Tomo

Agreed unlike Torres he's still (from what i can see) been a decent infulence off the pitch. Hopefully the rumours of Sarri wanting him are true as it will suit every party.

I always wonder whether that form at the end of the season was a genuine breakthrough that was robbed by the injury or just an ultimate purple patch. If I'm being truly honest my instinct is saying the latter. He was micromanaged by Sarri (nearly every break in play he called Ruben over for instructions) in a way Lampard couldn't/wouldn't have done so it would have probably been a case of as soon as the muscle memory faded he would have reverted back to pre 2019 levels.

Don't like the against all odds angle to this one. A surprise maybe but it wasn't against all odds and we haven't really had any perceived luck all tournament.

That was probably amoung the least of the evils Conte did that season. The version of Costa from 2017 onwards is no better than the strikers we tried to replace him with, infact he was probably worse.

Kante, he himself confirmed Mourinho made a personal call to him trying to convince him to pick United. I know he hasn't lived entirely upto expectations but I would to an extent argue Jorginho aswell.

I disagree with the bolded bit, Barca would have been incredible even without Messi. The national team of that era were pretty much Barca minus Messi and they won absolutely everything.

While first team level is ofcourse a totally different ball game he elevated himself to star prospect in the first place playing RCB (to accommodate Lamptey and Sterling at wing back). As Azpi has shown down the years in that position you can still get forward and get crosses in playing there and the combination with Hakimi down that side would cause all ends of problems.

On the contrary, if 3atb is the way we're moving forward then Hakimi is very much a need, he's an absolute game changing wingback. James served a purpose in that position for the do and die backs against the wall games but long term his home is the hybrid RCB if we're going down this route.

City wasted countless chances in their first season under Pep yet without a significant attacking signing that summer (bar Bernardo who was a squad player that campaign) they quickly reverted to the mean and romped to the league with a 20 plus point improvement. There's a reason XG/XP is a big thing these days because it gives people an idea on where things are going with certain teams, to use an example on the other end of the scale to us last season Arsenal were creating fuck all in Emery's full season but Auba was finishing almost every chance, people thought they would be all right as he would keep scoring, he did but they still dived down the league. I believe in a similar way we will revert to the mean like those examples above, getting an out and out striker takes one player away from the build up and may end up being counter productive even if they offer good numbers. We may end up going too far the other way and be relying on that one player to keep taking all their chances. I can easily see that being the case with Lukaku and I just can't ignore the fact BVB have got worse since Haaland has arrived despite his unbelievable numbers. If we really want to test the waters for a marquee player Sancho or if we are really bold Mbappe (Tuchel here, sort of Chelsea fan and Drogba's friend may give us a small chance especially with the Spanish pair heading into transition), I really worry signing a fox in the box would set back what we are trying to build, even one as good as Haaland. This is one of these opinions that will make me look like a genius or a complete idiot a couple of years from now but yeah.

Or what *if* one of them have a Drogba 06/07 esque improvement? I mean it's pretty strange you wouldn't factor in potential second season improvement, especially with Havertz. What many are missing is we don't actually need one of them to turn into a 20 goal season striker we need all of them to improve by 5 goals in average which i think is quite easily doable.

Hakimi at wing back and Reece at RCB would make a huge difference in trying to break parked buses down. Would be like at youth level when Reece was there and Lamptey wing back.

He only ever played back four with Kepa behind him, would be a totally different ball game with Edou.

He's already played competitively for England. Edit: already been covered

Too obvious, if you said "we sold James to Pool" that might have worked

Does this mean we're getting a banter number 3? Or better still, Kepa takes that slot and we get a new back up!

I'm not as fixated on a striker as many despite the records of our players last season. I think there's a lot of mitigating circumstances. Havertz with very bad Covid then returning when we were at the meltdown period under Frank, Werner having a few weeks of bad misses which then escalated, Pulisic injured for most of the early part of the season and then returning in the Frank meltdown period, Ziyech losing his momentum he was building before injury, and not to mention three were in their first season and before Tuchel arrived weren't getting coaching to the required level they needed at this level. I don't think it's unreasonable to think those four and Mount (possibly CHO too) will all improve by atleast 4/5 league goals next season which will effectively be new striker numbers. I have enjoyed the fluidity that's been building with Kai as the false 9 and I think we are onto something going forward. An out and out striker could potentially put us backwards in our evolution even if he offers impressive numbers, ofcourse the main person I'm referring too is Lukaku but even with Haaland I can't help but look at the fact BVB have got worse despite his unbelievable personal numbers.

Hard to tell, could be that or the pressure of getting the first one (which caused us to lose to inferior Liverpool twice) got to them, potentially a bit of both.

This is the one aspect I'm nervous about with Tuchel, his transfer record isn't particularly great.

What is really exciting is we genuinely have a chance to add more in the next few years with the overall state of the European teams. On paper our three biggest obstacles are Bayern, City and Paris and two of them keep freezing in the competition. Massive massive chance to get a few in the cabinet and really establish ourselves as the elite.

Yes but I guess it will boil down to just how much strength you put on UCL.

Here's a million dollar question. If he wins a PL title with us becoming the first Chelsea manager to do both then does Jose get knocked down to number two?

Yep

I was on a stadium tour of The Dragao a while ago and we were allowed to have a photo taken with a replica UCL trophy. Little did I know I was in the stadium of our next triumph in this competition.

I won't call anyone out individually but unless it was an antijinx some of you should be hanging your head in shame for the pre match prediction.

Football doesn't work like that, do I need to remind you the teams that beat us the last season we won it?