Kostas

Genius, worth sending to the club so that hopefully someone bright enough will pass it on to the highest authorities. Has ANYONE even remotely credible actually said ANYTHING? Might be textbook denial but considering Lampard's character* and his importance to the club I can't see this being anything but typical contact negotiations. Give it a few months and we'll have Terry's contract to ramble over. *In the sense of him not being as thick as Joe Cole/Sturridge or as adventurous as Didier

If those number are true the it's definitely a non-issue or at least one that's not worth the e-ink I've seen wasted on it.

Fuck no. Having two crooked strikers trained under Benitez's training methods sounds like a very cruel joke. Does anyone follow Ba closely enough to know how serious/bad the situation is?

I wouldn't rule out him becoming our next interim (if the need arises) till June.

This match has only served as confirmation of how truly broken the glass is. If I recall correctly that's a single horrid performance after a (by his Chelsea standards) absolutely tremendous run of form and we are all unanimously back to thoroughly despising him, because that's exactly what his overall Chelsea performances deserve. Can't wait for him to fuck off. The club and us supporters will be much more healthy.

I came into this thread to find something that would cheer me up. Think that will do so cheers. Gotta love me some context.

While I certainly agree there's been a lack of focus it's not like we don't have plenty strong angles if there was a need to criticize Sturridge using purely footballing grounds. The discussion has taken this course because the transfer had obviously sweet fuck all to do with on-pitch football.

Malouda is smarter than canceling his vacations in Brazil in order to move from London to Liverpool.

Cheers. Seems like a very tidy sum (even when substracting the City %) considering he had but a few months on his contract. Will need to get a figure on his wages from a trustworthy source to decide if he's the absolute mong he currently appear to be. City->Chelsea->Liverpool. Doesn't he read the papers?

Any word on transfer fee and/or wages?

Despite the horrible tumblr format I read through this because the author is spot-on when talking about some common misconceptions and apparent facts that were overlooked even back in Jan 201. Good informative read that gives a clearer picture than the one we've had till now. Obviously it doesn't really absolve Torres of any responsibility of provide any way as to how RB's hiring will help but that would be expecting too much.

Us being out of changes and an injured player being told that he has to keep playing? Hopefully low.

Plausible interpretation but I'm too inclined to apply the principle of Occam's razor (as I was in the huge AVB v Terry/Cole debacle in the Napoli game and never quite bought at least half of the manager v player stories). 1 It's very reasonable to give some rest to your most played outfield player, 2 Managers know better than players if they need to rest them.

European Champions and STILL having a laugh

After an initial outburst I came as much in terms with the events as I realistically could. The fact that it's a temporary appointment points to us still waiting for whoever it is we've been wanting to sign since firing AVB and if realistically Torres doesn't make a tremendous comeback into form maybe the club will finally realise that it's time to get rid of him or at least diminish his importance. All those hopeful thoughts aside, I still don't' see the point of getting rid of one hugely popular caretaker for another one who is a PR disaster waiting to happen. An internal burst-up could explain much but for now we're in the dark and trying to be content with the most bizarre decision since Mou.

Just wanted to add my voice to those saying that his performance was absolutely dreadful. The Kalou analogy has ringed true to my ears for some time now as far as his on the ball play is concerned but now his off the ball play is proving to be even worse and at times slower than what you'd expect from any PL quality striker. I settled with the fact that we are truly stuck with him a long time ago and Sturridge's contract situation isn't helping but surely if he continues to be detrimental to our season in important games things must change.

Thanks Jim!

Any chance of getting the old TC-specific favicon back? They're a real life saver when one is used to having dozens of open tabs.

Thanks. The city and the campus are mostly a joy to walk in in comparison to Athens but I'm still trying to get used to the weather and the accent. Not quite sure what you mean :-S

Nah I don't think they're that bad yet. I'm studying at the city's university.

Wow I sure have been away a lot but not long enough to not remember that both are mod material, congrats from chilly Glasgow.

Apologies for going AWOL for so long. I'm moving to another country (hold your horses, for academic purposes) and my life has been pretty frenetic in the past few months. I'm lagging behind my regular foruming but haven't missed a game mostly due to TC Anyway, since I'll probably be logging from a different IP in a couple of days and I doubt I'll be as active as I was a couple of years ago, I wanted to say I greatly enjoyed reading and taking part in some of the discussions we've had with the regulars of the forum and that I'm still reading most of you on twitter and will gladly follow more.

That's why I said looks. Did your eyesight suffer any damage?

I got the fee from wikipedia so it's no surprise it was wrong. Still even ~19-20m doesn't sound correct. If his case is similar to Lukaku's where the majority of the reported fee is future add-ons and his waged do not exceed 40k per week (any reports on that?) his annual cost for the club will be just about right for a player of his age who is involved in the first team. Good. Functionality and responsibility is just as important for the team and we can't afford to have the plethora of new creative assets to be a luxury like last year.

£25m looks a bit heafty for the ammount of appearances he has had. Well since he'll be classified as U21 for the comming season I don't expect him to feature heavily in deeper positions whereas he's guaruanteed games in the front 3 with our current lack of attackers (what's the main squad analysis thread btw?) .