MrExcalibur100

It's not about physique, Demba is pretty physical but his all round game is average. It's just a general lack of quality in the striker department. And poor signings.

Lampard is one of the best CM's in history. Aside from the insane amount of goals, his general midfield play was impressive and oft underrated. Slow your role

Cech Azpilicueta, Cahill, Terry, Cole/ New LB Oscar/Willian, New CM, Matic, Hazard Diego Costa, Lukaku The most free-scoring teams of the past 3 seasons, us, Liverpool and Man City have done so playing with two strikers. Now that we have Matic at the base, a player who covers every blade of grass, an ever reliable defense and the prospect of having both Costa and Lukaku, this is an option Jose HAS to at least consider. Playing two strikers means you give the bus-parking teams that come to Stamford Bridge two monsters to think about. I can't see to many teams being able to shut-out both those players for 90 mins. I'm very excited at the prospect of a flat 4-4-2 in home matches against lesser teams especially.

Fighting for and (hopefully) winning the league. That's very important to the fans. The CL is just a bonus and the luck factor makes it a risky competition to bank on. We want the league. We only have 4 in our entire history and now Man City have even tied us. And of course playing MUCH better attacking football.

That avatar though..............Lad

Is it the system or the players? Other teams play better with far less resources and quality. Look at Everton. Except from Barkley, they barely have any flair players in their side. Chelsea have the greatest amount of flair players in the league. Costa doesn't worry me though. Just look at the guilt edge chances our strikers have missed all season. You would expect Costa to gobble those up.

Personally, I will have serious reservations signing world-class fullbacks like Lahm or Marcelo for 30 million pounds, let alone an 18 year old fullback, lol. United are desperate. ^^^^^^^^^^^^ Yes to Moreno and Rodriguez and you can throw in Bernat there too from Valencia. Another top LB prospect with fantastic qualities.

(1) He's 25. (2) He's scored 36 goals in 44 games, already tying Drogba's highest goal-scoring record in his 8 seasons at Chelsea. Drogba wasn't even close to him at 25 (3) He has the highest chance conversion in Europe among strikers. (4) Scored a very decent 20 goals in 36 games last season when Falcao was the main striker, so hardly a one season wonder as some ignorant people paint him out to be. 10 goals in 15 league games in his brief spell at Rayo Vallacano 3 seasons ago. So he has 66 goals in 110 games in his last 3 seasons . Putting that in context, Suarez has 65 goals in 102 games. Costa is a one season wonder? No, he's not. (5) Chelsea fans are apprehensive because our two biggest striker signings, Torres and Sheva flopped (6) I'm extremely delighted because we've signed one of the best strikers in Europe who isn't even at his prime yet.

Our spine is all of a sudden looking ferocious.

Also, here's some other interesting facts on Lukaku's goal-scoring record. 12/13 - 17 goals in 35 apps for WBA 13/14 - 15 goals in 31 apps for Everton In fact, Lukaku has out-scored Drogba, our greatest ever striker, in 6 of his 8 seasons at Chelsea with the only exceptions being in 2006/07 and 2009/10! This is a Drogba who joined us at 25, at the best moment of his footballing career, playing for one of the most expensively assembled teams in the world. Lukaku on the other hand, at age 19(!) in his first full season in English football, scored 17 goals in a horrible West Brom side were he was even played out of position to accommodate Shane Long. He repeated the feat in an Everton side entirely dependent on him to score goals. Some (like myself in the past), complain about his first touch, but that's something that comes with age. His first touch, in the first place has a lot to do with how massive he is. Also, back to my Drogba comparison, Didier didn't exactly have the best first touch in his first 2 seasons at Chelsea either. It was something that improved tremendously at Chelsea. There's no doubt that Romelu is the biggest striking talent in the world right now. If we are to sign Diego Costa (who is 25 as well), then we are going to have to look for ways to become more flexible with our system. I won't mind seeing a 4-4-2 (flat or diamond) against opposition we are expected to beat at Stamford Bridge. A front two of Costa and Romelu sounds insane on paper and with Matic being a midfield lynch-pin, we have the glue to hold it together. Besides, last time we won the league under Ancelotti, we played a lot of games with a 4-4-2 with Didier and Anelka up front. Safe to say, that season, we broke the premier league goal-scoring record and Drogba, Anelka and Lampard had their best seasons ever in a Chelsea shirt.

Players whose goals have directly provided the most points in 2013-14 (ie, first goal in 2-0 win, etc)... Giroud 14, Hazard 13, Gerrard 13, Sturridge 13, Suarez 12, Lukaku 12, Puncheon 11, Van Persie 10, Rooney 10, Aguero 10, Dzeko 9, Eto'o 9

He's not YET world-class but you can't deny that he's our best striker right now (he's proven it over the course of the season) and will have perhaps given us the extra 4-5 points needed to win the league. Case in point: The Aston Villa and Crystal Palace away games where Torres was absolutely pathetic. Our options are: Fernando "I can't score goals to save my life" Torres Samuel "I only come to play home games" Eto'o Demba "slightly above average" Ba. Sure, they've been rotated, but there is a reason why they've been rotated and that's that none of them are good enough for a title chasing side.

Nice to see John Swift on the bench. He and Baker are the best players in our U-21's. They are like twin towers, steamrolling all that stands before them at that level. Nice to see Tomas Kalas get a chance to show what he can do again. This one will be different from Liverpool as we will be dominating possession and there will be less of a screen protecting him. Nice to see Cole and Azpilicueta start together in their natural positions. Something gives me a feeling we might actually see some decent overlaps for once. And I hope this is Torres' last game in a CFC shirt. It's time to move on dude.

HELL NO!

Would have liked to see van Ginkel start alongside Matic.

Damiao will be a serious step down in quality, considering the amazing strikers they've had over the years. He seemed to be Brazil's next number 9, but he has never lived up to the hype.Torres, Forlan, Kun, Falcao and Costa. I heard that they wanted to replace Costa with Argentina's biggest talent, Angel Correa. Fantastic young player whose style is similar to Aguero. He looks like he could be a really special player in the future.

......................And yeah, apologies mods. Had to let that one out.

What a nasty shit-face thunder cunt that guy is. Absolutely disgusting shithouse club. The way they've conducted themselves concerning our players has been truly shameless. Why don't we just tell them to go fuck themselves, eh? Chelsea do NOT sell their best players! And Oscar despite his "dip" in form still has 14 goals this season. And why the fuck is he interested in Luiz anyway? Thiago Silva, Alex, Marquinhos (for fuck's sake, they signed this unproven kid for close to 45 million euros and he is basically a squad player, clueless fucks) See, even the Queen tells PSG to go fuck themselves. Twats.

Ha, Oscar is now considered an utterly hopeless player nowadays after struggling for a couple of months. He has scored 14 (yes) goals this season. He is our 2nd highest goalscorer. I know you're Belgian, but please come off it.

If United are really thinking about paying this price for an 18 year old fullback, then they've truly lost their marbles. Obscene.

Paulinho is overrated despite the calamitous season Spurs have had and the underwhelming season he has. I just saw Kovacic rip it up for Inter with two jaw-dropping, amazing assists that will make Iniesta blush. Those are the calibre of players we should be pairing alongside Matic, not Paulinho who has been terribly overrated even from his Corinthians days. He's been living up his Confederations cup hype and as far as I'm concerned, Ramires is a better player. No, just NO. The fact that we're even getting linked to this guy bothers me a little.

The Brazilian coach says he is the 3rd best player in the world. Same thing with Tata Martino when in reality, he is no better than Pedro or Alexis. He was voted 5th in the Ballon d'Or (seriously?) and continually gets nominated for the Puskas award despite being nominated for just "ok" goals. He certainly has "an entourage" behind him, like Mourinho will say. He is Brazil's new poster child but pales in comparison to the true greats like Romario, Ronaldo and Rivaldo, though he has more marketability. The Brazilians call him Neymidia for a reason. Speaking of Brazil, just skimming through Globo Esporte on a regular basis like I do, it's clear that a sizable portion of Brazilian fans think he is a very overrated player and they don't buy the propaganda their sports media propagates when they paint Neymar as a "crack".

Can he play as an out and out striker though or do we plan to buy another attacking midfielder? He plays in a free role for Hoffenheim and we play a very rigid system under Mourinho. He might struggle in such systems so I'm not sure how much sense this one will make for us.

Is this a real thread or a troll one? I'm seeing some all-time greats being called "overrated". Anyway, I'm going for most overrated player high profile player today and my pick is Neymar.

Just sub the word overrated for overhyped and you're spot on.