Kostas

He accepted starting the season with 16 senior outfield players and a bunch of kids he wouldn't trust to clean his house, it doesn't get much worse than that for him. He's not going anywhere by his own will.

I'm usually not one to look for new Borinis, Woods, Stochs, Kakutas and McEachrans but Chalobah looks like an excellent player and considering his age it's hard to imagine he doesn't have a great future in front of him, of course he does have an advantage due to his height but he's not really the player who dominates his age group due to his built like Carlton Cole was. Also was I the only one who didn't see the point of McEachran playing? Games at this level are all about development and I had the impression that McEachran was being developed to fit into our man squad and not playing for the U18s. Yes, he's a couiple of years away from even being considerer as a starter but I reckon playing with the reserves would have helped him more because he's more likely to find himself playing allongside Sturridge, Kakuta, Clifford, Bertrand and Tore than Pappo, Saville and Devyne.

Expected someone to mention this. Barcelona lost 3-1 to Real Betins in Copa del Ray Rey playing with their second fiddle. Gives some perspective about our second fiddle losing 3-4 to a PL side and both coaches trying similar experiments. Bojan looks useless, so much for being hyped as the next Messi.

Just to add some fire to the debate...

I admit that I didn't notice that, however I'm still doubtfull about this as club websites is the only source I've come to trust 100%. Our website hasn't had a word on unfinished deals since the Robinho fiasco and afaik other clubs rarely share such stuff (Santos was an exception and even Begovic was confirmed some days after the bid was rejected). Ancelotti rarely comments on or confirms transfer rumors, he's been fairly consistent about that so I doubt he'd make an exception for Pienaar.

Loaning him to a team that will be relegated is probably a risk the club wouldn't want to take. Besides as important as PL experience is surely loanining him to one of the best French sides would be better than loaning him to the worst team in the league. Tbh I hadn't checked his Facebook pictures and it looks like you're right. It could still be an obsessed fan but some of the material would be extremely hard to find.

There's our Louda Where's Nic?

Screw doubting sources ! *crosses fingers*

I'm all up for that theory but the link ack17 provided throws it out of the window.

I expect to get some heat for this but there are some good points people tend to ignore. First of all I think the Drogba & Malouda arguement is overused. For every player who had a great career after adapting to the PL there must be around 10 players who went on to have shit careers. Basically whenever a player is horrible during his first season chances are he's not going to set the world straight later on. Moreover, Drogba and Malouda were worldclass players who dominated a top European league before joining us. Few will claim Ramires was as good and to be honest I don't expect him to end up being the next Essien/Gattuso/instert world-beater that everyone is sure he'll turn to. Still -ignoring his price tag- the lad deserves a proper chance and at his age two full seasons should be the minimum. Few changed heart after yet another disaster at CB againt Sunderland. His downs are becoming alarmingly more than his ups so he's not really comparable to the average player. In fact, 9 out of 10 times he plays he's a defensive liability and we can't afford that.Oh and don't bother bringing up his terrific performance against Tottenham as Bale was almost tripple-marked and the goal we conceded was due to Ferreira not getting back in time and Ivanovic having to cover for him. Biased or not the fact is 6/11 players will in about 3 years be so far from a footballer's prime age that playing at the level Chelsea demands would be hard. I'm aware of the famous exceptions like Giggs, Scholes, Maldini etc and the fact that modern medicine can prolong careers but I highly doubt this is going to work in a league as physical as the PL. Not to mention that Ancelotti's non-existent rotation isn't exactly going to help players >30. My views on Kalou/Benayoun are known but it's funny how everyone is so quick to write-off the player that has had the less chances (with only Benayoun being behind in front of him and only due to injury) and arguably has a better chances/fuck-ups ratio than Kalou. Ross Turnbull is probably a horrible keeper who's never going to be good enough to start for a Championship club but he's had less chances than some of our other terrible players and I'm sure that had he gotten as many he'd have 10 saves to his name by the end of the season.

I really doubt the club allows a young player like Kakuta have his own Facebook page at fear of revealing stuff that would never reach the media. They even shut down PvA's twitter account so what's stopping them from prohibiting Facebook?

Bullshit of the highest order. I didn't really had any intention of bumping this thread but this article is beyond ridiculous. Abramovich, just like any other businessman on the planet, want his business to stop running at a loss. Common Sense 101

Word.We're linked with so many players it's just ridiculous, I'm sure I've had to Wiki, Google, and PSD search most of them as I just don't have enough time to support Chelsea and scout around the world for our new "savious"

Are we really that bitter? About Pienaar?! The man could have 100 of reasons for joining Tottenham and labeling him as a money-grabbing whore is a low Chelsea supporters shouldn't reach. Co-fucking-sign

Staying in London too. It would make sense but with 10 days until the windows is closed and not much stir about a move I think the sidelines is as far as he's going to go

We're better than that.We can't possibly know how good a person is until we've met them in RL. That sounds like Mancs cursing JT thinking they "know" he's a c*nt.

LALKOVIC!!!!!!!!!

http://www.dailystar...lho-at-Chelsea/ Funny how things change.

Has Begovic actually done anything since August? Sure he might be a great back-up but after Turnbull I'm a concerned about our ability to track keepers. Once bitten, twice shy.

France's kit just got better B)

There was talk of the club waiting for Plymouth's transfer ban to be lifted so that Clifford can rejoin them.

They either trust Drogba, Anelka, Malouda and Kalou enough to create and score most of our goals or maybe they're planning a move for Neymar/Lukaku/proper replacements again. Of course that's just us fans trying to find reason, sense or even a plan in Chelsea's transfers. A lost cause from the very beginning.

Can't be arsed to write much about such a sad topic. All I know is that in hindsight*, keeping them would have made our squad much stronger but we can't know if Ancelotti would rotate even with a bigger squad. * Actually I think when I realized that we were short of at least one central midfielder in late August I thought either Matic or Mancienne would stay but then again I never expected McEachran to have so many appearances..

No way! Tommy will demand all the "Africans"..

I reckon he has been excellent as a RB, don't see why he wouldn't.