Sheva.

He's clearly been thrown into the U21 because he is not in the managers plans, as evidenced by him hardly even playing in any of our first 5 games.

So are you trying to say Sturridge isn't selfish? lol.

You're reading too much into it imo, Malouda in the reserves should not affect anyone - mainly because it's his fault he's there.

Like who? I'm not going to praise anyone for this decision, but i also do not feel sorry for Malouda. He's been told he could leave the club for a while now, but kept pushing clubs away with his wage demands.

Good point. While it does make sense to sell Malouda and not Meireles, not many teams want FloMo because of his wages and the fact he's not very good anymore. Meireles was a good backup option for us but 8m for him is too good to turn down, for sure we would never get that amount again. So better to cash in, hope we don't suffer during the next couple months and buy a better player in January. I don't think we would have loaned out Essien or even McEachran/KDB if Meireles had left sooner. Depends on if he can play in the double pivot really. If he plays there though, he better not make the same mistake he did against Spain at the Euros, that was just pathetic.

Damn, game is too far away. Hopefully they're good games during the International break.

You were citing other fans to support your point, so you obviously care about what they have to say, no?

Even then it will all be sub appearances, and then he said he wants to play for France at the next WC... pfft.

He will never play.

I put in bold the previous post where you talked about other fans. And Mikel doesn't play just because we have no one else - he plays because several Chelsea managers have deemed him good enough for this football club - whether as reliable backup or as a starter.

Why do you care so much about what other fans say? if he's really as bad as you make him sound, he won't have started so many games for a club like Chelsea, under several managers.

Or maybe it's because of the 2 man midfield we play? don't think it's fair to blame Mikel alone for us conceding goals, and this wasn't the first season he was first choice. When Essien suffered long term injuries he was first choice, and we won the PL with him as DM (and also CL, but we all remember that )

You can't even compare both cases. A player still in his prime going to Russia shows a lack of ambition, there's no 2 ways about it. No disrespect to Russia really, but it's not even one of the top 5 leagues in Europe! And Hulk was saying at the beginning of the summer he would love to play in Spain or England because "they're two of the best leagues in the world" then he ends up in Russia lol.

Lyon want him, their window closes today. Will be good to get him off the wage bill.

I can understand his point - being a 2nd choice keeper is terrible, it's not like you can get 30 minutes each game to impress the manager. But i believe Friedel will be benched for him sooner rather than later, he just has to do well to keep his place.

Fuck

Why did they pick this forum lol, i'm sure they're many other Chelsea forums out there.

What the fuck? don't you know he's better than Xavi?

Mata cost 23m pounds, Hulk on the other hand cost Zenit 40m pounds, big big difference.

8m for him is not bad business at all, the timing could have been better though.

According to Abola - the same paper reporting the Hulk news - it should be confirmed soon. I will be very disappointed if it's true.

Zenit are not only getting Hulk - don't really give a shit - but also Witsel? fuck.

Yeah, we have many options out wide, Ramires is needed more in midfield.

What i hope this means is Ramires returns to playing in midfield. I'm not so sure he will be great in a 2 man midfield (because of his shitty passing) but we should maybe give it a try. We can also switch to 3 in the middle and things should be just fine: Ramires-Mikel/Romeu-Lampard/Oscar.

I agree with that, especially about Ramires, but RDM keeps using him there, so he counts as an option. Marin and Moses are not as good as him, but would be actually perfect in games against lesser teams where we need width and trickery out wide.