Madmax

Mikel's ball-retention is nothing short of superb. Have you not seen how skilfully he finds his way out of tight corners while multiple opponents hound him? I could provide you videos reflecting this, but I can foresee idiotic remarks like ''youtube makes anyone look great" His major weakness is that he is a little immobile and ungainly with his challenges, though he is improving in the latter aspect.

He still wouldn't be that ...

I'm happy if this means we're not blowing 20 million on Lukaku!

Maturity helps develop everything bar pace after a point of time.

Hamsik is 23, lots of time to develop his creative side. He can be our Lampard replacement, Pastore can be the CAM we never had. There's space for the two of them in our squad, but I'm not speaking in this season's terms of course.

Hell I get a mini-stroke everytime this thread pops up in the 'View New Posts' section

Is it? Remember reading Arse were interested. Must've missed the latest developments.

Mikel gives the ball away cheaply? You're either blind/braindead/bitter or too apologetic of bigger name players like Essien and Lampard if you're gonna say that. Ridiculous.

"Playing football on a Thursee" Irony is, he can't even do that now

He's on his way to l'Arse. How does that make you feel?

In a nutshell, Mourinho > Hiddink. But I know who I'd want at Chelsea.

At Chelsea we have an obsession with playing players out of position. Ivan as RB > Ivan as CB. Luiz, Alex, Terry in the middle. Why change a good thing?

Carlo Ancelotti <3

aka 'I'm coming...get your autograph books out.'

Sneijder ain't coming. So we must get Pastore now. The only one I'd prefer to Pastore would be Hamsik.

Even if he is as good as Tore, he has quality and potential

^That's Sturridge in the purple tee and cap

Because he's got a wife? Behave.

He was in France this past week for his re-marriage. I read somewhere that he'll be holidaying in monaco after that.

That's a bitch of a kit. Fucking hell, what were we thinking? The design is one you'd find on one of those wooly sweaters garndmas love knitting. This makes the fluorescent 06-07 shirt look class. Also, when will we have an away shirt that is not black in colour?

Wow 10 pages in a day ... oh it's just talk about Mikel, the one we've been having since umm ... 2006? My two cents : Fucking go for it already! My feelings about Malouda are well known, no explanations needed there. Essien, as much as I love him, has been reduced to someone who's neither here nor there ... not an effective box-to-box midfielder anymore (understandable, his knees have given way) and he was never a DM. Ramires is our Essien replacement, plus he actually has some technical ability. Mikel is our pure DM, and no-one does a better job than him in that position in our squad. Essien's the odd one out and I'd jump at the chance to still cash in on him while we can, considering he'd be making a major part of Sneijder's valuation.

No. We showed that when we let Borini go for a 20 million Drogba lookalike. Entertainment and general amusement.

When you look at it, before 31st Jan this year, we had paid 20 million + for only 5 players. The huge disparity in the ins and outs is down to our sales (bar Robben) not fetching much value. And the fact that we keep our best players and refrain from selling the core of the team. Mourinho's penchant for a big squad was well known so a lot has been spent on getting the bits-and-parts players as well.

Can understand the logic behind a CB. Terry is only going to get worse. Luiz is still a child in this league. Alex has frequent injury problems and his future is uncertain. Ivan is being looked upon solely as a RB. But shouldn't we just give Bruma that squad place instead of spunking another 15 million on this guy? Esp with his compatriot all set to take charge.

Drogba is in Monaco as well. Cannot be a coincidence. Definitely something going on there.