CurlyHairLikeLuiz

Can I just ask the question: What makes you believe that you have a better knowledge that the last 3 consecutive coaches that have picked the players they've picked? You don't know what's going on behind the scenes. I suspect the board are just refusing to budge, likely due to the impending building of our new stadium. Arsenal lost their spending power in a similar fashion when the Emirates got the go ahead. Ivanovic is the best we have at our disposal right now. As sad as that is, there isn't really much free talent in the market that was on Ivanovic's level when he was good, that is also attainable. Carvajal? Expensive, and not exactly setting the world on fire. I can't think of anybody else. Danny Simpson? The only way out I see is trusting Aina and growing him into the role. The spending you're seeing with City is only possible for them because of the way they have cheated FFP, and because their owners are both richer than Roman and also not about to demolish a stadium and do an expensive rebuild of it and the adjacent tube station. I hope to God we get Koulibaly, because otherwise we'll either end up with nothing or mediocre players like Baba. I also hope that Koulibaly is as good as people think - the General Transfer Talk page jumped to an early (Jan 2012 ish) page and the fact that Gary Cahill was on many people's wish lists goes to show how much desperation can blind people. We should have brought Clyne when he was available, it's too late now.

Yes, I think they key is that I wish him to succeed *as long as* he doesn't out succeed us. He is Chelsea, and despite what those that don't like him say, he wasn't going to walk away. He would have got us out of this mess. Oh well, flogging a dead horse I think. I must have had this exact conversation a good 50 times around the time of that Sunderland match.

Then what are you saying? Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I want Koulibaly, I do, but banishing JT will be a big mistake, he is not the problem.

the whole football world was mocking City's defenders last season because they look awful when Kompany's not there; none of Otamendi or Mangala had any clue what they were doing and now I should sit here and congratulate them for wasting their money on a defender who was poor last season? What is the insistence on pissing away Roman's money needlessly? It's because you want to see quick results. Sit the fuck down and be patient. The same thing will happen if we banish JT from the team as what happened when Kompany got injured: Nobody had a clue what to do. You must have banished the memory of Cahill-Zouma from your memory because if you didn't you'd recall that the whole back line, including Azpilicueta, didn't have a fucking clue what they were doing. You need a leader, and JT's all we got.

I don't think we can use Cahill and JT together, too slow. But JT and Zouma were good last season, he is still a good defender with a bit of speed next to him. Personally I would sell Cahill because we'd get some good money for him. But that's never gonna happen, so I won't dwell on it.

So they have a disappointment, a gimp, a disappointment and and overrated Englishman for CBs? The converse side of the coin is that if we get that Koulibaly geezer we will have the best bunch of CBs in the league when Zouma's fit - JT, Zouma, KK, and Cahill (who is still not bad for a backup).

Wow. Don't get me wrong, I firmly disagreed with the decision to sack Mourinho, but what's done is done and I have to say it is nice not having to defend both him and the club after every press conference. I hope he's happy at United (and I think he's not), but now we have to relegate him to the past and move on as one club - despite the same people trying to recreate the same rift by slagging off John Terry and trying to pretend he's not the best CB we have. Cheering on another club is one (or, rather 5 or 6) steps too far.

I really do hate the internet sometimes. I completely agree I do tend to find the opinions of this forum are far detached from those of fans I see at matches. But let's not go there.

The last few posts in this thread makes me cringe. A slow RB, and 2 slow CBs is always going to be a mess. But if you have to pick one of the 3 Terry starts every time. When Happy is back (or indeed if we bring in Koulibaly) along with a little pace we'll look much better. I really hope Conte lets Aina grow into RB; I can't watch Ivanovic any longer.

Fabregas might tuck in behind the striker, like he does for Spain.

I can't say I agree. Terry is not the problem. The only person who has exposed him this pre season was Mane. Cahill and his RB have stuggled no matter the opposition to be honest. I think you undervalue our defence - Terry and Zouma as a pair work very well and before he was injured our defensive record recovered. It's all well and good blaming the CBs but the fact is that Azpilicueta is better on the left flank, where he can be a proper fullback. On the right his defending worsens and he's still crap going forward - not much better at hitting a cross than Ivanovic imo. Terry is good with the ball, he often plays the ball out of defence, it is a myth that he is not. The reality is that Terry is still the best of our defenders (yes, and Zouma) and letting him go would have been an incredible error of judgment not to mention being politically impossible with regard to the board's position with the fans. The RB position is a question which is a hard one to answer; there is not much available talent going around right now and probably breaking Aina in is our best option. I stand by my prediction that the club will hold onto Terry until the 17/18 season concludes. Cahill, on the other hand is not good enough to start for this club. The grass is always greener philosophy here is at times unbelievably frustrating - Just now I saw someone suggest we should buy Lukaku to replace Costa because the latter's form has been erratic, disregarding the fact that he stopped scoring after the game against us back in Febuary! Our defence will be fine, though I will not deny our backup options could be improved. That's our weakest link. Not to mention that our goalkeeper had the worst season of his professional career, all at the same time.

You gotta trust em some time. The way I figure it, we might as well do it while we have no international football. Don't forget, he looks (at his worst) no worse than Ivanovic, and when Zouma returns the whole defence will look more stable. If we keep Kenedy knocking around then we can always rotate the two depending on the match situation.

Just as I said last season, I am definitely in favour of throwing him in this season as opposed to buying elsewhere. None of the alternatives seem compelling. Azpilicueta is better on the left flank anyway. He's crap going forward on both sides.

CB* Cahill has looked vulnerable a lot so far; Terry (aside from the raw pace of Mane) has been just fine. Zouma can't come back soon enough.

That means Bats playing second fiddle, and I think he's better than that.

No thanks. Costa is better than he is and we will certainly lose money overall on swapping them out. Costa has been loyal to the club since he joined; and these exit rumours simply exist to destabilise him. Lukaku on the other hand...

At least the lions are back on the socks. Such a shame the kits are awful, another year of the 14/15 home shirt it is.

Sorry but there are many reasons why this won't happen: Costa is better than Morata any day of the week, and Batshuayi looks like hot shit too Morata won't be willing to sit on the bench, much less for a club that isn't even in Europe We're about to build a new stadium, Roman isn't going to blow the budget like he used to. The money would be better spent in other areas. I expect one more striker as cover for those two. Maybe Pelle will do it, along with Bertrand Traore.

The benefit here at Chelsea is that we have a nearly as good keeper in Begovic to substitute if he ever bitches about Chelsea again. Conte won't take any shit.

I bet you he has said no such thing and will stay here.

Looks like I wasn't far off

I don't think we're ever going to agree on this. In my opinion reducing immigration is not racism. The economic argument for immigration is sound, but mass immigration causes the social fabric of society to rip apart; lots of ghettoisation has occured over the years in places like Dagenham and it breeds hatred, and nationalist tendencies. Immigration is good, but too much (and equally too little) is not. Farage is not a racist, in any definition except the warped Left wing one which used to be used to keep white people quiet. To be honest his party is being used as a beacon for the wrong kinds of people and while it has served its purpose (UKIP did force the referendum, after all!) he would be taken far more seriously if he went to the Conservatives. No, I don't have complete authority over what is or isn't racist, but neither do you and having experienced racism first hand I use that as my definition. Perhaps I'm wrong, it is entirely possible I've just been desensitised to lower forms of racism. The poster was a lapse of judgment, but he doesn't make his own propaganda and I think the bloke that came up with it probably got a good talking to. Yes, they did the same during your referendum campaign. The difference being that England has been subjected to this negative attitude for so long that I think the electorate simply chose to ignore it. Although it did make me laugh when Remain campaigners who wanted to crucify the City during the recession were now many of the people trying to urge people to listen to it. Well, I'm glad Boris is not running. Gove represented exactly what I wanted from Leave, I would definitely trust him to do what's right (in my opinion). I'm not for the Norway option, if we go for that we might as well have stayed in. I'm not expecting to have my cake and eat it, to trade with the EU will likely involve a tariff but we can certainly negotiate something better than 10% which is the normal going rate. Yes, it could be viewed like that but countries like France, the converse may occur - Eurosceptic feeling is high there and therefore giving the UK an unfavourable deal would be like a shot to the foot, as in the event that they leave, they will probably get the same deal. Plus Germany calls the shots in the EU; and if it imposes a bad deal on the UK it would cause loss of jobs there. Combined with deals with other countries around the world like India, we may well come out stronger than when we were in. I'm pretty sure there was another figure for Iceland which I heard in a TV debate, but I can't remember now. My point is that where one closes a door, another opens; a lot of countries will see this as a good opportunity to get a favourable deal with the 5th largest economy in the world. Not quite. By the point we were to start stripping rules away from the Bill, for all intents and purposes we would be outside of the EU. It'd be a far quicker exit process than 2 years. I expect there will have to be a decision made whether Northern Ireland (for the people) whether they favour further integration with the Union and for all intents and purposes just become 'Northern Ireland County Council' or if they would prefer to join with Ireland and remain in the EU. Both would have their benefits, but I can't comment further because quite frankly I don't have enough knowledge on the NI perspective or the issues facing it. Regarding Gibraltar and NI, I think we'll just have to see what happens, but the UK can certainly make it as painless as possible for both countries (Irish passport holders for example would still be eligible for free movement as before the EEC) and it won't be the disaster as advertised. By "New Currency" I assume you mean a Scottish pound in the literal sense. I think one reason why Scotland voted to remain is because one of the key Leave points (mass immigration) does not apply (at the same extent as England) to Scotland. It is a mainly England focussed point. I think that, however, there would have to be a more vibrant economic manifesto in order for an independence vote to succeed: Basing an economy on a finite commodity (and also how much actually goes to Scotland; Many of the ways of dividing it up favoured England & Wales) was never going to be a vote winner because it can be exploited by the opposition so easily. I just can't see the EU removing the Euro from any entry deal, otherwise existing Eurozone countries would see leaving and rejoining as a way to get rid of it, unless Brexit significantly changes their view towards federalisation - entirely possible, but I wouldn't bet on it.

The only thing I can see this loan being useful for is re-accustoming himself to central midfield. It's the place where he's most likely to ever get game time here.

Well to be honest, before the club basically blew my ideas out of the water, I would have put Baker/Ake, more energetic midfielders in place of Matic. You don't need to play football with a holding midfielder in traditional style. Nainggolan would work. Think of RLC being Alli, Cesc being a much better version of Rooney, and Nainggolan being Dier but more B2B, if that helps. However to get Hazard in the team I think we will have to use a more traditional system. 4-3-3 is probably most likely. Something like Cesc-Matic-RLC/Nainggolan or whomever Willian/Pedro-Costa-Hazard for example

Label me all you want mate, I don't care. Farage is not a racist, in any sense of the word. In fact, the immigration system he proposes is actually fairer to ethnic minority immigrants than the current system is; as it will view them equally as opposed to treating them as 'less useful' compared to the (overwhelmingly white) European labour market. What you're trying to imply is that he's racist just because some of his voters are. I know what a racist is, my dad is extremely racist and therefore I can tell you in confidence that neither Nigel nor Ukip is a racist person/party. As for having a European wife, well, you wouldn't marry somebody that you'd spit on would you? He was a commodities trader - he knows economic principles, that is my point. Most of the current economic turmoil is because the markets are based upon speculation; and the Remain campaign's scaremongering has spooked the stockmarkets. This was largely your campaign's own doing. I won't deny that Brexit is a leap into the dark, but we can shape our future purely through our own actions. The Commonwealth is mentioned because we can readily re establish our links with them - Canada, the US and India have already expressed interest in agreeing a trade deal with us. Once again, this vote was not for isolation. That is the single biggest lie of te Remain campaign; the aim of Brexit is to stop facing inward towards Europe and engage with the rest of the world, which we will do. Plus do you really think the EU is going to cut off its nose to spite its face? We will get our trade deal. It won't be as favourable as a completely free market but that's the price the majority of the electorate is willing to pay in order to connect with the rest of the world. Switzerland has $33 trillion of trade deals with other countries. The EU has $8 trillion. Anyway, Euroscepticism is flowing throughout Europe and therefore countries won't treat us too harshly in case the same happens to them. Furthermore, I don't buy the idea that young people are overwhelmingly in favour of the EU. The figure of 70% voting to Remain is a compelling one, *but* there is no mention that that was based on a 40% turnout. This gives me the impression that actually most young people don't care, because they certainly didn't care enough to vote. Britain has never played by the EU's rules, I don't see why the government needs to start now. You misunderstood. What we could do is write all current EU laws into UK law, repal the Acts of 1972 that give the ECJ supremecy over British courts and then the Lisbon Treaty which effectively takes us out of Europe - no Article 50 needed. Then Parliament can just amend the Bill of EU directives to gradually remove the laws we don't want and keep the ones we want, for example keeping the Working Time Directive but disposing of the Common Fisheries Policy. Gibraltar are not a victim. Once again, we can just give Spanish nationals Gibraltar specific work visas as to preserve Gib's workforce. No, I know Sturgeon was not FM at the time, but I just got a bit muddled with my tenses. I'm not saying that English people should actually have a vote, I was just saying that most English people aren't too bothered about Scotland leaving. Don't get me wrong, I respect your opinion - we're both entitled to one, and Scotland's economy might be more favourably looked upon funding wise by the EU if you join it as a new country. I don't know, I look at it from an English perspective. But I will say you won't get the best of both worlds - for example, even if the EU allows you to keep the pound, I highly doubt the Bank of England will. And as the past year has shown, basing your economy on oil (as Salmond unashamedly wanted) would have been very, very bad.