EskWeston

He is an incredibly exciting player thats for sure. It will be very interesting to see how he does, if he can cope with the Chelsea Academy "Second Season Syndrome" where a lot of players struggle to continue the good form they had in their first year, Woods, Sinclair, Sahar, Stoch and a few others have suffered from this. Scolari has said he has before given chances to 17, 18 and 19 year olds. He may be tempted to give our brightest spark a chance.... who knows.

Absolutely, although if the lad feels he is that good, then fine, prove it! We would all love to see it

To minimise their risk. On 5 years they risk having a player who is only going to decline and possibly suffer more injuries on the highest wage at the club. Also they risk every player wanting the same at that stage....

But look at it from the other side, what is a year to Frank? He will earn something like £30m for the 4 years he is going to be offered to play for the club he wants to stay at. The problem the club has is if they do offer that then they are going to have everyone knocking on their door asking for the same, Ballack is up for renewal, he will want a deal till he is 35 and so on...

Sounds about right.... Cech, Cudicini, Hilario Bosingwa, Ferreira, Cole, Bridge Terry, Carvalho, Alex, Ivanovic Essien, Mikel, Lampard, Ballack, Deco, Maka/new midfielder J.Cole, Kalou, New Winger, New Winger Drogba, Sheva, Anelka Thats a squad of 24 with 2 for each position. That means Belletti, Ben Haim, Sidwell, Malouda, SWP, Pizarro and possibly Maka leaving. Scolari said that having a squad this size allows him to use youth players.

I can understand the club not wanting to give a 5 year contract on reportedly £140,000 per week to a 30 year old. It is incredibly high risk, players at that age are more prone to suffer long term injuries and lose their form. I honestly believe that if Frank is turning down a 4 year contract on £140,000 then he wants to leave...

If the club are offering him 4 years and he is turning it down then i think he wants to go and is using this as a way of forcing himself out.......

Lol, i like the logic but we never seem to demolish teams in pre season no matter how obscure they are I agree, i love pre season and the first game of the pre season is always very exciting, hopefully there will be 1 or 2 new players out there to join the current squad.

You can't help but get excited hearing him talk. He wants to win everything, he wants to play good football and create a good atmosphere within the squad. A squad of a maximum of 25 players so he can involve youth players - this means there will be plenty of players leaving, even more when new players come in so there is still a lot of activity to happen this summer.

Very impressed with everything that Scolari has come out and said yesterday. All the points he made has given a very positive attitude on everything. I am very very very happy to hear that he has definate plans to involve youth players with first team games as he has said: "The Academy is fantastic. I help the young players, I put a lot of them in the clubs I coached. In Palmeiras, 17, 18, 19-year-olds all in a row. We have some players here who maybe next season play some important games. 'I have one man that came with me, Carlos Pracidelli, goalkeeper coach, and the man that goes three days a week to see the training in the Academy, because if he sees some very good players, he can say "Look, start him training". We have good connections.' It seems that he is already looking at that with Mancienne and Di Santo involved with first team training at the moment. But if he is looking at our young players then he will be very impressed and the chance of players getting chances seem very high.

This speculation is getting incredibly silly now! Lampard obviously told Scolari that he wanted to stay (providing a contract can be agreed), Scolari wants Lampard to stay. Now if as is being reported Lampard is after 5 more years on a contract then in my opinion he is trying to force a way out without trying to look like a bad guy. He must surely know that there is no way that at 30 the club will give him a 5 year contract. This one isn't going to go away any time soon.....

From what i could gather from CTV last night the players only had to take their passports in to training with them to get their Visa's sorted out, so they don't have to go anywhere..

Yes, Mancienne is a very bright prospect, done everything asked of him and is now a England Under 21's regular too. Clearly he is being given his chance to impress Scolari as is Di Santo... Not sure what the deal is with Sinclair, there is talk of another loan spell for him but nothing confirmed yet. And from the looks of the pics from training available he isn't currently with the first team. As far as i can tell the players currently training are: Terry Lampard Ben Haim Sidwell Wright-Phillips A.Cole J.Cole Alex Bridge Belletti Ivanovic Di Santo Mancienne Pizarro Hilario Cudicini Although Sheva and Drogba are not pictured running with the group but both have been into training, Drogba is carrying an injury, maybe Sheva is too???

A tad harsh perhaps?? He has clearly upset a lot people last season. Mainly i would think with his constant (supposed) talk about him wanting to leave.. still be a wonderful player for us though.

Actually, forget that. Just seen a training pic and Mancienne IS training with the first team. So is Franco Di Santo.... Good news there..

Not just the goals though, it could have been 2 completely different players. The Drogba 2 seasons ago was determined and would fight like mad every game and want to be the best. Last season some times it looked like he couldn't even be bothered to walk out onto the pitch....

Well lets keep our fingers crossed!!! Been no mention of Transfer talk for him yet!!! Don't forget also that Mancienne and Alcides may well be looking at the 4th spot too. No mention anywhere if Mancienne or Alcides are involved with the training at the moment....

His "antics" are not the issue for me! For me it was his attitude for a lot of last season that was the problem. If he can come into this season with a new manager to inspire him he can be the best striker in the world. Everything is up to him, he can be that man if he wants to be, time will tell what Drogba we get this season.....

Lets hope he can prove that! He is still fairly young and hopefully he can come in and do a very good job for us. He will be working hard in pre season to impress, with 5 centre backs currently on board at least 1 will have to go....

Well considering his age with Ronaldinho i think it is a gamble worth taking. AC Milan obviously think so too. There are other options out there and time will tell what sort of players scolari has in mind, but i would imagine that Ronaldinho, Robinho and Quaresma will be high on his list.

I expect us to take with us the squad we have right now! It will be match practice for the boys and for Scolari to see how the team do in a real match situation. Will be good to see Bosingwa, Deco and Ivanovic in action.

Well Scolari has put the ball firmly in Franks court! We want you to stay, you want to stay, so prove it....

It is certainly possible, but who knows. At the moment the most probable players to come in for those positions (going on paper talk) is Robinho and Ronaldinho. Quaresma has not been mentioned for a while now. Scolari wants to asses his players, i am sure he is a man who knows what he needs to get a team playing his way. And i am sure that he can see that we need new wingers, SWP has to be replaced this summer. And if we want to really build for next season we should replace Malouda too.

Left wing! Where he has played for Madrid, his pace and trickery would be ideal. I think you are right, with Drogba, Sheva and Anelka (plus Di Santo) all seemingly staying it looks like the only place we need players (and desperately) is on the wings. And hopefully he will pick up the right players we need for there.

I think everyone will come away from the first interview and conference feeling very very positive. We have 2 weeks now till the first pre season game. Not sure when they actually fly out but i am sure it will be soon, possibly next week. Will anymore players be added before then? I am sure they will try, but it will be very hard. Scolari thinks that 95% to 99% of his final squad will be flying out to China/malaysia....