EskWeston

Dissapointing to see no number in there for Michael Mancienne. Doesn't mean he won't feature this season of course....

Big boost for the lad, shows that he will get plenty of first team action this season i think. Sinclair taking up Robbens old number too.....

We can today announce this season's Chelsea squad numbers, with Franco Di Santo taking the number 9 shirt. The Argentine forward is one of three new faces in the first team squad, and replaces Steve Sidwell as number 9, following the midfielder's move to Aston Villa last month. Elsewhere, José Bosingwa takes the number 17 jersey, and Scott Sinclair moves to number 16. As previously reported Deco has taken the number 20 from Paulo Ferreira due to his academy using the number, and the defender changes to 19. Those are the only changes from last season, and you can now buy your favourite player's shirt from the online megastore. The full squad list is below. 1 Petr Cech 2 Branislav Ivanovic 3 Ashley Cole 5 Michael Essien 6 Ricardo Carvalho 7 Andriy Shevchenko 8 Frank Lampard 9 Franco Di Santo 10 Joe Cole 11 Didier Drogba 12 John Mikel Obi 13 Michael Ballack 14 Claudio Pizarro 15 Florent Malouda 16 Scott Sinclair 17 José Bosingwa 18 Wayne Bridge 19 Paulo Ferreira 20 Deco 21 Salomon Kalou 23 Carlo Cudicini 24 Shaun Wright-Phillips 26 John Terry 30 Rhys Taylor 33 Alex 35 Juliano Belletti 39 Nicolas Anelka 40 Hilario You can see the full squad in action on Monday at our Fan Day, which starts at Stamford Bridge from 9.30am. Source: Chelsea FC

It's all very silly really. Generated by the media asking leading questions and then sensationalising the answers. Scolari is the Chelsea manager and we all support him. Jose and Ranieri were great for us and we still appreciate them.

He has all the attributes we want to see in our wingers and Scolari clearly likes him and i agree that Scolari will get the best out of him. I think this one may now get concluded by monday, Real seem prepared to sell. We sensibly offered less than we expect to pay as Madrid will always ask for more, we can then pay what we expected and Madrid feel they have a better deal out of it. The key is that we have done this publicly, Robinho now knows that we are serious and he will now push Madrid to get the deal done so he can move on.

Don't think he has had too many injury problems. Was quite important to Real last season, and when both available he was picked over Robben. He will be ideal for us, able to play wide left in an attacking sense and also as a second striker should we play 4-4-2. Would be good to have him in place for the pompey game considering our striking options will be limited for that game.

Considering discussions have gone on with Madrid for some time now, and coupled with the stories previously that Madrid are now prepared to let him leave this confirmation on an offer made is exciting news. I would expect us to maybe have to up the offer still to probably around £25m as is being reported in a lot of papers this morning. But it looks like it is finally going to happen and we will get Robinho.

Yes the anticipation for the new season can bring plenty of boredom! Managing to pass the time by working and decorating my front room! But the season is taking a long time to come. I have even resorted to watching some cricket!!!!!

Well all it takes is the media on your side. Jose worked the media, sometimes in went in our favour sometimes it didn't. He is doing the same in Italy now, already generating controversy . Avram on the other hand generated his own bad press mainly because he was a useless twat who more closley resembled a potato than a football manager. The current "buzz-word" around football at the moment is "attractive football" if you play it you are applauded. At the end of the day what we as fans want to see is our club being successful, it doesn't matter in reality if other teams supporters like us or not...

Well it is certainly possible! But they are making assumptions about Madrids stance in all this. I hope it doesn't drag out that long though.

The sooner we get this deal done the better, it is looking like it will happen sooner or later, sooner would be better than later obviously. It would be nice to have him in for the opening game against Pompey. Does the Van Der Vaart move open the door for Robinho to leave? It opens it a little, but i think until Madrid sign a forward they will hold onto Robinho.

We definately have an exciting season in store i believe. We have a fantastic squad and a manager who knows how to use that squad to get the best out of each player. We have seen in pre season the basics of what we can expect from Scolari's Chelsea. The key features for me are full backs pushing high up the field and slick passing with through balls for the strikers to run onto.

Sounds like this transfer could really start to crank up now. A lot of noises comming out from all parties at the moment, which as far as the transfer is concerned is good news for us i think.

It would certainly be hard for United to improve on last season. So in that respect JT is right. However if they add as it looks like they will a striker like Berbatov then they become a stronger team than last season, depending on if they lose Ronaldo or not. The main thing as far as we are concerned is that we improve from last year, we did well last year but teams are getting stronger around us and we need to do the same. I do believe that this season will be a very good one for us.

Kenyon was the one pushing to keep Jose and Jose always refers to Kenyon as a friend. As for the "debt" we have, you can't even compare it to the situation the Mancs and the Arse are in. It is interest free and the only reason it is done as a loan is for tax reasons. Roman owes the money to himself. I don't see any problem with the situation we are in. We have a very rich owner who owns the club personally and is willing to spend money to make us a massive club which he has done. And now the outrageous spending is winding down to normal levels and we will eventually become self sufficient. A lot of people hate Kenyon, personally i can see any reason to get worked up about him. He does a job that none us can relate to as football fans. As for him ruining our reputation, our reputation never stood a chance once we became winners who were a threat to the big boys. Financially i cant see any reason why a Chelsea fan would be unhappy with the situation we are in.

Not a fan of Kenyon then? Personally i don't have a problem with him. And what he has said isn't too far wrong either, if you want more competition it is up to the clubs below us to make a go of it, not much we can do about it. Roman doesn't speak to the press, and never will. So Kenyon has to be the mothpiece of the board, yes we all hate that the club is talked about as a "brand" and we take the team to places like China and Malaysia to play pointless friendlies to sell some shirts but that is his job, and anyone in his place would do the very same thing.

Same thing we have all read before. Kenyon? Does what he is paid to do. His comments don't really bother me! Not exactly saying anything groundbreaking. And as for his actions at the CL final, should he have been up there? No! Was it his descision to go up there? I doubt it. Alcides. What are doing wrong? Most of the time it is to get around work permit issues. We did the same with Alex, we did similar with Mikel (although that went tits up) we are doing it with Raijkovic. OK maybe Alcides won't work out, but not every single one will. And we are not the only club that do it. And the figure of £75k a week we are supposed to be paying him is without doubt utter garbage. What is our big crime here that is up for debate? We are too rich for our own good? It's not fair that other clubs run up huge debts and we have Roman to save us from that?

Done it plenty of times this pre season, getting to the line and crossing for oncomming attackers. Hopefully he can keep that up in the prem.

I agree,, hasn't shown any improvement in pre season at all, whereas Malouda has.

Yup i agree, and with Kalou out at the Olympics i think it will be Malouda and Cole on the wings. I wouldn't be suprised at all if this was our starting line up: .............................Cech........................... Bosingwa.......Carvalho....Terry.............A.Cole .............................Essien......................... ...................Deco...............Lampard........... J.Cole.....................Anelka...............Malouda Subs: Cudicini, Ivanovic, Alex, Ballack, Wright-Phillips, Shevchenko, Di Santo Once we get Drogba and Kalou back and if we sign Robinho we will have incredible options all over the team. More than enough to go out to win all trophies on offer.

A lot of people would say we do. And as we are looking to sign Robinho i guess Scolari also believes we need a winger/second striker.

More than likely just a roumer. Could even be put out there to try and encourage Robinho to push through a transfer.

Well Bosingwa could well be fit. But if he isn't i would go with Ivanovic for now.

Oh boo bloody hoo.... Another bitter journo just wanting to but the boot into us. "Look how much Chelsea have spent" blah blah blah - we have heard it all before. The debt that Man you, Arsenal and Liverpool are in is a far worse situation than what we are in and yet they can do no wrong. Failing to notice the fact that our spending has gone down over the last couple of seasons, last season and so far this season our spending on players has been small in comparison and i believe it will continue that way. The club has been set up in the right way, a lot of money and time has gone into building the academy and that will eventually reap rewards also and save us on money. How dare we have someone own our club who is passionate enough to dig into his own pockets and set us up as one of the biggest clubs in the world!!! We should be ashamed of ourselves.

It is a shame that he will not be ready. But Anelka deserved his chance to start anyway. Sheva still has some way to get into form which leave us with Di Santo has the back up for the Pompey game. Hopefully it will be only the first 2 games that Drogba misses.