jerryballoono

Insulting offer, Arda isnt worth more than Drogba, doubt they could afford Drogs wages anyway, they have a past reputation for failing to pay their expensive imports & are currently very financially stretched, only Besiktas or Fennerbahce could afford him here.

Best thing about it for me was we won a big game on penalties at last - So glad weve put that one to bed

Cant help but feel Ancelotti had a fixation with getting Pirlo & mistakenly devoted all his attention to this end, it didnt happen & unless he's playing mind games it would appear there wasn't a plan B. Possibly the whole marquee signing thing was just a ruse to get JT to stay anyway. Still whatever the motives we do appear to have kept the players we needed to, I have great hopes for Zhirkov & Pirlo is no loss in my book, so it is all looking good for the new season.

Seems odd to me Pirlo would accept accept a deal like this as UK taxation would turn this into an effective pay cut for him.

Although I am not a great one for long term conspiracy theories I think sometimes an individual match can have a preferred result for UEFA. Certainly the Chelsea/Barcelona semi final must have had huge financial pressure to widen the finals interest in continental Europe, & for the Spanish side to go through, to stop the final being an all British affair. We were just unlucky that the draw meant we were the team to be sacrificed to the spectacle, next year it could be someone else that gets the short straw. Luck always changes in the long term so we are due for a lucky break in the CL sometime, I think it will be this next year that we finally win it.

Seems to me the lack of news either way from JT himself has left the press in a position where they can just make up whatever they want. Nothing has changed over the weekend but saying that doesn't sell papers.

I not only salute his posting this, but also pretty much agree with the content too The ponderousness of the text & lack of spelling mistakes (for anything other than names) smacks of a computer translation programme to me, I know thats what my wife uses to contact her Russian friends on the net.

Much as I have always & still do like JT, it would seem that for reasons of his own, he is seriously interested in making this move, or personally benefiting from the threat of making it. I think it fair to say Chelsea have never been averse to making managerial changes when things have been going well & I cant see any difference here, the Captain is half management anyway. No one can be allowed to become bigger than the club itself - if a now past his prime & slowing John Terry demands more money, its simply time for us to let him go & for the club to cash in to the maximum - £45million+ Cant think of a better way to go if Roman really wants to change the style of football Chelsea play than to change both the Captain & Coach in time for next season.

Watched him a fare bit playing for CSKA Moscow on TV over the past year or so & am very much looking forward to seeing him do the same for us next season. My wife loves Russian players & CSKA in particular so she is happy too.

I very much think "right price" is the operative word, Real Madrid seem to have distorted the market, & big name players are going for stupidly high prices this summer, my personal view is that with the exception of a getting a few young players now is not a good time to buy.

Too true it seems that if ANY big club in Spain or UK shows an interest in ANY player the press puts Chelsea down as one of the other clubs currently chasing him

Yes Anelka would be my choice he doesnt score enough "critical goals" (ones that actually change the match result) for my liking, was the same at Fenerbahce too.

Presumably thats why we always insist on a physical before completing a transfer - to ensure we dont buy any players who are actually dead already.

0829 BST: AC Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi has said the Serie A club is open to offers for Andrea Pirlo, amid speculation the Italy midfielder could join former Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti at Chelsea. From BBC news website transfer rumours today.

Winning the FA cup has to take it, as same day was my best non-Chelsea moment too, with Besiktas winning the Turkish Championship for the first time since I have been out here - All in all it was the BEST day of the year for me.