lecter

Hahaha. Chelsea TV changed the tagline from Manager's Press Conference to Antonio Conte's First Press Conference. Someone's gonna lose his job today

Hearing so much banter about his knee is making me anxious! Can someone post any article or any proper break-down of how severe the problem is exactly?!

Any updates?

http://thechels.net/2012/06/kakuta-on-dijon-chelsea-france-and-the-future/

5 year deal? Guess it is. And Sky reporting that the salary is 170kpw?!

Now that we have secured the Holy Grail (its not justified to call it that anymore, is it? ), we should look for giving our youth a proper chance. I love the fact that we are strengthening the squad with some of the most awesome players, but I will like it more if we left enough space to provide decent opportunities to some of the most anticipated footballers that our academy is honing. I personally feel Kakuta, Hutch and Kalas should be given a chance in 2012-13 with loan deals to Josh, Milan, Clifford and Kane. And loan deals which assure playing time and hopefully in decent teams. What other youngsters can be looked at in the next 3 years, with an aim to break them into the first team and hopefully some day become first team regulars? Piazon, Feruz, Chalobah, Ake, Affane, Baker and Blackman come to mind. I want to see Chelsea be a top team in Europe forever for sure but I would love it if we can make it happen with enough youngsters that we have seen grow as footballers from the start.

I still think we need to get one of Bruma/Kalas back. JT facing the ban and his fitness might be an issue.

Someone raised an interesting point! He never said the which year;s CL winner is he talking abt! Why could he not have said just Chelsea?!

And cap knows about this?! Poor lad

Great news. But I noticed something in the Skysports article that Kalou has already left the Blues. Any news on that?!!

I thought this was the season he would be inducted into the first team. I think him/Kalas should be brought into the squad. With JT facing a ban its too risky to have only 2 main CBs (with Iva as the only backup)! Anyways..good luck to him!

Thanks for the reassurance mate. I expect nothing less from the Blues fans. :blue scalf:

And how come no one talks about youth induction?! Remember guys named Bruma, Kalas, Kakuta etc.?! (I mention those three because I think they are the only three ready to break into the first team, if given right opportunity this season)

I will be sick of this dumbass if he really gets Ess and SloMo to sign long term deals and portrays it as an achievement! I would want regular SB goers to protest if anything of this sort happens. I am so restless that we might never go forward with all the "real deadwood" (read as Bos, SloMo, Ess (sorry man!), PF etc.) and this is the best time to rebuild..being European champions!

No one seems to realise this! We are trying to build a team for the future (at least the next 5 years) this time around and if we start with such a ridiculous pay package, I don;t see us advancing too much. Players like Mata, Luiz, Cahill, Rami and maybe a couple more star players that we get this transfer window, who will become indispensable in the coming years, will be totally in their rights to demand a similar pay package! And are we ready to shell out that kind of money to prevent a dissatisfied core?

Hope no incident tarnishes my experience, when I get to live my wish of watching and celebrating Chelsea live!

I ponder a lot about this. I see myself staying in London and going to SB on a regular basis, eventually. But, I always wonder if I will ever be included in local fan groups and treated as one of them.

A sensible one at last; not blinded by the apparent monetary prowess we have. It's not just about buying a great player and offering him whatever he demands just because we can. Its about setting a standard for the future and somehow most seem to miss that obvious point!

This is my view of how the team should be built up for the next season. First of all, the formation. I think we should be going with the 4-2-3-1 (the DM 2 should be a combination of an attack minded player and a specialist DM; for example: Mikel/Romeu and Lamps/Rami/Raul) or the 4-4-1-1 formation as has been pointed out by quite a few people. The OUTS: RB: Bosingwa, Ferreira MF: Essien, Malouda, Benayoun FW: Drogs (I am feeling sad even typing this! But this needs to be done for the good of either parties) Now, regarding the squad already present. I, personally, feel that a strong squad is one with enough replacements for each position so that we don't wobble under circumstances similar to the recent ones in the CL. The ones that are italicized are rare options that can be exercised in special circumstances. The bold ones are the ins that I desire/speculate and are feasible. The ones in the bracket are hopeful youth inductees. GK (3): Not an issue until we have Big Pete with us. CB (4): JT, Gary, Luiz, Brana (Bruma/Kalas) RB (2): Brana, Cesar/Van der Wiel (Hutch) LB (2): Ashley, Bertrand (PVA) DM (4): Mikel, Romeu (age 20), Lamps, Meireles, Ramires (Conor Clifford, Chalobah (over optimistic!)) CAM/SS (3): Mata, Marin, Belhanda/Jovetic (McEachran, Piazon (over optimistic again!)) LW (2): KDB (age 20), Sturridge, Hazard/Muniain (Kakuta) RW (2): Kalou, Marin, Ramires, Hulk (Lalkovic) ST (3): Torres, Sturridge, Lukaku (age 19) Its obvious that we need to strengthen (by buying AND trusting some of our youngsters) our wing play. I'd be very happy if we buy the ones in bold. I would like to know more options in that particular position, if we lose out on those. One interesting issue we might encounter is we are restricted to a squad of 25! And the homegrown players will also be a bother. If my scheme is okay, we'd have 7 HG, 16 foreign and 3 U21 players (excluding of course the youth inductees). We'll be fine as far as the PL is concerned. We can actually add an extra foreign player But CL demands 4 "locally trained players". Out of the 7 HG players, only JT qualifies for that. So, we might have to sacrifice one of the other 6 (considering we don;t fill in that foreign player slot; otherwise we might have to cut 2 players off of the remaining 6!) So, another important note for future is that we should be wary to keep prospective "homegrown" talent for at least 3 years in the club! Stupid UEFA! Always pro-Barcelona! /rant-over

A great signing. I feel that they found some true blues in Rami, Luiz and Mata in the recent years. Awesome display of attitude and passion by the three, all through the season. I still think we depend a tad too much on Mata. I want us to sign another CAM as that is the only position we dont seem to have options!

I know I am gonna be slated for this but how is Lampard's comment funny?! If anything, I found it arrogant. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate Lamps as much as the next Chelsea fan for everything he has done for the club.

Is it gonna be aired live on TV or something? (Please say yes :pray:)

I am experiencing a weird thing! The prices for the same product are being shown different for me and a friend of mine! How come?

Finally someone who makes a great point! I am really not keen on him if we are to pay 200k a week!