Blue Armour

He said he would love to stay in Italy..not that he's hell-bent upon it...

That sort of practice has been carried out at Cobham for quite a while now, even before AVB came along... About Mikel, I'm looking forward to see him this season. He was fantastic when last season began, as he started playing more forward passes. Also note that he tends to play well in a slightly advanced position (even though as a defensive mid) or higher up the pitch...With AVB's purported attacking tactics, its highly possible we will seem play in such a role. I don't think Essien's presence or absence will affect Mikel much, as they both bring something different to the game...For me the only reason a coach would drop Mikel for another DM would be to inject pace into the game....The number of mistakes he makes in a game has been drastically reduced over the last couple of years as well...His acquired experience is no doubt helping in this regard...

Frankly, I'm not too worried about Barca getting him...I mean, there is very little you can add to improve an already good team...

Ok forget the last comment..even Cech wasn't used... Was just a test run anyways....but great start...hopefully we can grab a video of it somewhere

Lampard wasn't used at all....was he unavailable for this match?

More lazy journalism..I mean look at this quote from the article: " Chelsea want another English defender at the back having grown increasingly concerned by the kind of goals they conceded last season, especially from set-pieces." What goals? We never had a problem with set-pieces last season...that was in the season before that...and even if there was a problem why would an "English" defender necessarily be the solution... Terry was probably just asked what he thought about some of the other English defenders in the game, and the press think he's already given his official stamp of approval....

Exactly..when everyone is crying out for the injection of some thing new..why go for something used and old.? I mean we were linked with Guus and got Andre, why should it be different in the case of a new player?

good posts

Damn..its the same right knee again... Sounds like he wants to continue playing as well, very brave.....hope Ess recovers soon....

Can't wait to see some attacking football!!!!

At least he's in form off the pitch...

AVB has taught him well....

Hah..so that's why .... Anyway...if Slam Dunk's right, its navy blue not black... Will wait for the official release and picture of a player actually wearing it....

Felt the same as well...

Its the big black and yellow bars...if only it were smaller.. it looks like a flag of some German state printed on it... Anyways, not too concerned about this...away kit isn't bad and more importantly, our home kit is fantastic this time...

Odd that this one alone would have a collar...colors are ok, though..design could've been different...

Let's hope another season under his belt has made Mikel better...

^This

It would've been ok if he was in his early twenties...But he's 28 and hasn't made much of a name for himself so...

Isn't Josh supposedly a "dead-ball" specialist?

Would be a bad time to let go of Alex even if there is a reason... Last season, in the first half, it was plain terrible with just three CB's in team...and now even Bruma's gone.... the fact is, our priority should be in reinforcing mid-field and not bother about adding another CB to replace him

To tell the truth...no-one exactly knows what his CV looks like to make a judgement... Whatever his role is, it has nothing to do with how well the team is going to perform next season and shouldn't be cause for concern at this stage....

Hmm...a French newspaper passing info on a deal between German and English Clubs... Difficult to dismiss as another tabloid piece of trash....

Or....remember when Drogba tosses Evra around ? The physical game is fun to watch...in its own way...

Lol...I remember the match against Arsanal a year ago when Ballack literally strolled through the opponent's third with the ball and all the Arsanal players falling to the ground around him....