bombayblue™

Not.Chelsea.Quality

Scotty wouldn't want to come back, regardless of whether we were interested in him or not. He went away because he got frustrated on the bench, with Mikel and Ramires around his chances will again be limited and Essien back in January it'll be 04-05 again..

You have to represent your country in 75% of the games over the last 2 years. Special concessions are made for young players, generally 18-23, if they are of exceptional talent and/or come from a country where opportunities might be limited due to overflowing talent, like Brazil.

I'd leave it for AVB to decide, he's the only one who knows how his team is going to play and who will suit the team more. It's a decision I'm willing to back him on.

:bs_spam:

AVB has reiterated it time and again, that he wants to unshackle the players and free their game of inhibitions. In Mikel we have a player who was brilliant as an AM and was converted into the DM after signing for us, I think he would benefit the most from this philosophy of AVB and we could possibly see a new Mikel this season.

For those interested in pictures from yesterday's game Getty Images

But we have.. Neymar and his agent have been acting like a prick, besides it's only fair he makes up his mind after Copa America. Lukaku, is ready to come, we want him but Anderlecht don't need to sell him so they are holding out for a hefty fee. Modric, we made a bid but it wasn't enough. It was clearly to test the waters as the club realises it'll get messier. Sanchez & Pastore, we bid but it wasn't enough and their club turned elsewhere. I don't think the club only awakes late in the window after the rest of the clubs have got their targets. Offlate, we went about our business without making too much noise and THAT is the approach I like. We used the same for signing AVB, while the entire media was banging on about Guus Hiddink. You can't help when the clubs we want to sign these players from choose to prolong the transfer.

Fear not G, I'm back for good this time. Got promoted at work and it basically ensures I have more free time.

Once bitten, Twice shy.. More than whether we want him or not, it's about whether he'd want to come, just to warm the bench again. He left for first team football and I don't see him going anywhere it isn't guaranteed to him.

I don't see the point of having another Maniche or Jiri Jarosik type short term signing. Essien is out for 6 months not the entire season. To address your concern, we have Yossi, Malouda and Zhirkov who can all slot into the midfield should need be. Also keeping the squad rules in mind we can only have 25 players, we seem to have all our foreign player spots filled so we'll only buy incase one of them leaves. I'm more concerned about the African Cup of Nations, but given Essien should be back in 6 months time, he should be back a month before ACN and I hope common sense will prevail and he doesn't go there.

Racism is a very sensitive topic and each and every one of our minds is so prejudiced we can never really judge a person to be a racist or not. What we can do is know for sure whether we ourselves are racist. The very definition of a person being a racist is so ambiguous, the more you go deeper into it, the messier it gets. Say for example 1) An Asian guy walk into a dark alley, he sees 3 African-American men standing with their hoods on and once they notice the Asian guy, they don't stop staring. The Asian flees. 2) An Asian guy sees an African-American girl meet with an accident and is trapped in the car. He goes and helps her, takes her to the hospital, the works. Both these stories are real and they actually happened. Now in the first case would the Asian guy have fled had the 3 men been Asians? He had a set mentality, probably from watching all those movies, that they were thugs and were gonna mug him. He said, No. One of the African-American men turned out to be his classmate and returned his laptop, which he dropped while fleeing, the next day. Needless to say the Asian guy was embarrassed. The second incident actually happened before the first one and Asian guy in both the incidents is the same person. If you were to judge the Asian guy based on the first incident alone, would you call the Asian guy a racist, because of his pre-conceived notion of African-American men? If yes, how do you explain what happened in the second case. It is easy to point out a redneck or an extremist but most people all around us do have certain biases based on what we hear/witness. I wouldn't go so far to call them a racist, or put them in the option of 'a bit racist'. I hope KieranVogel, this isn't your class assignment

Get the players to give their 100% on the pitch for the 90mins and Fergie time in every game and not look clueless when things go pear shaped. That'll do for me.

With that news all the quality midfielders around the world just became dearer by 5-10mill. Levy must be laughing in his chair and will now probably hold out for 35mill atleast.

The fact that Ashley Cole won the England player of the year award which was decided by public votes, means things aren't all Doom and Gloom.. More than whether the other fans care abt or appreciate them, it is about a person as a player wanting to win/achieve great things with his own country..

Inter have really been struggling this season, Bayern win shouldn't be hyped because Bayern are the Liverpool of bundesliga this season.. Struggling to qualify for Europe at all. This United team is the most unidimensional ever. Real Madrid are still getting together, Inter were in Jose's second season when they beat us dodgily.. So honestly as long as we avoid Barca before the finals I'd be really happy..

When you're starting off something as your own investment, you go for a plan which is sustainable and drastically cuts down on risks. This format is just to show that it can work and hence they need teams which are big clubs and will always be close to the top if not at absolute top. Once the format is recognised by UEFA I'm sure they'll expand it to the CL style although the best club doesn't necessarily have the best youth team, so how do they go about it remains to be seem. If they follow the Reserve or youth leagues, it'll end up throwing up teams which will take away the glam from it.

Go Spoil Yourself Predictor

We genuinely lack pace in our team. Torres has it in his armour but he is so short on confidence that we are yet to exploit it. The sooner he gets back to scoring ways the better for us. Lampard even with his lack of pace can do a brilliant job a la Scholes and score considerably more goals. What we do need is genuine pace and quality on the wings and upfront. Torres/Sturridge should provide us that next season. May be buying a pacy wide player wouldn't be too bad. But for now we have to make do with what've got.

There is a serious lack of gelling upfront. Anelka goes missing against big teams and tight defences. Torres is immensely short on confidence. Let him take a penalty, if it helps bring his confidence back.. We need time unfortunatley it's not on our side, we'll have to rely on goals from defenders and midfield and especially set pieces until then. 3 points

As of this moment, Alex is a better CB than Luiz. Luiz is brilliant going up and adds more as an attacking threat but he still has to work on his defending and isn't there yet when you compare him to Alex. He gave away the penalty against Fulham and might have been sent off against United. It was something which we got used to living with when Carvalho was around but Alex is more composed than that and has a powerful shot on him too. Again, it's only as of this moment if both of them fully fit and on form

Does anyone have a gif of Fergie running towards Carlo after David Luiz tripped Rooney and Carlo just kept looking the other way..

Just in Carlo: "There is nothing in it. But, what will happen, the question has been asked and, because it is David Luiz, a Chelsea player, Fergie will raise a campaign to get him hung or electrocuted or something like that."

Special Mention to Drogba and Ramires, who ensured we spent 90% of the 4 min added injury time at the right hand side corner flag in their half. Luiz excites me to bits and I think I'm too biased about him so my MOTM to Ramires. Fitting tribute to Ossie.. Come on Liverpool, now get those 3 points.

Heard Nani played on the left against Wigan. I think Fergie was trying to get him comfortable there as Ashley Cole should have him in pocket if he were to play on the right. It'll definitely be 4-5-1 for them, something which usually if pretty good to stifle 4-4-2. Let's just hope we get the desired result.