EskWeston

If he wants to win trophies then why would he go to Madrid? Surely he has more chance of winning things staying with us than if he went to Madrid.... For me Essien is one of the most important players for us to keep. In top form, still a very good age and a very good character....

There definately was a story about Real Wanting Essien. But i was wondering what the information was on Essien himself wanting to leave... Lots of teams understandably will want Essien, but i can't see why he would want to leave or has ever indicated that he would.

What information have you heard regarding Essien and where did you hear it from that would make you think that Essien would be on his way, particulary if we win the CL this year? I think the majority of people would find it very hard to beleive Essien would leave at the moment...

Well he could be used in either role and i think we could quite easily use him in either, if we are playing 4-3-3 we need a creative player to play higher up the park in the midfield 3 anyway and he would do a good job. Although he looks very good on the left wing too. Considering he is only 18 he would be a great aquisition, not had the best of seasons at Barca but considering he is contesting places with Eto'o, Messi, Henry, Ronaldinho and Co. it is pretty good

Yup, as posted on another thread. Journo on CTV "Paper View" is adamant that Dos Santos is joining us this summer and it was supposed to go through in Jan but didn't in the end. Rekons it is nailed on. We will have to see, but would be a welcome addition from my point of view. Not sure what position he would play, Winger or Attacking Midifielder?

Watching paper view on CTV last night and one of the journo's on there, not sure who it was though. Said that we will be signing Giovanni Dos Santos this summer, we was going to sign him in January but it didn't happen. This morning there are a few papers running with stories that we are going to sign Dos Santo but we will have to wait and see.... The same guy also said that he was told by Daniel Alves himself that he had agreed terms with us and it was down to the clubs to agree a fee, and he thought Alves would come. The arrival of Bosingwa means that it looks like a fee could not be agreed - unless the highly unlikely situation that we sign both.

I still can't see why he would want to go! He has always come across as being perfectly happy here! There is absolutely no reason to assume Essien will be anywhere other than right here next season.

You seem to have put a lot of thought into it. Although i don't see where the comments about ambition and wanting to play in spain come from. I have never heard Essien mention about playing somewhere else let alone Spain. Also the fact that Essien is still only 25/26 is the main reason he will stay - we don't HAVE to sell him no matter how much someone offers for him. Robben was different, we knew he would be injury prone forever and made a very good deal out of that. With Maka, Ballack and Lampard all in their 30's Essien is arguably the main one we should hang onto an i believe we will..

Only us and Real Madrid would pay anything like £30m for a 30 year old.....

Not a fan of Berbatovs myself, i could think of several strikers i would rather we signed before him!!! And i would also be suprised if we actualyl DID let go of Anelka! For me next season it will be Drogba, Anelka, Di Santo + 1 Which providing we get the right quality would be perfect.

Drogs is 30 now don't forget, which will signigicantly lower his value.. (unless of course it is CFC doing the buying)

Why Essien though? He isn't the only one at the club who will have won everything with Chelsea if we win the CL. Cech, Terry, Carvalho, Lampard ect...... What is it about Essien that would make him leave in the summer? I just can't see it at all

I completely agree that the Carling Cup and the FA Cup were massive massive missed oppertunities - Big time. At the same time though i think that our final league position and being in the Champions League final is a massive over achievment for the season considering everything that has happened this season. So to a certain extent i completely agree......... I don't want to see Avram Grant as manager next season as much as anyone, although as i have said considering the way we have finished i could certainly see them giving him more time. But what i would hate for us to become is totally reliant on trophies, and if we don't win one chucking our toys out the pram. There are 4 massive clubs in the premier league all capable of winning the trophies each season, not to mention the half dozen capable in the Champions League. No matter how good we are, we WILL have seasons of not winning anything and it won't be the end of the world. I have seen and spoken to a lot of fans who are Belittling what we have done this season for the sake of slagging off Avram Grant.... Yes Avram Grant isn't good enough to manage us, yes he should never have the job in the first place and only got it because he is mates with the owner! But lets not deny that overall considering everything we have had a good season and lets remember that no club has a god given right to win things every season and lets slag Avram Grant off for what he should be slagged off for

I do think Drogba will end up staying, i think Sheva and Pizarro will go so we will have Drogba, Anelka and Di Santo which leaves us open to sign a world class striker, especially if we are to play 4-4-2 next season as we are led to believe.

Wouldn't suprise me at all if United went in for 2! Saha is too injury prone and could likely move on in the summer, which leaves them with Rooney and Tevez..... we on the other hand have doubts over all our strikers. Drogba may want to leave, Sheva will probably be moved on, Pizarro is never going to have any impact - Anelka is still open for debate. Which leaves us with a young player left in Di Santo

Indeed the roumers do go into meltdown this time of year and this summer will be no exception thats for sure. But also true is the fact that we are more than likely looking to sign a World Class striker... Who knows if it is true, we will probably never know. Liverpool would never sell unless they were forced to anyway.

More than likely. Although there does seem to be (at the moment) a fantasy element to the transfer roumers with us at the moment. A sort of who do we want? OK lets just make a bid and see what happens! Kaka, Messi, Ribery ect... we are talking big names. Would not suprise me if we did make a bid to see what would happen...

I think if we did make an offer it would have been a case of us looking at the top performing strikers in the world and seeing who we can sign.....

Top Man! Cheers....

As done last summer this is your one stop for an overview of all the players linked to Chelsea in the Summer 2008 transfer window from 13th May 2008. You will find a small overview of each player by position and also a link to the detailed thread discussion on that player: Defenders: Jose Bosingwa DONE DEAL: Chelsea completed the signing of Jose Bosingwa on a three year deal on the 12th May 2008. Jose cost the Blues in the region of £16.2m, and joins from FC Porto - the previous home of fellow defenders Ricardo Carvalho and Paulo Ferriera. Link: http://www.talkchelsea.net/forum/index.php...ic=1826&hl= Midfielders: Miguel Veloso: The industrial midfielder Miguel Veloso has been tracked by Europe's elite over the last few months, and Chelsea are reported to be one of the names in the hat. With Claude Makelele coming to the end of his career, Chelsea are said to be seeking a young replacement, and Sporting's Veloso could be just that. The Blues are likely to have to fend off competition from Manchester United for his signature however. Link: http://www.talkchelsea.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=1814 Giovanni Dos Santos: MOVED TO SPURS Once again the name of Dos Santos has come back around. We have been linked with him for quite a while now and some papers are very confident that this is going to happen now and the deal was supposed to be done in January but will definately go through now. Link: http://www.talkchelsea.net/forum/index.php...amp;#entry29352 Ricardo Quaresma: The press are claiming we are making an approach for him which has more chance of comming off now due to the fact that Porto have been kicked out of the Champions League. One of the better wingers that could be available to us over the summer. Link: http://www.talkchelsea.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=1965 Deco DONE DEAL: Reports today with him almost begging to come to us and pushing for Scolari to take the job so he can come here. More than likely that he will not come as we are not exactly short on ageing midfielders. The deal for Deco was completeted on 30/06/08 and everyone is hoping that Deco can continue to impress in the Premier League Link: http://www.talkchelsea.net/forum/index.php...amp;#entry31581 Kaka: We have been linked with him for a long while now and we are apparently trying to use Drogba and Sheva as leverage to sign him. Now that Scolari is in charge we are going to be linked with him even more. Link: http://www.talkchelsea.net/forum/index.php...amp;#entry31972 Rafael Van Der Vaart: Our interest in Van Der Vaart has lasted for a long while now. There is less stories about our interest now and it is not clear if he is one of the players the Scolari would like to see here. He has explained that he has no interest in discussing anything till after the Euros. Link: http://www.talkchelsea.net/forum/index.php...amp;#entry32867 Andrei Arshavin: Reports in the press currently are saying that Zenit have said that they have accepted a bid from us for his buy out clause of £12m and that he is on his way to London to hold talks with us. The story goes that Roman desperately wants a Russian in the squad and Arshavin is the one wanted after impressive performances at Euro 2008. Link: http://www.talkchelsea.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=2124 Scott Arfield: We have apparently been tracking this 19 year old Falkirk midfielder for a while now as the kid is attracting interest from a lot of massive clubs including us and Man Utd. Link: http://www.talkchelsea.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=2228 Strikers: Leo Messi: Chelsea have been linked with a sensational £80m bid for Barcelona's twenty year old Lionel Messi, as Roman Abramovic looks to bring exciting to Stamford Bridge. If this deal were to happen, Chelsea would have to smash the previous world record transfer fee of £49m, that saw Zinedine Zidane move from Juventus to Real Madrid. Link: http://www.talkchelsea.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=1783 Fernando Torres: Reports starting in Spain have claimed that we made a cheeky £40m bid to tempt Liverpool into selling Torres to us. We may have been tempted into trying due to stories recently that Liverpool still owe a lot of money on Torres and they may be forced to sell if they can't repay. Link: http://www.talkchelsea.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=1832 Robinho: Spanish paper Marca ran the story that we have made a £35m approach fro Robinho as we seemingly look to sign up the best players around. Real Madrid however are not willing to sell but with Madrid once again circling for our players it is not a bad idea to put a bit of pressure on them too. Robinho's agent has claimed that he has held talks with Frank Arneson about a move. Robinho would like to stay at Madrid but it looks like they want to cash in on him. Link: http://www.talkchelsea.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=1879 Samuel Eto'o: Reports in Spain claiming that he has received offers from both us and from Italy, but he looks like he is going to decide to come to us as we would be able to pay him more. A fantastic scoring record but a right difficult character. Link: http://www.talkchelsea.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=900 Ronaldinho: MOVED TO AC MILAN There seems to have been speculation about Ronaldinho coming to Chelsea forever! However more recently due to his form an injuries it seemed like for the first time he was not wanted here and would go to a smaller club - Man City being the main players. Now with the arrival of Scolari it seems like he could be the man to bring the former world player of the year back on track and with our club too. If Scolari wants him then he will be here next season. Ronaldinho has also now stated his desire to come and work with Scolari, it will be interesting to see how this one develops. Link: http://www.talkchelsea.net/forum/index.php...amp;#entry32089

Would be interesting to know if we actually did make a cheeky offer for him! There is no way he would come though!!

For me it has to be wingers!!!! we need some fast exciting wigers to spice up our football again. The only names really being mentioned are Ribery and Quaresma! Either or both would be very popular signings i would imagine. And also a striker, Berbatov is the big roumer at the moment, although Sky claim we made a big bid for Torres..

It will be very interesting to see just how different the squad is going to look come next season. A lot will have to do with the way we are going to line up for sure. We technically have 3 new signings for next season already. Bosingwa has now signed and will hopefully sort out the right back spot. We have Ivanovic who has yet to make an appearance who will be 4th choice CB and right back cover and we have Franco Di Santo who should go into the first team next season too. Also it looks like there will be a chance for Sinclair and Mancienne to have a chance..... I think most people would like to see a big striker come in, and preferably someone much younger than we have gone for before who can have their absolute best years with us.

It is suprising how quickly this one went through and without any roumers either, all done in one day. Hopefully will be good signing, we really desperately need someone to come in and make that right back spot their own once and for all!!!! Will be interesting to see now how quickly we manage to tie any other deals down now and who we actually go for!

I find it very hard to believe that Ferreira is viewed as a better player, if that was the case then Ferreira would be first choice for Portugal. Only time will tell though and as with all players comming into the club to give them the time to settle and judge them on their performances for us and not make snap judgements.