Mart

Someone told him the same thing before, but he still wont listen. Pathetic.

Nevermind 95 minutes its usually like 35, from the start of second half until 10 minutes before the end (if we are in the lead).

After 2 seasons his legs will have gone, which is the primary reason he is a threat. But I guess if we extend his contract we still have a chance to get some money back from his transfer. And who knows..maybe I'm wrong, maybe at 33+ he'll still be worth having around. But I would like to imagine Sturridge would have stepped up by then....

We were already a quality team, and besides which the squads of the top 4 have come on a lot since then (especially Liverpool's, looking back at there CL winning team makes you really wonder how the shit they did it). And they don't have a Lampard or a Terry tbh.

Pazzini was sort of "the next big thing" until a while ago. He has a great partnership with Cassano that is making him score for fun, but I don't think he would repeat it here. He's got a bit of pace and he's great in the air, which is two things we could use for sure. But I don't really rate him as Chelsea class.

I can't believe how many people think City are going to jump into the top 4 I still think they are miles away from the top 4, who out do them in every position except for GK and have established teams that already gel to some extent. I think they'll struggle to even get 6th personally, there squad is unbalanced and over extended. Sparky doesn't impress me all that much as a manager, either.

Everyone writing off Arsenal I see. I wouldn't underestimate the scumbags ability to put in a good title run this year. Losing Adebobble will actually improve them, I think. Eduardo is a world class finisher and RVP is a scrote but a talented scrote. Toure and Gallas could never play together anyway, and he lost his form about 3 seasons ago. I think they will return to the form they showed at the beginning of 07/08. The missing link in defensive midfield seems to have been largely solved by the massive step up Song is taking, he has really come along the little shit. I don't know if Vermawhatever can play with Gallas yet, though. Hopefully Rosicknote is crocked all year again. I really don't think City will impress this season. Adebayor has been absolutely cack in preseason. Tevez, Barry and Given will probably be there most important players. Man Utd will start badly but bobble there way into the top 3. Liverpool will miss Alonso and Aquilani will be crocked as always.

Chelsea Arsenal Man Utd Liverpool West Ham

I'd be very happy to have him come from Jan to March. He would work his balls off trying to impress Capello, and Carlo used him to brilliant effect at Milan (allbeit in a hideously slow league). He has delivered at top levels through out his career time and time again, he would bring in some extra revenue, and it would just be a short loan. And who knows, it might help England too.

Carlo denies that we are moving for Pato. I really don't think we're going to move for anybody unless a player or some players go.

Yeah Malouda was definitely more lively in the second half after going wider left. Same old Chelsea at the end though, just trying to cling on until the end of the game rather than just playing on to the final whistle. Costs us time and time again...Something Carlo should definitely work on. I don't know how long he will persist with this diamond, I don't think our best players suit it. If anything our players are best suited to a 4-2-3-1 with Essien as a destroyer, Mikel as a deep lying playmaker, Lampard AM, Anelka wide right and Malouda or Zhirkov wide left, and of course Drogba up top.

The best way to do it is to make it so people can only give out reputation once per day, and only to the same person once per month. However as they gain rep the power of there rep on others goes up (see well known site thestudentroom.co.uk for example). This way it takes a long time of a lot of people disliking you for you to get a high neg rep, accurate though it would be.

+1 -------------- Anelka is a good teacher for Sturridge of course. They are very similar players, even there personalities! But the most important part will be for him to teach him about how regretful he is to have bobbled from club to club, and the benefits of sticking with one club for a long time, so that Sturridge doesn't become the new "Le Sulk". And Anelka's goals are very important for the team. Although I disagree he never scores important goals (look at his goal vs Arsenal). The key part is that he was played as a right winger when Drogba was around, and as a lone striker when he wasn't. He's neither of these things. He's got this season to prove if he can score in the big matches when playing in his rightful position. Do you think Drogba would score in so many big matches if he was playing wide right?

Considering the situation at Real, in which a whole bunch of quality players have been transfer listed, it seems a bit insane we are not moving in on the cheap to get a marquee signing from there. Frankly I don't understand why we didn't swoop on Sneijder and Robben and tried to get cut prices on them. I mean if we could resign Robben for half of what we sold him for it would be a damn nice little piece of business. On the other hand I think we have a great squad, the only squad in the top 4 not unsettled by big players moving. I think if Carlo gets his team selection and tactics right for the right teams then we should win the PL.

Frankly I think we should play the 4-4-2 diamond in matches where the opposition is going to come out and attack us and 4-3-3 when we can expect to need a lot of dribbling and width to unlock a bus parking Stoke-bobble-esque team. Cech Ivanovic Terry Carvalho A.Cole Mikel Essien Malouda Lampard Anelka Drogba Cech Bosingwa Alex Terry A.Cole Essien J.Cole Ballack Kalou Drogba Zhirkov Gives a lot of our players game time. That's just my opinion anyhow.

Don't know how much he will get used, especially if they are in a relegation dog fight, Allardyce would probably put his faith in the bigger lads who would bobble goals home through fluke rather than skill Would have preferred he went on loan to an Italian club to test him in a league that suits him a bit better than the PL, and where he might be a bit more likely to get game time.

He seems to be absolutely stuck in his mind on a 4-4-2 diamond for every occasion, with no/little room for flexibility. Who here really thinks the 4-4-2 diamond is the right system for us to play this season? It seems to me to not really suit a lot of our players at all. Yes, it manages to cram Anelka and Drogba into the same team, but some of our great players are at there best in a quick and direct system (Essien for instance so far seems largely wasted in a 4-4-2 diamond). I can see it working with brilliant elegance away, especially away against poor teams, but will it fail at the Bridge in the same way Scolari's tactics did time and time again? Will Carlo's heavy rotation policy be the final solution? For instance he might rotate to see the likes of J.Cole, Kalou, A.Cole, Bosingwa, Zhirkov, and Malouda play a bigger role at home to break the opposition defense down through running with the ball at feet rather than hoping to unlock the team always with passes. I certainly hope so.

Aguero is a decent player but overrated by people who don't actually watch La Liga imho... For under 30m I'd like to see him in a Chelsea shirt. Ribery is another decent player, could play RM/LM/AM/up top for us and easily hold down a first team place, but Bayern aren't looking to sell, and I doubt we'd beat Real to sign him anyway with Zidane in the mix convincing him to go no where but Real. Of these three I'd say Pirlo will come. There is a small chance Aguero will come because he has a buy out clause, but its for over 40m isn't it? Can't see it happening personally... Not sure I want it to for 40m, either.

For one thing the signing of Pirlo relates very little to J.Cole, as Pirlo plays at the opposite tip of the diamond. I would be very very disappointed to see him go. He and Essien really proved themselves to be two undroppable players a long time ago imho.

I can understand the reasoning - he is a deep lying playmaker, just like Mikel, and there is merit in the theory of having two world class players per position for a chosen system. He's also an amazing at every dead ball situation, and to be fair, that's been a poor part of our game for some time now, try hard though Frank always does, bless him. Sneijder is a great player, but he is more of an alternative to Frank than to Mikel, but I also agree we should have signed him the moment Real put him on the transfer list; he's off of it now, of course. He's been the best deep lying play maker in the world for a while, and I think he can teach Mikel a lot, and I hope he completes the piece of the puzzle that seperates Mikel from him. He would be an important player for us, especially in big games, imho. But really I feel bad for Mikel. He has turned into such a class player now, and it would be a shame for him to rot on the bench. But I would imagine Carlo would still give him plenty of game time. This would leave us somewhere like this: CF - Drogba, Kalou CF - Anelka, Sturridge AM - Lampard, J.Cole LM - Zhirkov, Malouda RM - Essien, Belletti/Ballack/Deco?? DM - Pirlo, Mikel LB - A.Cole, Ferreira CB - Terry, Alex CB - Carvalho, Mancienne RB - Bosingwa, Ivanovic GK - Cech, Turnbull Which is a pretty damn good squad.

Apparently its official we offered 8 million euros and Pizarro. They have rejected it but are clearly looking to do the deal for more money. I guess we'll end up signing him for some stupid number. Poor Mikel.

Unfortunately this might push us over the edge in signing Pirlo tbh. Would like to see Sturridge and Zhirkov on.

I'm not so keen on the little black bar at the top of the third kit, but if I can scrounge some money together at the same time as free name printing is happening then I'm going to get it. I really like the whole piece, even the shorts are really nice and I'll probably use them for tennis too. Hell, I even really like the socks.

We spent £23.1m in 2008/2009 compensating sacked staff, I don't really see this as funds for a transfer but more to take us a bit out of the red

And he had that epic clearance off the line from the left post that time