ruggedknot

If that were the case , we have problems already . . Its certainly a concern , surely Emenalo doesn't have that much clout with Roman . Every time I rationalise the notion that the manager's word should be heard first though, I think back to Jose's time when Avram came about . His role should be clearer soon , seeing his job is taken over by AVB's own assistants . AVB might not see the point in having him around at all and pitch that to the board as well , who knows ? Time will tell .

My every opinion on here is that of a purely footballing perspective . The words I use are to that context alone as well , wasn't saying you or anyone else is making a direct attack on him personally . If he's still here , there's a role and a reason behind it . It will be clearer when his role is (re)defined at some point in the future . Surely the club isn't just having him on the books for the sake of it , although the whole episode with Avram said otherwise . I'd like to think we've learn't since then . This shake-up on its own reiterates that the club is shifting gears in operations and taking a different route to maintain and hopefully soon , breed success .

A good , long , well-researched read on the new guy : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/chelsea/8597265/Andre-Villas-Boas-Chelseas-new-manager-who-has-dedicated-himself-to-football.html

As far as dugout vibes go , Paul Clements over Emenalo anyday . That being said , Emenalo is/was the opposition scout and his work was done before the start of the game . I don't understand why he gets all the abuse .

http://www.thenation...s-shopping-list Comes as a part of a bigger(?) story that the club has joined in the pursuit of Sanchez now . The source itself is debatable , a daily newspaper in the UAE . Written by their Premier League correspondent . The story could be a big pile of poo of course , the management page on the official website still has them listed . Big radical changes that some of us saw coming ? Is it to accomodate AVB's own backroom staff coming in ?Our entire scouting network has been disbanded as well , with no 'director of football ' around . It'll be a very interesting next few weeks right upto the season opener .

This is the best google translate could do : Falcao said it was 'honored' by interest from Chelsea and Real, but says it http://translate.goo...e-fica.html?utm Sounds like he's being respectful to the Porto fans . 90 k in his bank a/c every week and 26 million the other way might give him his first ChelseaTV exclusive .

Lukaku's offical website : http://romelu-lukaku.com/fr/ His official facebook page : http://www.facebook.com/Romelulukaku Last message was about his exams from a few days back , same as his official twitter . Everything else is just faux .

Doubt if this were true. Would Guus really reconsider moving to London with the wife based on not having one assistant coach ? Granted its a very important position , acting as a liason between the team and him but that sounds rather trivial for Guus to do a U-turn and stay put . Roman wouldn't be souring a working relationship and in many ways , a friendship with a big personality in world football such as Guus . Got him to coach Russia, filled his bank account and then sent that private jet to fly him over to London when needed most . For me what's increasingly looking like the real story is that the club under-estimated the resolve of the Turkey federation to hold onto Guus and Guus' own resolve not to break a contract which he has never done in his career . Went for him , was drawing out a lot longer than expected , then the alarm bells went off when some comments came about from the Turks about reporting the club to FIFA. Plan B - New strategy . Gamble , might pay off hugely in the long term . Villas -Boas .

Reading just the translation makes it look bad , in a way that the report has an agenda to belittle AVB . Watching the interview - even those who don't speak English would think the guys are goofing on him . Silly article .

Articulates the language better than King Kenny . Can't have that .

He's ginger . Out .

Or if there were to be a swashbuckling , all conquering start to the season , defeating United and putting on a good run of victories , I can easily see a chant coming and catching on. AVB can be very animated on the touchline too , which will only add to it . The David Luiz' chant for example , after the way he turned up , everybody got into it very quickly and now I don't know of a supporter who doesn't know it .

Nice one , thanks for putting that in Kostas . Like LdnBlue mentioned , I think Villas-Boas will almost certainly look to strengthen the forward right side of the pitch . Ivanovic for all of his sheer awesomeness in everything he does would perform even better if there's an efficient right sided forward in front of him . This could be Sturridge or Kalou , even Kakuta filling that role in tandem but RW and CM are certainly two areas that could do with some changes , looking at how the squad has been faring for a while now . I'll be implicitly trusting AVB to make the right calls with the setup , whatever the 25 man squadsheet shows on the 31st of August . It has been a long time since the last time a manager had a direct say in the transfers , without a director and any hierarchy above him setting the rules . Villas-Boas as a young manager will be doing everything he can to get things right before the season starts , looking to prove himself and raring to go. With our scouting team disbanded , its wiping the slate clean and restarting all over again with a different approach than the failed one with Arnesen around .

Wouldn't read much into it , just another guy pretending to be 'in the know' . The last message from Lukaku's official twitter account : School is over, I Got my degree :-) http://twitter.com/#!/romelulukaku He's probably out on the town on a beer binge right now .

There's two Villas-Boas threads open with people switching in tandem hah . Here's something that deserves to a spot in both anyway. Full Villas-Boas Interview : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4JTSFN7B8A

Full AVB interview : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4JTSFN7B8A

This has shades of Jimmy leaving the club at about 32/33 , despite being top scorer for a few seasons running till Jose came along and bought Didier , who at the time was 26 ? Falcao , also 26. Natural selection . Edit: Just checked , he's 25 ..ish . There goes that soundbyte.

That twisting shiny head of his scoring a bunch of headers is pretty special .

Abola reporting on it , now . http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.abola.pt/nnh/ver.aspx?id=270961 Article mentions the original source, but looks like news is spreading over Portugal now .

Porto apparently are very close to signing Maritimo striker Kléber as a possible replacement as well , mentioned on Portugoal.net . This very well could happen .

If this is really happening , expect one or two of Anelka/Kalou/Drogba to leave . Hopefully Sturridge gets some time , doubt he'll be staying any longer till he gets assurances . Another loan spell or worse a transfer away and I wouldn't want Drogba leaving just yet . Then there's the whole thing with Lukaku as well , ayi yi .

Wasn't there a banner up above on bullshit articles being posted ? Seriously , inflated rumours are one thing , ridiculous garbage is another . Waste of space.

Isn't just Arnesen involved in the setup though is it ? As the chief scout , his tasks are more likely to entail the actual recruitment of prospects , rather than the development of them. I was having a short but interesting exchange with Mike Beale ( Academy youth development officer and more specifically , Academy coach for Under-14s and youth development officer overseeing local development centres) a few weeks back where he was telling me that he's particularly excited about the next coming crop of English talent from the academy . This was around the time when the exodus of players to Hamburg was starting to happen while I was addressing generic supporter concerns with the best academy talent leaving , in numbers . Also put this out when AVB signed : Just goes to show that there are different levels of management who are , on a personal level , in sync with AVB , and these are the guys who actually train the youth players , out on the grass . The development reports/dossiers are sourced together by these guys , rather than a top ranking suit than Arnesen .

I'd presume he was talking about the dossiers and among other things , development reports on the academy and the reserves players , players out on loan , probable transfer targets and the scouting reports on them and so on . I quite like the fact that he's taking his time to deliberate on things before taking big decisions and in saying he needs to a lot of people all around the hierarchy with his vision of a unified approach in everybody being a part in the advent of the club going forward . Also remember him saying something along the likes of the club hiring him for his ' human qualities' . There-in lies a certain philosophy that I think could prove to be infectious and all-encompassing , which will help make great strides with the future of ChelseaFC . It's going to be hard , particularlly in the league these years and Europe , but I for one am the most optimistic I've been since the 04-05 years .

Thank you for that , I'm sure I would've never found out about that snippet on any other forum if it wasn't posted here . Luca VIalli = absolute legend .