Kostas

Afaik the hearing for the permit was today so that should be correct.

I'm being patient with this transfer. We were never going to make a marque signing without fuss and the transfer window is still open. I reckon he'll be a blue in less than a week. Just keep him away from penalties, I've had it with talented CBs taking pens in this lifetime

You fucking obsessed aren't you? Anyways good move for Kakuta's development.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFAz0fVe5BE

^ Why do you have to bold 9/10 posts? I'm sure we're perfectly capable of reading them

Think we had a simlar attitude against Arsenal, afterall they've been our bitches for years and we normally did well at the Emirates.

If Ancelotti agreed with the rest of the board that we need a top class CB and Luiz should be top of our list that's where his say in the matter ends.

Why the hell would they want Kalou in the first place? Ditto, I wouldn't have a problem with any other club but Benfia are trying to bleed us dry.

Borini shouldn't even be considered a Chelsea player now. And English players rarely leave for countries like Portugal. I was actually thinking of one of the Vitesse guys or Bruma.

Latest rumour is 25m + young player. Wonder if it could be one of our loanees.

Of course he's a liar. But in this case there are plenty things pointing to that direction. I'd like to believe things have changed. But even if they haven't there's a huge difference between taking the risk and signing players like Ballack and Sheva practically overruling the manger in power and signing second-fiddle players like Pienaar.

On the other hand, we need to make sure the club which will get his will develop him according to our plans. Loans are all about player development and playing games is just a part of it. Are we even sure about where we want him to play or what we want him to be? Kakuta's position is special and all we've done so far is sticking him to the wing but to my knowledge both Bordeaux and Fulham play with attacking midfielders instead of wingers and would probably suit his style more than our formation.

As far as I'm concerned that's a tad too much of a conspiracy theory for me to accept.And we have to keep in mind that Ancelotti is too much of a ...diplomat to suggest something like that on his press conference.

We don't have Fergie's links in the PL, I doubt we can "demand" playing time for our loanees. Kakuta will have to earn it and as far as I'm concerned that's a good thing.

That makes sense but I think it collides with Chelsea's pecking order™

Yup,thought we'd run out of fashion with City but instead now we're used for low-profile moves. Funny how it took a few days to spawn 12 pages about a player that we were never interested, and never should have been considering in the first place.

Malouda @ LCM and Ferreira @ CB?

Blaming or crediting a single person for any transfer deal is as daft as crediting a manager for his clubs's deals during his tenure.Hans Gillhaus was Frank Arnesen's right hand and as a Chief Scout was frequently in contact with our scouts in Spain (Juan Cruz Sol) and everyone we had in the Netherlands. Papers reported that he was personally scouting Huntelaar before his move to Real Madrid and Keisuke Honda before he moved to CSKA.

JT has a problem with his back but he's more likely to play against Bolton than Lampard

Our scouting department is undergoing what seems to be a huge revamp. After getting rid of two-thirds of our international scouts and our Chief Scout,Director of Youth Football Development-turned-Football Director it is time for Hans Gillhaus to leave Chelsea as the man who is in charge of Chelsea's international scouting network having worked as an international scout for PSV Eindhoven will leave the club at the end of the season to succeed Leo Beenhakker as Feyenoord's Technical Director. Both Gillhaus and Arnesen were hired in the Mourinho days and their removal is either yet another sign of cost cutting or the rather new direction our scouting department is heading to, concentrating on local London/UK-based talent after failing at world scouting scene. Either way this is probably the biggest football-related change the club is undergoing since losing Mourinho and his staff, nevertheless I'm sure it won't get nearly as much attention as Wilkins' removal did.

Ancelotti said that he never met Pienaar in his life and that we never "searched" for him.

Ancelotti stated that we never approached Udineze for Sanchez. Case closed?

The OP scared the shit out of me before I noticed the date. Besides I think we've got another thread discussing potential loans for Kakuta.

I obviously rate youth competitions less than you do but keeping him fit and grounded sounds good enough.

Not really. If that was true Ancelotti would have been sacked in December and rightly so. With coaches having less power than coaches-managers they usually get less credit & blame than the old-style managers.** In the past you could argue it was Arnesen or Kenyon, with them gone or about to go there's only Buck, Gourlay, Forde and the king himself left to blame.However I'd rather not point any fingers due to the many doubts about that one bid. We've got bigger sticks to hit them with. Edit: *As a matter of fact, almost a month in our "bad moment" Frank Arnesen's plans to "seek new challenges" were revealed. Few dared to say a bad word about Ancelotti back then and it was our Sporting Director who was axed.