LDN Blue

Currently they are.. Having learned their lesson (maybe). Levy is still Levy though, so I'll be curious to see what happens when larger clubs come for them..

Lmao and who the fuck are they? This is coming from a club that has a notorious history of selling their best stars and no reinvesting correctly. Berbatov, Modric, Bale, need I go on? Sure, this season they're leading the way.. This season. We'll be back so smack their donkey asses soon enough

We have Sunderland, Tottenham & Leicester in our remaining fixtures. Potentially we decide the title & relegation battles .. The FA will definitely pick a bone with us (as will the rest of the league....)

But at the same time SAF was happy to let legends go (albeit not to rival clubs). Even though in his case it was players who crossed him (Beckham, Keane) as well as players' natural desire to leave, he usually replaced them adequately. Cech was, reasonably, unhappy playing number two. Why wouldn't he be? In theory it was the easiest solution. Get a nice fee for Cech and we still have a potentially world class player to fill the boots. Now the potentially world class player wants out supposedly. The model works if we can replace Courtois with a player of equal calibre and there's not many of those around at all.. Hell the closest one is a Madrid target as well! We just have to hope they're successful in acquiring him. I'd entertain an idea of swapping him of Oblak if Courtois' real desire is to be in Spain - regardless of who for.

It would be nonsensical to sell Courtois after we're seeing the ramifications of selling De Bruyne & co! He has no right to demand a move after we sold Cech to accommodate for him and he's on a long-term contract. The number would have to be astronomical to consider it IMO, because of course everyone has their price.

Wouldn't blame Stones for choosing either between Chelsea and United. Both in need of his services and can offer him the right terms. If United somehow clinch fourth we're going to have our backs against the wall and will only succeed on money alone lol. We lost out with Shaw, Mourinho explicitly stated he was too expensive, let's not do the same with Stones. It would be surprising if Conte's plan would be a Stones-Zouma partnership to lead the line. I wouldn't expect it, with Zouma's comeback condition being anyone's guess. Even if Terry isn't re-signed then someone with experience has to come in to lead the way for a Stones-Zouma partnership (and/or Christensen trio in 2017).

Neymar reached an agreement with Brazil board where he'll participate in Rio but not at the Copa. Not sure how inclined they will be to do the same with Chelsea.. Iiirc, clubs have to release players for Copa as it's a FIFA tournament, but have no such obligations for the Olympics.

It's a funny thing we have at Chelsea though, most fans will be the first to give their academy players all the time and patience they require but our fans seem to be under this illusion it's the players we have. Yeah not all youth players are destined to make it and we've certainly done well in finding a lot of those players more suitable clubs, Van Aanholt at Sunderland comes to mind. Hell Robert Huth is about to win his second PL medal after he got one with Chelsea in '05. Agreed about the potential of Christensen & Musonda, more to the former as I haven't followed the young Belgian's career. The good thing is (to an extent) it's not just a Chelsea problem per se. It's a systemic problem in English football that severely lacks any real competition for academies, I'm baffled why we're still yet to even trail the B team system but I guess there would be more opposition from the Football League than anyone else.

To put quite simply, no. I don't think this academy will help us dominate English football, I don't think even 40% of this academy will ever see the Chelsea first XI. I find it extraordinary that the Chelsea u19s are defending and two-time UEFA Youth League champions & the Chelsea u21s have made it to 7 consecutive FA Youth Cup semi-finals and not a single member of the previous 6 has been able to force his way into the first team. Ruben Loftus-Cheek is flavour of the season, following the footsteps of Aké, McEachran & Kakuta. Musonda, you would imagine, is next in line but none of the aforementioned have been good enough* to make it. * whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean anyway.

To be honest, when you're comparing him to the Wilshere's and Abonglahor's of this world he isn't the worst of the bunch. It's the way it is now that English kids are ruining their own careers because of how much they're being paid domestically now. Only really, you can argue, Barkley and Stones are keeping their head down. Lindgaard and Rashford to an extent, but none of these players have demonstrated the talent Raheem has. I'd also argue his case of being more mature then he's given credit for. Although his Liverpool transfer wasn't exactly how he planned it, but he went to City with an enormous transfer fee which didn't phase him in the slightest. He's only seeing the bench now because he's injured. Even Pellegrini knows Navas or Nasri doesn't have a thing on Sterling To keep this in context of Kevin, none of these City youngers are ready or a finished product, which bring me back to my OP. The potential of this city team with KdB, Sterling, Aguero, Silva, Iheanacho... Well Guardiola won't be out of talent put it that way, on top of who else he plans to add.

To be fair, it's a great step for him in trying to rebuild his reputation. A league he can easily walkthrough & in a club where the league won't even be a priority. But I'd question how much of the reigns Nasser Al-Khelaifi would be willing to give José, he won't allow the sales of their future stars that he's invested so much into.

Think his potential is there, clearly not a finished product by any means. Under Pep he could reach that potential.

You've got to really worry about the damage De Bruyne will do under Guardiola. His talent is there to see, he's got statistics to back him up and he's the right age where his development will only continue. That trio of Sterling, Aguero and De Bruyne will be potentially as formidable as the MSN and BBC trios of this generation. Not forgetting magicians like David Silva pulling the strings behind them Just a thought anyway.. Could all go balls up too (I hope)

But the thing is, we were there. We almost had the young, cheap, potentially world class players on our books. We were profitable with transfers and seemed to be on the right path.. Until Mourinho's ill advised sales that is. It's almost ridiculous how we're so devoted now to seeing the development of our ex-players and tarnishing them because of whatever reason they left us for. That's where we went wrong, the businessmen were suddenly even happier because we made a profit on all our sales and management had a nice shiny trophy to show off. Can we say Roman had a choice in the matter? He's pulled out all stops to bring back Mourinho, the last thing he'd want to do is cross him so soon on decisions of De Bruyne, Lukaku, Mata, Schurrle, etc. It was like Ancelotti's double winning team. The success that we had masked a lot of problems that should have been addressing earlier. Much respect to Mourinho for delivering the Premier League and League Cup to us, nothing will ever be taken away from that. But Mourinho also is responsible for taking our well directioned club off the tracks. That's why I don't get this Emenalo crap. Yeah we've now had to put up with mediocre signings like Pato and Maizga but well that problem was preceeded by a much bigger one.

See, I don't know if I'd go that far. Roman himself isn't the cancer in the club that's siphoning our success. His board appointments have a lot to explain and yeah you can argue that's Roman's burden to bare. But he's clearly a Chelsea fan which makes a huge difference when you're owned by such a powerful and wealthy influence. Look at Villa and Lerner. He's got no interest in the success of Aston Villa, he couldn't care less the fans hate him and that he's running the club into ruin. Do we want that? Do we want to have a massive debt taken out against our club to secure a new owner? The board needs to change, in personnel and in attitude. You need the businessmen, without a doubt, but that's got to be incorporated with football brains. I posted the interview with the Barca VP a few days ago and his insight is quite telling. FC Barcelona is a business, but they transcend their success in business to success in sports. Their board, not sure who remains now but back then, is full of ex players alike. Cruyff, Zubizarreta, Txiki, etc all joined the board following the end of their playing days. Of course those players were exceptional back in their day, but that's not the point I'm making. It's more that, there's got to be a distinct mix of business and football brains alike. If Roman can see that, or if someone can show it to him, then we can get back on track. If not then you'll ultimately be right and Roman should sell.

Let's not go there . It feels much sooner than it's been when he was strongly touted as our next academy player to make it..

Remember when they almost won the league and we said this country would be unbearable to live in? It'll be as bad if they win the Europa & qualify for the CL

Well to be fair, he's talking about wages and tax %s in Spain compared to England so what he's saying has grounds. The tax rate then in Madrid was 54% and Barcelona 56% so as much as they want to pay them even after tax, they still can't pay as much as PSG and Chelsea can. As he says, footballers talk to each other about their net income. He even says Alexis left because he wanted more money (as one factor, in keeping it fair). Let's think about all the player we've "stolen" from under our rival's nose. Willian more recently from Tottenham. While Willian can say all day long it was about Chelsea as a club, I'm sure we gave him £10-20k more than Tottenham were offering. Not saying that was his primary reason, certainly then we were still more attractive proposition than Tottenham from even a football standpoint, but it's a factor you can't ignore.

The wankfest is as cringe as when Gerrard left Liverpool. Fuck football news today.

You guys ever seen this interview with Barcelona VP Javier Faus? Quite interesting.. Original (German) Translation

http://www.umaxit.com/index.php/columns/how-chelsea-have-descended-into-goalkeeping-chaos-in-just-12-months

You can't be serious...

Fuck Spurs, glad Leicester are almost too far ahead now for any probable chance of Tottenham winning the PL. I hope it's us who ends their title bid in a dead 0-0 in 3 weeks

Now there's a name you don't hear too often anymore

Well that.. Was beautiful.