscar is also struggling under Mourinho. If anything, Mourinho has given Oscar more opportunities than any other player to prove himself but consistently shows that he's simply not good enough. Oscar was riding on Fabregas' coattails eariler this season, but now that the latter isn't performing at the same level, Oscar has become his average self. It's not his fault, he's just not good enough and has hardly developed as a player after almost 3 seasons at the club. Oscar goes on international break and plays well in some Mickey Mouse, uncompetitve friendly that no player takes seriously and people like Gilvorak wank themselves silly over it. Perhaps guys like Gilvorak need to "learn football" (like he told me a few weeks ago) instead of making asinine claims about one of the best managers of all time, who is about to WIN US THE LEAGUE in order to take blame off a player who isn't really all that to begin with. Oscar has taken a vacation at the most vital part of our season. Like he did last season. And the season before that as well, under RDM and Benitez, before Mourinho. He's bottled it time and time again and let us down. But no, let's blame Jose, the guy who is about to win us the league for the 3rd time. And it's perhaps that that irks me the most from some of our fans. Simply amazing. Shame on such fans.

Beat me to it, I see.

Ashton, the shit stirring cunt is back at it again. Oscar "stood up" to Mourinho because we didn't play with a "sense of adventure" and as a result, he's seen his minutes reduced since January. Maybe, just maybe there's a simpler explanation Neil. Maybe Oscar has simply been shit and his ability as a footballer grossly overstated. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3029346/Chelsea-midfielder-Oscar-learning-hard-way-taken-Jose-Mourinho-off.html

Hazard is easily a better player in almost every way imaginable. He's also clearly the most inferior of Barca's 3 attackers. Do you think a guy like Neymar is even that close to a Sergio Aguero for example? But, yeah, Neymar's hype machine have done an incredible job to deceive people into making people believe he is something he is not. It's only a matter of time before the whole world realizes it. Neymar = biggest myth in football.

I thought April Fool's was a week ago? No? Surely this must be a very bad joke.

Mods, my ^^^^^^^^^^^^ post was supposed to be posted on the summer transfer window thread. If you can please delete it because I already posted the exact same thing there, thank you.

I don't know how you guys see it, but personally, I'll rather our marquee signing be an attacking option i.e a left or right winger, Bale or Reus than a Pogba. Pogba is a great player, but at this moment in time, isn't worth the fees being banded about and it remains to be seen how he'll adapt to a more reserved role (i'm guessing the thinking is to pair him with Matic?) because his style of play is anything but reserved. We need that second reliable option, behind the main striker, besides Hazard. That has been one of our biggest weaknesses obviously. Oscar, Willian, Schurrle, Salah and a host of others have been a combination of not good enough and inconsistent. Priority for me should be : (1) World class winger as marquee signing (preferably Reus or Bale) . This for me is a must. Much more so than Pogba or Koke. This is what we need to go to the next level . Both of those players will be very difficult to get, but that's the market we have to be shopping at to establish ourselves as CL favourites and the dominant power in English football. All this Cuadrado, Douglas Costa crap is just a waste of time and money and we all know it. (2) Technically gifted, creative, yet defensively solid and sound CM to partner Matic. The CM is to be a viable understudy to Fabregas, to play next to Matic obviously, and also to give us re-assurance without undermining the high standard of technical quality and defensive stability of the pivot if Fabregas is used as a number 10. The new CM will compete for places with Loftus Cheek, while giving RLC a realistic chance of game time. Andre Gomes has been sounded out and I like him and the idea a lot. Right age too and will suit our team perfectly. (3) A centre-back. Varane is the dream and he should be a primary target. It's safe to say that the depth in quality of centre-half's these days is at an all-time low. Probably the lowest its ever been. There just are so few prime aged centre-back's who are worth the hassle and price now. So aside from Terry's age, that's why he have to go for youth now, because that's were real quality is at. If Varane is unattainable, then go for Aymeric Laporte. We definitely need a new centre-back though. Terry is 34 and Cahill is out of sorts and unreliable. (4) Lesser issues : a new back up keeper to Courtois, preferably an English one to help with the quota. I've seen we've been linked with Green, which is good. Getting a decent back up should not be a difficult task. ~ Also. maybe a new fullback. Ideally we shouldn't; We have Luis and Azpi for goodness sake, both of good age, but maybe signing a new fullback will make Jose stop with the playing Azpilicueta out of position nonsense and the seemingly "invincible" status of Ivanovic regardless of how woefully he plays. The fact that he got right back (no pun intended) into the starting line-up after his awful performance vs Hull City says something. Jose Gaya is a great option, probably the best u-21 full-back in Europe right now and better than Bernat was. Perhaps a double raid of Valencia for Gomes and Gaya. ~ Another striker to replace Drogba is also something we should look at. Icardi is apparently in his last year of contract with Inter and we've been linked. He's a fantastic player, Italy's best striker by a long way. Technically, he's very good, better than Costa. He'll be a good option to have, next to Remy and Costa. Personally though, I'll go for a Dybala, who is more in the Aguero/Tevez mold, and gives us the type of forward we haven't had in a long time. This type of forward fascinates me. Technically brilliant, great close control, explosive, decent finisher and relentless. Lots of competition from other clubs for both strikers though.. If neither is unattainable, then I suggest we try and steal Angel Correa from Atletico. That boy will be one of the best players in the world one day. An unbelievable talent. He's not primarily and out and out forward, but has played as one for his previous club and did brilliantly. He will be an amazing signing. In summary, If we can bring in Bale or Reus, Andre Gomes (or a similar type of young, technically gifted CM, forget Koke and Pogba, they are luxuries and shouldn't be our primary marquee signing), Varane and Green, we'll have had an amazing summer transfer window. If we can sign an Icardi and Gaya in addition, even better. Transfer outs will be a different post at a different time, but I'm sure some of you guys already know who I have in mind anyway.

I'm not so sure....