EMK

You might not rate Ross as a footballer but to say he isn't even worth 15m is nothing short of the ridiculous.

He's had some good games here and there I'm not going to go full knee-jerk mode. Let's wait at least till New Year. 
The problem I had with his signing is that we clearly tend to favour certain types of players over others, not just under Conte but in the Abramovich Era. We'll go for Bakayoko but rarely will we sign a Weigl, Seri, Dahoud or Torrerria. Fabregas is like the only midfield regista we've had in maybe the last decade.
Basically every top team in Europe is awash with these types of players and this is what allows them to be so competent and much more technically advanced than us. When sides like Liverpool and Spurs are bossing our midfield there's a problem. 

I wasn't highlighted as anti Bakayoko because like I said the moment he signed, I budged from my stance and started supporting him and I still do despite his struggles. If you go back to Baka's transfer thread you would regularly find me criticizing this transfer because out of that outrageously talented Monaco team, the player I was always least impressed was our Baka but the fact is that he is here now and he is new to this league so we must at least give him more time and have more patience. If this time next season he is still churning out the same kind of performances then we can label him as a poor signing but right now we must be patient with him and hopefully with time he will prove both you and me wrong. 

Our brilliant technical director looked across the vast array of world football, and saw a budding young team full of unique talents in AS Monaco take Ligue Un & the UCL by storm last season. 
Monaco had many many talents from Mbappe, Bernado Silva, Fabinho, Thomas Lemar, Djibril Sidibe, Benjamin Mendy and Bakayoko.
Out of all those young talents, Bakayoko was without a doubt the least talented player/ player that needed the most work. We all could see it. Take a look at his transfer thread, and you could see all the criticisms. 
And even though Bakayoko's entourage tried their absolute hardest to make this transfer as difficult as possible, (by demanding high middleman fees) AND the fact that Bakayoko needed knee surgery.  Our brilliant fooball directors couldn't possible find any better alternatives to sign and decided to press on with the deal and spend £40M on the lad. 
And here we are. Wondering what football skills this guy brings to the table that we didn't already have.
He can't complete mid-range to long-range passes even though he plays as a CM. Needs multiple touches to gain control, and only excels when he has time and space to dribble into, which even then isn't a guarantee he'll make the right footballing decision. 
So again I ask, what the fuck does Bakayoko bring to CFC ? 

No more long posts explaining 'potential'. Use your eyes. He is fucking pathetic. Dreadful. Embarrassing. Lazy. Stupid. Worthless to our team. One of the worst midfielders I've ever seen play for any top team.
 

I don't know if he is the best in the league, but i can tell you with certainty that he is SO much more crucial than people in here give him credit for.
I am neither blind nor crazy to believe that Cesc is not a very limited player and at fault many times, but whenever our team is clicking and playing beautiful football, i don't see any of his critics coming here and acknowledging how crucial he has been in those matches. Simply put, without Cesc our creativity is nonexistent, and that is not an exaggeration at all, the football we play without him is utterly boring and predictable. We can't just expect from a player like Eden to drop deep and start the attacks (something that we have seen time and time again when Cesc is not playing), that is a total waste of his talent. Eden needs to play right where he is playing at the moment.
Sure, i would love to see an upgrade in the near future, but that is the useless board's job, not Cesc's. Till that time comes people should stop asking from him to do things that he cannot do, he is what he is and he will not become any better no matter how much we complain.
P.S. I used to hate Cesc with a real passion and when we went after him i was 1000% against the move. After all this time has passed, i have to admit that i have never had such a big change of heart about anything in my life. And it is not just because of what he has offered to our club on the pitch, but also for his commitment and general ethos.
 

If he was able to finish off those chances in front of goal with feet, he would be at around 15-20 goals in all comps by now.
He is quite shocking in 1v1 with feet, the fact he still scored so many goals hides that, but has to improve massively.
Games for now have been quite simple, since there was always next time to improve, but knockout stages will have two games and Morata will simply get that one chance and he needs to score or we will be in trouble. Though that can be solved eventualy if we bring another poacher and play 2 upfront in future seasons if it doesnt work out with Morata as lone striker.
Linkup and headers are amazing though, fantastic when it comes to that.

Pedro may not be at that level in terms of natural talent, but he is the perfect foil for player's that are, there's a reason he was a regular for Pep.

You can't watch a player be consistently average, and then lap on the praise because they were 'good' against West Brom. That's the logic.
Imagine watching Oscar put in the level of performances Bakayoko has, which we did, and then praising him for showing up vs. Hull City. That we did not do.
Similar with Cahill. We know what he is, so we're not going to take 1-off games of his as a measure of his ability.
I'm still seeing a player who releases the ball too late, holds onto the ball too long, and who walks more than runs. When you add barely any assists/goals to that, I'm left debating with people on here how on earth this is someone worthy of our XI (because he's strong apparently. such a rare type of player!)
A lot of players can 'create space' and 'charge forward' like he does - while doing a lot more on top of that too. So i'll continue to criticise this transfer, and the lack of critical thinking (IMO, maybe i'm dead wrong) surrounding this. I don't see this heavy investment paying off years down the line. I see time wasted, where we could have had an influential player with leadership, or a youngster of our own bled in. I see no logic in praising him for doing the minimum of what's expected (for some of you guys anyway) vs. a Tony Pulis side.
Where was he vs. Roma? Tied up in Fabregas's dungeon of shackles again? What about City? You measure a player that cost 40m in those games, not these games. He's not Chelsea starter material, and that's the fault of whoever recruited him, no fault of his own. 

He's such an effective player, his downfall is when he starts falling to ground easy and throwing his hands at the official, but he's learning that's England.
He's not a bully of a forward he is like the Milk Tray man, he's subtle, good at what he does and has a real element of surprise about and is fucking great at what he does.

I think he has really good core of abilities, but he must decide in which direction he wants to go. If he wants to be midfielder, he needs to work on his stamina, awareness, tactical aspect of the game. If he wants to be #10 or second-striker, he needs to improve his end product (assisting and scoring more).
Also, it would be great if he learns to use his height more. It would take some work, but he could become decent in heading/winning areal battles, we don't want to have another Matić - tall player with really no areal presence. Loftus has ton of possibilities.

Quite seriously, do the people who hate him and are happy to see him leave know why they are happy?
Just to take a step back and take an overview of his role and time at the club: When he was promoted to Technical Director in 2011, we had an aging squad with an alarming player power playing a dying style of football while the club was synonymous with ridiculous over-spending in the transfer market on big names that made it virtually impossible for any youth player to break through.
Over the past 6 years, we've moved steadily towards younger squads, with more flamboyant and modern style of football. The player power in the dressing room is all but gone as the Costa saga proved. We've finally reached the stage where our youth academy is actually turning a profit as we've seen this summer with Christensen, Ake and Chalobah. We've also become one of the most astute clubs in the transfer market, especially on selling players that we no longer need (so much so that opposition fans accuse us of bribing other clubs into buying our players!  ).
Despite the drop in our budget (relatively to the rise of prices) and our inability to compete financially with the Manchester clubs, we've still managed to steadily improve our team with FFP-compliant low net spending (even lower than Arsenal!) which has allowed us to remain the most successful team in England during these years. 
I know, I'm painting quite a rosy picture here, and of course there has been many mistakes and blunders, but I think it is undeniable that when looking at the overall trends the club has moved in those general directions in the right way in the past 6 years which have arguably been the most successful period in the clubs history with 2 PLs, the holy grail, a EL, the FA cup, and the league cup.
Now, I'm in no way attributing all of that or any of the above solely (or even mostly) to Emenalo, but when I look at the progress and achievements of the club since 2011, I can only sincerely thank Michael for any part he played in helping us get to where we are now and wish all the best with his life after CFC. 

Director Marina Granovskaia, who is primarily in charge of transfer negotiations, is taking over his duties for the time being. That means the scouting network and academy director Neil Bath is reporting directly to her.
 
Great, proper football people reporting to a bureaucrat who has no clue about that field. Sounds just like how real life works for common folk.

Well, duh! It's just like one performance/win doesn't take away from our recent unconvincing performances/results.
How does Bakayoko want to play like Kante? The former appears to operate best as a B2B midfielder while the latter works best as a defensive midfielder and in a system like Conte's, Kante does get some freedom to bomb forward.
Some of you lot here really have no patience. Had Bakayoko come from our academy, people would be pleading patience for him. But because we bought him from elsewhere, people are quick to jump on his back. At least give him some time and chance to improve. If he's still the same like now in 1-2 years' time, then fine.

Why’s this thread so quiet? What a promising performance that was from Bakayoko. Not surprised that happens now he had a competent midfield partner in Kanté. 
Really needs to work on his finishing though. Could’ve had a couple goals today. 

WTF...Out of nowhere...What should i do to my display pic?

He wasn't good, and that's being said after the game. Good. But the idea along the lines of, 'How come Hazard always escapes fire when we play shit!?!?!?' is stupid. If a player is generally your best player for 7 or 8 out of 10 games, you don't give him the same smacking as the players who go missing 8 out of 10 games, do you? Why would you do that? It isn't 'fair'.

You know, I just wanted to come here and praise Michy for his attitude. He gets some stick from us, but what has impressed me is that in his first season he barely played, got humiliated several times with a few secondcameos, couldn't even get a game when Costa wasn't fit. Any other player would have sulked and left or gone on loan, but he stuck to it and is reaping his rewards. Getting plenty of game time now, scoring goals, always having a positive attitude. There are obvious footballing reasons why he is a substitute, but besides that I really like how he didn't jump ship at first opportunity.

Not to derail this thread further, but I believe the issue with that line of reasoning is who decides what is "highly offensive shit" and what is not.
That's not to say freedom of speech should be absolute, either. Of course there should be laws against harassment, verbal assault, libel...etc.
And equally certainly a football club should be able to ban people for making bigoted chants.
But arresting people for saying bigoted things, that's not far away from thought crimes, imo..

While the song was terrible, and clearly bigoted. I find it equally shocking that the UK is so backward that the cops can arrest you for saying something offensive, a reason to envy the Americans, with the freedom of speech enshrined in law.  

Tired of all this talk mate and it seems that the media and the opposition fans have once again turned your head upside down and made you see whatever they want you to see.
Exactly like Mourinho did last season when he underachieved with the most expensive squad ever assembled. "If it wasn't for all the missed chances..." - this is what I kept hearing during all last season from Mourinho and United fans. Somehow Mourinho turned their minds and mislead them into thinking he did a great job, but players let the club down by missing chance after chance.
Wow, what a great logic this is!!! Let me tell you something - if every club would put away every goalscoring chance they have, even WBA would finish the season with 100+ goals scored. 
Every team misses tons of chances during the season. We've scored 85 goals during last season. But did we have only 85 chances of scoring? Or 90? Hell no, we've probably had 250+ scoring opportunities. What if we had capitalised on at least 80% of our chances like Mourinho kept talking about? We'd have won the league title by February... But this "If it wasn't for all the missed chances..." was only a United thing last season because Mourinho and the United fans were the only ones that kept talking about it. 
Like they were the only ones missing chances and others were scoring with every shot on goal...
It is exactly what is happening now with Matic. We've all wanted him out of our starting line-up for two years now. How many of us have asked for his head, especially after EVERY SINGLE match against a big team in which he was completely useless and got exposed everytime when Chelsea faced a decent set of midfielder? Matic is a decent option to have against lesser teams, but he is of no use against big teams.
But this has no relevance now that he is at United and United fans keep spouting absolute shite, with some Chelsea fans biting the bait every single time. It's like they've signed Iniesta's heir and we're left with a poor man's Charlie Adam.
"Wow, they let Matic go and replaced him with Danny fucking Drinkwater! Haha" - it's something coming from the United fans, that you hear and read everyday now. When the truth is we've replaced Matic with Bakayoko and Chalobah with Drinkwater.
We've replaced Matic with a younger and better version, French league title winner and UCL semi-finalist at only 22, playing in a two-man midfield. Exactly the tactics we use. 
Drinkwater for Chalobah - An England international, former EPL winner and Kante's former partner in a two-man midfield, to sit on the bench and act as a back-up only.
Chelsea have not signed world beaters, but at least they are players to fit Conte's philosophy - Rudiger and Christensen (basically feels like a new signing) have played in a three at the back formation at Roma and Gladbach, Bakayoko and Drinkwater have played in a two-man midfield, Zappacosta is a wing back, Morata is versatile and not only a target man.
But when some listen too much to the oppositions fans taking the piss out of hate and envy, reality gets disrupted. Afterall Chelsea have won two out of the last three league titles in England - time in which United were always deemed as favourites to win it after assembling the most expensive squad in football history. 

Like with Kurt Zouma, we have seen that Conte does not a ACL injury lightly. Zouma barely played and that would also become the case with Baba.
If I remember correctly though, he can still play cup matches even if he is not on the PL list.

Thought he was quality today and a constant menace to Everton. I thought I was the only one who recognised it but glad sky sports and BBC gave him MOTM and MOTD2 gave him a special mention. He is so under-appreciated in here, it is actually crazy.