Bir_CFC

While he'll surely improve, I don't think Oscar will ever come close to even 50% of Mata's vision and creativity. Just a different kind of player. He has ability to cover the goals but I don't see the assists getting anywhere close to Mata level.

It's the general transfer thread. You're going to call out every single non-chelsea related post in a thread where majority of the posts are not related to Chelsea?

What idiots fail to realize is that we're not replacing Mata with Salah. Mata has already been replace with Oscar! Salah will be replacing Mata's contributions for this season, which considering how little he's been able to contribute can be easily replicated or improved by Salah.

Great article: http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/espnfcunited/id/11843?cc=5901 If United have 40M to spend, they will get better with or without Mata, I don't think it's about improving them because if they don't get Mata now they'll get Reus or some other world class players in the summer with that kind of money. His sale was inevitable, and I'm sure everyone would have preferred to leave it till the summer but with the world cup looming and Spain as one of the favourites, you can't really blame Mata for requesting a move away now as it doesn't look like he was going to be a key player here and most likely would not have made the WC squad. Can't blame him and won't blame him. The only negative is that we all love him and it'll just hurt to see him at United. It hurt to see him on the bench but slowly we accepted that and I'm sure if we re-invest the monies and get stronger and win the title, it'll def help us move on.

Spot on. Plus leaving Salah on the bench instead of Mata won't make any headlines either. The only question is that is he just a stop-gap for this year cause we're loosing 2 AMs or does Mou actually see him as a viable squad player for the future? It'd be stupid to buy him just to avoid an injury crisis. Just recall Moses or something if that's the plan.

Compare all you want, as long as we're higher in the table, neither Oscar nor anyone else will care. Secondly, don't talk about pressure getting the best of Oscar. While he may be young, on the pitch, mentally and even physically he's no 21 year old. Dude has never hid in a big game, yeah he may have bad games but he doesn't go hiding. I can't recall anytime he's let pressure get the best of him in Chelsea colours.

I don't know why Athletico would sell in this window considering they can possibly win la liga and get very far in the CL. Just doesn't make any sense. They would be bigger idiots than us to let him go in this window.

Shit, any news on how bad? Colombia were looking pretty good too for the WC.

I don't know if he is. He has decent workrate and can get stuck in, but he's pretty weak physically similar to Mata. Gets pushed off the ball very easily.

I won't believe this until it happens and if we do sell him to United, I don't know how I'm going to handle it. Surely, we can't be this stupid. Surely, there must be someone else in Europe that would want Mata as well. Accept a little less if needed, just don't sell him within the PL. If we do sell him, we need an AM to replace him. Just 4 for 3 positions isn't good enough. Maybe recall someone from loan.

Yeah, that was my favourite move of the match, other than the goals of course. Threw away Phil Jones to the floor like he was nothing and just made mince meat of Rafael.

No I don't mean to say you are pro-Mata and I wholeheartedly agree with your entire post, it's spot on imo. My point was simply that in general the whole argument about Mata kind of lumps one side of the argument automatically in that Mata FC bucket right now because Mata at his beast doesn't mean Chelsea at their best anymore. We are winning now and for the first time in 2-3 years actually building a team identity. Unfortunately, the simple fact is that Mata FC and Chelsea FC are mutually exclusive, they weren't in previous years but they are now and it won't change.

He may not be as effective but it's Chelsea FC and not Mata FC. If he wants to play either learn to press like Oscar, which will never happen because Mata is limited physically, or do your best to influence the match from the wings. Mou isn't going to change his defensive philosophy to suit Mata, especially since it seems to working with the entire team except Mata. Plus he's played on the wings for us a lot when he first came here and has been very good. Of course he won't get goals and assists like last year but as long as he's able to help the team win, that's what he and we all want. I don't care if he gets stats or not, as long as he plays well and we win and this goes for any player.

Yup, he's a lot more intelligent than people give him credit for. I mean, Mou let him play the full 90, he trusted him and he repaid his trust. He's just a super aggressive player and I think he was ok yesterday. I just think it was mistake starting Luiz and Ramires together because they both lack positional discipline and go chasing after the ball.

The problem is Mou's defensive philosophy is to press high through the centre and force the ball to the flanks and win the ball on the wings. Pressing high through the middle is crucial, which is why whenever he does start Mata it's on the wings to hide him as much as he can.

Come on Chelsea! Gotta win this. More nervous than in previous years because this is a must win and I expect to win. Anything less than 3 pts can't be good enough.

I wouldn't trust his displays in Eredivisie. Offensively he'll be fine but defensively I want to see a loan in the PL before I'd place any trust in him. <br />

um, he posted jose's quote

United tactics are simple, get wide and fire in low crosses blindly into the box and hope it falls to a united player. That's all Valencia and Evra do. Januzaj is the only one that can actually disguise passes but he's too weak to really impose himself on us imo. Shut down the wings and we'll be fine.

Oscar will take care of Carrick.

If we're bringing in Shaw then I'm sure Cole will get an extension. I don't see how we can go into next season with Shaw and PVA as our only two left backs, considering we play around 60 games a season.

That's the chant right there! Not sure if that's you meant it to be when you posted, but I like that a lot. Nemanja Matic! So good we signed him twice!

He must have handed in a transfer request or threatened to do so, otherwise no way they part with him so fast without what seems like even negotiating.

The centre midfield doesn't have to be our biggest strength, as long as it's not a bottleneck, which this signing definitely helps.

David Luiz is at the game! Just got interviewed by Benfica tv