LukakutoStamford

I think Eden throttled down Saturday to conserve energy for Liverpool. It may be a crummy cup game but trophies are trophies and beating Liverpool is always important whether it's a league game or a scrub cup game.

Not a fan I suppose a change of environment could help but he's not what Chelsea needs ATM.

Like Mirallas to a point even more so than Schurrle, but with his talent comes maddening inconsistency and he can at times become a black hole when ball comes his way. He's good enough to be a squad player at Chelsea and could start if need be but there are better fits. I think he'll get a move to a top 4 club this summer, possibly Arsenal or United.

Sweet! Thorgan is a great foil for Eden and his skill set is much different. Thorgan is top notch at free kicks. Hazard-Messi-Hazard?

Barcelona is a train wreck right now. Messi's father realizes that the PL is the league with the greatest global exposure. Chelsea has the most to gain from a Messi move in that Chelsea doesn't have as long a history of success as United. The real questions come down to if Barceloba is wiling to sell and if Chelsea can afford to buy Messi within FFP without cannibalizing its roster. Unless there's a dramatic change at Barcelona I can't see Messi staying there past 2016 at the latest.

File this one under we're going to hear a lot more drama from the Nou camp as the season continues. There is certainly some undercurrent transporting as to what it is exactly, we will see

Clearly it must be Tech Mahindra

They're just being pre-emptive for the next Reus injury.

Why Turkish Airlines of all sponsors to get? I think this has been worked on behind the scenes. Doesn't mean it will get done, but to make such a move you've got to get capital lined up, create discord in the Barcelona and Messi camps which Barcelona did all by itself and then have a plan in place should fall through that doesn't causes problems. I know this sounds conspiracyish but when you are talking about the type of deal that would be needed for Messi there are going to be some tactics being used to get the legwork done with little to no exposure. It's better for the Messi brand to come to the PL. His agent wants it to happen. There's much more exposure on a global scale. The U.S. and China are the two big targeted markets for exposure and they're not really close to beg tapped in fact the U.S. Has barely been scratched. A PL move for Messi has long term implications for the PL going forward in the future to extend its reach and outpace growth. The Italian League is in shambles. The Bundesliga has its limitations as does the French Ligue 1. Spain is in a financial crisis. If the PL wants to take advantage and crush all other leagues now is the time to do it.

It's quite feasible if Adidas and Turkish Airlines are chipping in to cover a large portion of the transfer fee and wages. FFP compliance isn't an issue if Chelsea gets 5-7 deals funding the deal, which isn't a stretch. Sure it seems crazy but Barcelona needs to rebuild with most of their stars aging. Messi coming to SB would give a massive boost to interest in Chelsea around the world.

Vertonghen says Het zijn maar kut kakkerlakken, which is basically calling Feynoord a bunch of fucking cockroaches.

No to sloppy G

What Hazard needs to do is get better ..... teammates.

What Hazard needs to do is get better ..... teammates.

Here's who's scored PL best XI for the season to date http://www.whoscored.com/regions/252/tournaments/2/england-premier-league

I would guess that any transfer fee of that ilk would be amortized over 3-5 years and I would also guess that Adidas would chip in along with any other sponsors. If a top player in terms of notoriety wants to come to a big club in England FFP it will happen. Now if you want to argue that getting Bale would severely damage Chelsea's ability to get 3-4 top notch players then I absolutely agree.

FFP only affects teams that a) try to sign players they can't pay for try to sign deals backed by their owners through subsidiaries. United has plenty of cash my guess if Bale came in they'd probably get help from Adidas and a few other sponsors.

I like Dendoncker and Bongonda and will add them. Can Pereira still elect to play for Belgium or did he use up his one country change? I like Denayer better at this point. Bossaerts is younger but Denayer seems to be progressing better.

Like Salah and speed is always a valuable commodity, but I got the impression that he wasn't technical enough for Jose. Not sure a loan move really helps although in Serie A maybe he'll terrorize defenses because most defenders there are used to a slower pace.

Never looked at Remy as competition for Costa but rather as a back-up option who could also be played in a 2 striker line-up. The problem is that if Remy does go then Chelsea will need two new strikers unless you think that Mou will use one of the youth products. (I don't think that will happen). Not sure what is out there for 2015 but with Costa I don't see too many top strikers lining up to come to be his back-up and play 10-15 matches, which probably means two more 1 year rentals.

What's the point if you don't aspire. Sure he's probably not good enough for Chelsea but if you don't come how does one know? It's about more than just skill to be successful. It's also about chemistry, style, and skill sets. Not to mention they get great financial deals with Chelsea and get the security of not worrying about Chelsea getting relegated so if their loan club fails they can get recalled and be sent to a more successful club, and if they are successful in their loan they can get a loan to a better club. Whereas if you go directly to Leicester you have no protection if Leicester gets sent down and you could be playing in the Championship in 2014-2015 which is fine if you are 18/19 but not so good at 24/25. The only players "being stashed" at Vitesse are young players at this point and those players can get a move to a bigger club /league if there is a demand. Look at Lukaku and Thorgan. Lukaku got a loan to WBA and Everton and then was sold. Thorgan got a Belgian loan and then got a loan to Borussia. De bruyne got a loan to Werder Bremen had a go a Chelsea and was sold to Wolfsburg. Courtois got a loan to Athletico for 3 years and came back and seized the Chelsea GK spot. It's in Chelsea's best interest to get their loanees the best possible loans get them the most games, find the right fit for leagues so that the player can develop and either move up to the Chelsea roster or be showcased to be sold a profit. You can cry about the purity of the game or that the players are being used, but the reality is in most cases a player not working out has to do with the player and not Chelsea's personnel management. Any player that fails is not good for Chelsea because they a) lose money waste resources c) get a negative reputation.

Stats for goalkeepers need to be viewed relative to their correlation. What those stats don't tell us is the quality of those chances. Without looking at each chance individually and subjectively assessing the level of difficulty of stopping a goal it's nearly impossible to tell the quality. Each chance can be wildly different in its difficulty to stop. IIRC most of the goals allowed by Courtois have been either deflections or impossible to stop. I think on maybe three goals Courtois could have done a bit better but even then I don't think he would have had too high a percentage chance of stopping the goals. The problem with rating the GK position is that the quality of defense plays a massive role in determining how many goals a GK gives up. However with that being said, De Gea has never had a GAA (goals against average) below 1.00 in any of his 6 full seasons nor has he had a clean sheet ratio above 39%. In contrast, Courtois in each of the last 4 1/2 seasons has had a GAA below 1 and a clean sheet ratio at .47 or above. If you compare the last 5 years (4 1/2 for Courtois) of De Gea, Neuer, and Courtois you'll see that Neuer has a GAA of 0.80 De Gea a GAA of 1.19 and Courtois has a GAA of 0.83. Neuer has a CS (clean sheet) ratio of 48%, Courtois has a CS ratio of 47% and De Gea has a CS ratio of 33%. Neuer over the last 4 seasons has had 22,30,32,30 clean sheets. Courtois over the last 4 has had 14,25,30,33. De Gea has had 14,15,12, 20. Granted like I said GAA and CS ratio also has a lot to do with the defense in front of you. For reference 2013-2014 Cech GAA 0.78 CS 48% Courtois GAA of 0.70 CS 51% Neuer GAA 0.69 GAA CS 50% De Gea GAA 1.06 CS 39%

Neuer okay but De Gea? Please....

Not sure why anyone is reading too much into this buy. This is Chelsea's MO now. Buy young talent develop it and see if it works, and if not, sell it for a profit. He could just as easily be loaned for two years and be sold. Look at Lukaku. He was thought to be the future at forward and he was sold after 1 year of sitting on the bench and two loan spells at WBA and Everton. Eto came in for one year. Torres is gone. Ba came in for one year. This is probably it for Drogba as a player and who knows if Remy will be around next year.