The Skipper

BBC Sport's Saj Chowdhury reports: "Barcelona are not interested in signing Chelsea defender signing David Luiz, according to a source close to the Spanish champions. However, the Catalan giants have made strengthening the defence their number one priority and have already begun their pursuit. Barca were interested in bringing Paris St-Germain's Brazilian centre-back Thiago Silva to the Nou Camp, but they could not afford to match his salary demands."

No it isn't common knowledge, that's just your opinion. Why do you keep comparing him to Ramires as well when they're clearly very different type of players?

Nice.

Piet basically said that the he isn't the only person at Chelsea that rates him highly (presumingly he means that the board and Emelano rate him too) so I don't see us selling him at all, especially if he's trying to convince Mourinho to keep him this season. I'd love a squad make up of Hazard/Mata/Oscar/KDB/Schurrle/Moses - it just screams depth. I still personally see his future in the middle of the park though.

This guy will pleasantly surprise a few on here.

So the most successful manager in world football over the last 10 years is so fucking overrated? Almost forgot how much of a troll you were. Welcome back I guess...

He's officially the best goalkeeper in Spain last season, why would he sacrifice that to come train with Petr Cech?

Welcome mate. Try and be as active as possible!

Superb game that was from Dzeko. Very underused at City.

His achievements speak for themselves. All you have to do is Google them. If you're unwilling to look past his last season at Real then no one can help you.

Yeah, let's bring in a winger because we missed out on a centre forward...

Where the hell is Stingray?

Dzeko is more in the Lewandowski mould than Lukaku or Ba. Only similarities they have are that they're all big men.

Chuckled at the Xavi and Iniesta bit but I disagree that the club "failed" - there's a lot more to it than that. The Swansea loan was bad in hindsight but the idea behind it was good in my opinion - Rodgers has coached Josh before if I remember correctly, Swansea play the type of football that Josh should flourish under if used correctly - I'm sure CFC loaned him out with the intention that Swansea would play him frequently but Swansea hit form and Rodgers wasn't up for changing a team that was doing so well. Retrospectively, they should have perhaps called him back but that again depends on whether the manager would've used him or not. I think the club did the best they could with Josh simply because we didn't have a solid, stable manager at the helm. It looks like that's changing under JM so I do have a tiny bit of hope for Josh - I think he can actually play a decent squad role for us next season, and if he hit the ground running in preseason he can easily get around 20 appearances which would be a good season for him I think. I think my point above answers your point here again. It's a problem across the whole of English football. For us, it had more to do with us loaning out our best English U21 players because we felt it'd be better for them to have playing time - it has worked for Chalobah well, but Josh has struggled a bit - I still think Josh will come away this season learning a lot more at Middlesborough then he would've last season at CFC even if he didn't really have a good season - it's a learning curve for him and I know I keep banging on about this but he is only 20 after all, he still has plenty of time. Again, this is more due to the fact that we never had any stable manager when those you've mentioned came through. I think that's about to change though simply because I do have a feeling that JM is staying for quite some time now which will allow him to blood some of the youngsters coming through now, whom I do think are far more talented than the likes of Mancienne or Bruma. No one's benefitted yet - our academy is in my opinion a lot better than it was 10 years ago, and it takes time and the right environment before these changes can be seen to the naked eye. I honestly think that time is nearing us very soon, you can tell that Roman and the club are far more geared towards developing young players now so naturally they will have a tendency to look at the academy more often than they have over the last view years.

So is he good enough now because he's good on FIFA mate?

It's different with Schurrle because we don't have a player like him in the squad. What Schurrle offers is tactical flexibility for Mourinho, he can switch up games due to the nature of his attributes. Sahin required to be the main playmaker in the team and you don't need that with Schurrle so he's a lot more flexible in that sense - Sahin's situation is not really comparable IMO.

You haven't really provided one decent argument as to why you think Schurrle can't pass well, can't cross well, can't finish well or can't tackle well (don't know why this is so relevant to you, lol). You're just sprouting it out simply because you don't fancy him as a player. He's a good player bought for squad depth which we sorely lacked last season. People have given decent arguments regarding why they want Schurrle or why they don't think he's a good buy (one that usually revolves around KDB but now that he's not involved in the deal I've yet to actually see a decent argument IMO) but your argument just reeks of "he's shit because I said so". You say you'd understand if Mourinho sold Mata but then when Mourinho's clearly approving of the Schurrle deal it's a different story, one that you're purposely neglecting. Anything you're saying on Schurrle doesn't really have any substance.

When was the last time a big English club truly nurtured an academy player into a world class player? Apart from Jack Wilshere, there's none. It's a problem amongst big clubs in England, not just at Chelsea. Our academy has come leaps and bounds since Roman has come and it takes time for results to come through. You need to be patient - we've actually got better talents than those from around 10 years ago coming through simply because of the restructuring that has taken place under Roman and there's every chance a talent like Chalobah and even Josh (who's only 20 remember) can be part of the squad. I think we're better off than most big clubs academy wise as anyone who even kept the vaguest of interests in our youth would know.

Do you mean you're disappointed that he isn't nurturing into that world class player everyone thought he'd be (at 20 years old)? How old were Henderson, Shelvey and Cleverley when they "broke through" to their respective first teams? The club haven't been criminal to considering Josh, I mean Ancelotti blooded him at a young age and then we sent him out on loan so he could gain experience - problem is that Josh hasn't had the desired effect at the clubs he's been loaned at. You can't solely blame the club on that. Josh is only 20 years old, tell me, what were the aforementioned doing at his age? I think it's you that needs time and patience. Are you forgetting his loan spell at Swansea, clearly a PL club? At what age did Cleverley go out on loan to Wigan? You're over-exaggerating the whole situation - again trying to lay all the blame on the club and allowing Josh to walk away even though he hasn't set the world alight at either Swansea or Middlesborough. In what way do the club not keep track on them? How do you know that? I'm tired of people making things up in order to bash the board/club. Tell me, how many other big clubs fielded English U21 this season? United? Phil Jones - bought for £15m+. Nick Powell - again brought in at around £6m and still barely played. City? Jack Rodwell (22 now) who again was bought for £15m and still only made a handful of appearances. Arsenal? AOC - again bought for a high fee. Tottenham? None that I know of. I don't know why you're trying to blame CFC for that when it's clearly the situation across all big teams. So the decision to loan out Chalobah was bad because we gave Benayoun 9 appearances this season? Benayoun and Chalobah don't even play the same position, you shouldn't even be comparing them. So are you saying that you'd rather let Chalobah rot on the bench than him having a whole season of playing time to develop himself? Wow. People are disappointed that a 20 year old hasn't exactly lit the world up with his performances and then go ahead and use that as a yardstick to beat the board with, saying the board have no patience/time to develop our youngsters. May I suggest that it's you that don't have the patience or time? Wanting a 20 year old who was 19 at the start of the season to be given games here and there instead of getting a full season at a decent level under their belt is nonsensical in my opinion. Why people are saying the club failed with Josh when the guy's only 20 and still has plenty of years to develop left I will never know.

It really isn't. Even Mourinho says that Italy is the toughest league tactically, defensively.

Edit: what Jype said.

Mourinho clearly approves the deal so can people stop trying to use this as an excuse to abuse the board?

So the price is £17m, not even 20m. That's decent-ish especially if KDB isn't involved in the deal - Andre definitely adds to squad depth.

He's not one of our hardest working players at all. There have been too many times last season where I have been so frustrated with Torres' nonchalant, fake commitment to the cause.

It's not as apparent, KDB has come out numerous times and said he doesn't know where he's going out on loan yet because he hasn't spoken to Mourinho yet. For all we know, Mourinho might want him to stay.