The Skipper

We really need better wingers if we're playing Hazard in the middle.

Jay just turned 18 a few months back, Aina is 20 in a month or two. Aina has always been a solid dependable youth player, and I guess that's what Conte likes about him. Also probably that he can mold Aina into a great utility player because of his versatility.

Jury's still out for him from me too, but not because of pre season. Because he's dropped form significantly over the last year and a half. Now last season is a bit exacerbated but what concerns me is that his form was declining from the season before. He hasn't had consecutive top seasons yet in his career if I'm not wrong. He had 1 excellent season at Benfica, two halves of excellent seasons here, and the rest of his career has either been distinctively average or bad. Is that Matic we saw an anomaly or not? I guess we'll find some answers this season...

His technique is one of his best attributes I would say. From what I've seen of him for Marseille, the main thing he needs to work on is finessing his off the ball movement a bit and becoming a bit more clinical. If he does that we have a player on our hands.

Eden struggled to score last season too. He was a lot worse than Pedro in even getting into goal scoring positions. I'm havent really taken much of last season as a season that defined any player's traits or abilities. We saw for Barcelona that Pedro has a good goal scoring instinct. I would say that he actually has a better goal scoring instinct than Eden. That's not a knock on Eden, just that they are different players. Eden is first and foremost a dribbler, whereas Pedro's strength lie in his off the ball runs, hence why he gets himself in better goal scoring positions to begin with. If Eden could only grasp that aspect of Pedro's game and add it to his own he'd be much more of a threat as a goal scorer.

Pedro scores...

Can't see anything else but us signing a new fullback. And soon.

The man loves coming off the bench with a brace.

Matic better watch out. Chalobah could be a late bloomer...

I'm too excited. I think Conte is going to take the league by storm. You know, if he manages to fend off all these great managers (Klopp, Mourinho, Pep, Wenger) and win some titles over the next few seasons, people will finally put the due respect on his name.

Because of the Higuain money too... They'll be reluctant.

You know their owner doesn't care about this...

If it was a simple case of bidding just a bit more then why haven't we seen a bid from Everton, who supposedly bid higher than us, accepted then? Napoli don't need money. They just got 94m euros from Higuain, do you really think they need to sell Koulibaly for a cut rate price?

There's plenty of locals here tbh. You won't ever find a purely local CFC forum however, club's too big for that.

He's not good enough to become a top winger, I agree with that. He misses certain intangibles for that to happen. If he can work on his defensive game though he can be a valuable squad player. If he remolds his game to maybe becoming a wing back he has a brighter future IMO. Irregardless, Moses would block game time for Musonda and Boga who are definitely more talented.

He's looking a lot leaner than when he came back next season. Good stuff.

Wishful thinking mate!

By dynamic I don't mean faster per se. Kante has a much bigger engine than Matic and I don't think Matic is as good as a tackler as Kante is. Kante is a technical tackler, he tackles the ball in a smart way without real use of brawn - he's shown last season that he can get the ball off bigger players without using power. Even so, for how short he is he has incredible balance so if you think you can boulder him over you're in for a surprise. He's strong for his size and more of an athlete than Matic. Kante might be short but he is not a light weight. Think of how Makelele used to boss the area in front of the defence with some great tackles via great anticipation. Now think that and add someone buzzing all over the pitch doing it - winning the ball in the final third, winning it in midfield, winning it in the first third... That's Kante. I can guarantee you that Kante will be more important for us in bigger games than Matic as well. I don't really view Matic as a powerful midfielder tbh. He's big, but not powerful. Like I said, Matic reminds me a bit of Schweinsteiger in his prime (if you put him in the B2B role that is), and I wouldn't call Bastian a powerful midfielder either.

Please. 30m euros would be fantastic. Come on Juve, stump up the cash! (Or swap him for Bonucci :))

Oh, I do agree. I do feel like he needs to put on about 5kg of muscle at least, it'll transform him into a great defender, as long as he keeps his finesse with it.

I'm not disputing that. What I am disputing is that we shouldn't spend money on an up and coming CB when we already have one in the ranks, albeit on loan.

Hey, he doesn't need exquisite pace when he has Zouma next to him. I love the fact that he's very classy on the ball, it complements Zouma so well. They are the future.

I really doubt it. You must be living in the past if you think that's still the same. I don't think there's pressure on Conte to win a trophy this year, just to finish well in the league and build his image of the team up.

I agree. If you look at other threads I've consistently said we need a new CB and a new fullback (LB preferably). Just don't want to see us spending too much on a CB who isn't top class when we have a similar player returning next year. IMO anyway for this season we need a good full back more than a pretty good CB. A good LB - X - Zouma - Azpi can get us into the CL I think.

Are you telling me Mourinho had no influence on who was sold and who wasn't? May I remind you about KDB? Mata? Schurrle? Filipe Luis? David Luiz... The list is so endless. You are hopelessly in love with Mourinho, more so than you actually like Chelsea. How can ANY Chelsea fan even hope that a former manager/player beats THEIR club? This is ridiculous. I can't blame people for calling you a Mourinho fan and NOT a Chelsea fan. I have barely even seen you active in this forum, not as active as you are in this thread any way. It's an exciting time with a manager who seems to be passionate about what he's doing and all I see you doing is still lusting after Mourinho even though he left the club in tatters!