LDN Blue

I'll still be cheering England on to the maximum! My exams finish 11th June, so the next evening I'll be hammered and be the most patriotic mf in my SU

I fear we do start keeping guys like McEachran to fill the quota because it'll significantly hamper his progress and he won't play as much. It's frightening how bad it's gotten now. It means we either start signing 1. HG players for the sake of it 2. We target u-21's to add to depth 3. Sell non-homegrown players to bring in others. From that list it seems Eto'o, Luiz, Torres, Mikel & Ba could leave.. So we might actually be able to manage.

So it's looking highly likely we'll only have 2 HG players next season? Lampard and Cole currently out of contract and Moses' future it up in the air. As I recall, we had a similar issue in 2011 or 2012? But we had enough u-21 players to get away with having a small squad as they weren't registered. Won't be able to get away with that coming into next season

I've read reports about Liverpool and Arsenal being interested.. I almost spit out my coco pops in laughter!! LOL.

Mate you have misunderstood me. As Skipper said, I don't want to see him here either because it wouldn't make sense for us and him alike. Jones needs a move lower down the table to reestablish himself. It's well and good having potential, but if you can't fulfill that potential then you're just another 'could've been'. What point I'm making here is that he's still very raw and young. Your judgement of him has come from him time at United and I agree on the merits of that he shouldn't be thinking about Chelsea and we shouldn't think about him.. Not until he's playing in his position again regularly and that's when you should judge him on his merits as a defender when he's constantly playing. I only compare him to Cahill because I'm saying once upon a time at Bolton he was a 23-year old establishing himself as the lynchpin of that defense and the difference was he was allowed to grow there. Jones may be guilty of prematurely moving but Ferguson is more at fault for mismanaging him.. Writing him off yet isn't that fair? Like I said before, I don't want this transfer.. Just offering you a different perspective on the player mate.

My point was Cahill was 27 when we signed him and he really rose to establish himself around then at Bolton. Jones has been mishandled at United but to write him off at 22 because he's had a nightmare season is just wrong.. But he's still got plenty of potential and talent that can be utilised.

His English is outstanding!! I feel sorry for him he says 'we' when he talks about Atletico in that interview and I'm sure he's gone down in letico legend.. It will be hard for him to say goodbye.

Couldn't believe it when Tottenham sold him, I always thought he'd be loaded out not sold. Stupidity. Rumour has it they want him back too. On Stones, has great potential but he needs a few more seasons with Everton. Martinez is best for him and Stones needs to keep his head screwed on and develop with Everton before making a move. We should back off.. We have Kalas and Ake. We should trust in these boys.

Tom Huddlestone?

That was Gary Cahill once upon a time. You do remember Jones is still 22 right?!

Hahaha, to be fair as someone said to me before.. I don't mind it. It restores some prestige back to the FA Cup when you see it celebrated like this. Hope more managers take it seriously next season.

Flanagan in for Johnson and I agree that's the best England could do. Though my strife with Rooney for England will remain, if he can somehow get this shit together it would be nice.

Thing is, we don't need him to step up that much to an extent. Bare with me here.. He does need to improve on this season, no doubt about it. But within Hazard, Willian and perhaps the addition of Schurrle and Salah to an extent we do have options for different kinds of creativity. From Salah's undoubted pace and Hazard wonderful technical movement to get to the byline and cut back. There's a variety of options for a new striker to feed on. I don't see Mourinho as deep lying playmaker kind of guy though. Yeah he did have Modric and Xabi Alonso at Real Madrid but they were already there so he utilised but at Inter and Chelsea it was always a tradition no10 he played with. Wesley Sneijder at Inter Milan and Lampard at Chelsea.. He builds his team around that. You could even say Real Madrid it was Ozil (but that's a different kind of discussion). His 2 in front of defense was usually a more defensive option as opposed to reliance on them for a creative option. That's why one of his favourite players was actually Khedira for example. The more I write about it, the more I actually think Song is the type of player Mourinho would actually want at Chelsea. I don't think anyone would say he's one to solve our problems by any stretch. But he does bring experience, depth and another option for attack to the table.. Which makes this signing logical.

But flip the coin for a second. Mourinho's complaints about us this season have been being unable to break down the teams who keep 11 players in their own box and us being unable to find that killer ball or that striker to finish. The striker problem will of course take care of itself over the course of the summer. But there's a case to say we've missed those deep lying runs of Mourinho's first tenure with us.. We all remember the importance of Makelele. Now of course I don't dare suggest Song is near Maka's level or ability but he does possess that ability to make strides into the heart of the defenses (and/or play an acute long ball to feet.) Under Mourinho he can get the balance between Song and Matic right, instilling the discipline into Matic to make sure he doesn't go walk about and stays in position. As it is Matic doesn't really go forward much anyway so we don't really have to worry. As you said, Song delivered when Arteta was brough alongside next to him. Pellegrini identified this flaw in Manchester City and one of his first signings was Fernandinho. Forget the price, he got exactly what was missing in that midfield.. the job Javi Garcia was unable to do. Song will be a stop-gap, he won't be the lynchpin of our midfield.. But he offers options. He offers a plan b which we've often lacked. I wouldn't want Luiz to be swapped to be honest. I'd rather we got the value for Song correct, which if it is £10million would be a bargain for a player of only 26.

Stan Collymore mad an interesting point the other day (no guys, hear me out on this one..) Now I loath the guy as much as the next person coughwifebeatercough but he made the point of.. Does anyone really see Hodgson actually playing any of these kids? Is he taking them to actually give them experience of the match or is he taking them along to simply give them an experience of going to an international cup? Sven, I'd like to think, properly set precedent when he called up Theo Walcott who'd barely featured in for Arsenal that season as part of his 23. Yet how much did Walcott play, the magnificent number of 0 minutes. Not even one substitute appearance. What was his point? That we do have a younger generation? That his current crop were so bad he sent a message? Only Sven will know. His gamble did open doors.. Walcott was given limelight and Wenger nurtured him to be that guy Sven saw. It's then unfortunate Walcott is yet to feature in a world cup match. The point I make here is, it's only worth it if these kids play. What you're essentially saying here is Shaw will play ahead of Baines, Lallana will play ahead of Sterling, Barkley will play ahead of Wilshere, Sturridge will be in there when Rooney is always England's hope and dreams. Collymore see's England setting up like this; Hart Johnson - Cahill - Jagielka - Baines Milner - Gerrard - Wilshere - Henderson Rooney And I unfortunately don't disagree with him. We're coming up against Italy and Uruguay. Teams who are a lot stronger than us and I simply don't see Roy playing Shaw and Barkley at least ahead of the older players. He'll defend this, he'll say he's "protecting" them, or he doesn't want to "thrust them into it". If Roy really believed in playing the youth then why didn't he play Shaw & co in our last friendlies? Is he really going to be this gutsy and use World Cup 2014 as a warm up to Euro 2016? I just don't think so.

There's only one way to decide this..

Stressed.. Law exams start on Wednesday, and I'm a nervous wreck right now

LOL incredible But I don't see us splashing out £30-35million on a new defender yet. Though the fact they held discussions with City suggests they'll negotiate under his release clause.. Even then, it's one hefty fee to pay for a 23-year old.

Didn't Lampard say he didn't want to go into football management after his career finishes though? Or was that someone else?

Have we ever had a victory parade for just winning the FA Cup? Pretty sure we didn't in 2009, all other years it was because it was part of a double, no?

Totally agree about Ferguson, I really don't know what he was thinking. Jones was Terry mold, no nonsense looked like a leader and capable of holding his own against the bigger players. There was never reason to believe he'd be better at RB or DM, though the latter may have been understandable because United had Fletcher out that season and Carrick got injured at occasions. Jones needs a manager to get his career back on track especially at CB. I don't think Mourinho has the time for that to be honest, not when we've got Kalas and Ake who don't need to be redesigned in terms of their play now. Jones could do with a loan move down to a club with less pressure on them where he can get back into the routine of being a center back. Newcastle, Villa, Sunderland et al.

When he was at Blackburn I was a huge fan and really pressed the issue on here. There was a bit of paper talk of our interest in him then but once Ferguson got involved it was always going to be a one horse race. His stock has declined far too much now, jack of all trades master of none.

Wouldn't classify song as 'world class', I'd see him as a squad player if anything.. Someone who's going to play a good bulk of games but also ease someone like MvG into the first team eventually.

Of course they're quotes. I'm just saying it's unfair to blame speculation when the media do post quotes.. Even if they're taken out of context, you can never be sure about context anyway. It's not like Hazard disputed those "we don't play football" quotes.

I'm not really sure. On one hand it's hard to deny his positive spell at Arsenal, even their fans will maintain the RvP's blistering form in his last season was mostly down to Song playing in those accurate balls into feet. On the other hand all of his prior interviews have always talked about his love for Arsenal etc and to me that sort of creates a conflict of interest. The pro's are obvious to me as well, he can play both next to Song and can fill in as an emergency CB if we do get his with an injury crisis. His passing is also quite good and his strong build means next to Matic we'll have a firm wall protecting the CB's The con's (and I can't speak for his time at Barca) were at Arsenal. While he was successful in assisting attack with RvP he was also very much liable in the stupid goals Arsenal conceded that season. He suffered from Yaya Toure syndrome.. Where he'd love to go walk about in the attacking 3rd of the pitch but was slow and unreliable in getting back into position to due his defensive work. Sure we've got Matic to fill that void, but can we afford tactical indiscipline? Especially when Mata was sold for that reason. Overall, if he's a squad player than that's not bad business on him arriving alone. Mourinho will obviously do his best to embed tactical awareness into the midfield player. But if he's going to be a regular then I'm sure we can do better from the money we raise from selling Luiz.