CHOULO19

I know that people are all for promoting young players and all that, but seriously, how in the world Romeu better than Mikel? That's almost as ridiculous as the people saying that Chalobah was already better than Mikel and Ramires two seasons ago. Mikel is s staying because he is a quality squad player who has a lot to offer for the team. Jose wants him here. As simple as that. You want Vidal, Bastian, Pogba and Gundogan to be squad players for us?!

He has to be one of the unluckiest players in the world with the cruciate ligament, then the injury just when he won a place at Valencia, then the changing of the manager while he was injured...etc.

Assuming he stays away from injury and earns starting spot. Another Valencia loan and he'll most probably be sold cheap next summer (not that he did badly there, but was just desperately unlucky).

Expected despite the contract renewal. I still have hope for Oriol, so I wish him the best of luck. Looks like we'll need to start following the Bundes Liga this season. Is this our fourth loanee there, now?

Hello Rachel and welcome to TC. I take it you're Jake's gf? You have my utmost sympathies if that is the case! To answer the question in your thread tags, no I don't think Spike is gay, but he does seem to have a lot of homosexual fantasies about @Jason... Don't let Lord Ashburner's 'blessing' throw you off. Let me know if you have any questions about the forum

Good to see Thibaut, Mikel, Hazard and Drogba in action and getting some minutes under their belt.

Bremen are not the side they were a few years ago. I think Sociedad will be by far the toughest test.

Only Mikel and Moses added to the squad, right?

Does it make me dork that I found this pretty funny?

Haha on second look, his expression does have a hint of "do that again and I'll kill you" look! It seems like only Luis knows how to make him smile.

The picture on chelseafc.com is even funnier. Cesc is jumping into his arms with a huge smile on his face and Diego's facial expressions are as if he was just reading the paper

I actually thought he linked up well with Costa. But how the heck do you chest the bar over the bar?!

Chelsea got a hard-fought 2-1 victory against Olympija as the fans got a first glimpse of Cesc Fabregas and Diego Costa in action in a Chelsea shirt. The two Spanish boys certainly didn't disappoint, despite a relatively slow start by a slow start by the Blues. The Slovenians made it clear early on that it won't be a stroll in the park for us. But the boys soon got into the game and dominated play, helped by Cesc's brilliant passing and vision and Salah's sheer pace. But it was Olypija's Nik Kapun who got the opening goal against the run of play after some very sloppy play by Izzy Brown. Delac who had made a couple of excellent saves earlier could only watch the powerful shot just fizz past him into the net in the 40th minute. Chelsea started the second half well on top and soon Cesc Fabregas managed to slip Diego Costa through on goal who fired in the equalizer; a scene Chelsea fans will be hopeful to see many times this coming season. Minutes later, Kurt Zouma was quickest to the rebound after a corner and managed to fire his team into the lead. After that neither team was able to convert any chances and the final score read: Olympija 1-2 Chelsea. A deserved victory for the Blues, especially if you consider the fact that both Zouma and Ivanovic had goals inexplicably ruled out by the ref. The game also saw the return of Cesar Azpilicueta, Garry Cahill and Fernando Torres who each got a good 45 minutes under their belts. And while Jose Mourinho was not very happy with some of the tackles the Slovenians were throwing around, the physicality of the match was certainly what you want from a preseason game to get the match fitness of everyone up. One player enjoy the physicality of the match was the match winner, Kurt Happy Zouma. He was the only player to play the full 90 minutes. Chelsea starting XI: Delac; Azpilicueta, Zouma, Garry Cahill, Luis; Cesc, Matic; Salah, Boga, Brown; Costa Subs: At HT: Cech, Ivanovic, John Terry, Ake, Van Ginkel, Torres At 70mins: Bamford, Solanke, Chalobah, Romeu The Blues next fly to the Netherlands to face Chelsea B team a.k.a Vitesse on Wednesday July 30th. Click here to view article.

My stream quality is so bad, I just mistook Izzy Brown for Boga!

The Chelsea TV interviews with the new signings are getting incredibly embarrassing. "How easy of a decision was it to come to Chelsea?" Really? Might as well go full scouse and ask would he agree that Chelsea are the biggest club in England...

Calm down? Which part of that was aggressive or not calm? Yes, you kinda were implying that he is stealing a living, or at least that is how it came off: "He must really like his wages." That's a cheap shot and very disrespectful to a player who has served the club for 8 years, especially if you consider that his wages are relatively low (75k/wk) and that if he does move his wages are unlikely to decrease, certainly not significantly. He had a decent season and he can still be a valuable squad player, I have no idea what people are complaining about.

36 appearances for us last season. To compare, Lamps had 40. Absolutely laughable that you would suggest that he's stealing living. He had a decent season and was very solid whenever called upon. He won't be a starter because Jose wants someone more dynamic, like Matic, for the role, but he can still be a very good squad player and offer something different that no one else in our squad can offer and which can be vital in certain situations.

Same thing happened against Wycombe.

March? Then he'd count as U21 for this season as well.

We were debating this the other day. He spent 3 seasons with utd but less than 36 months. The rule is not clear (at least to me) on that, so I don't know. Very similar case to Lukaku (except Lukaku would still count as U21 this season).

Yes, PLEASE!

I was afraid of this. Because it is clear that one of Romelu and Fernando has to move on and I was afraid it will be Romelu. Even worse, if true, this means that we still have to let 2 other players go which would probably leave us a bit thin in some area.

Honestly, I now want us to sign him just because it obviously means so much for you!

Dude, you seriously need to let Pogba go! We're clearly uninterested in him.

Am I the only one who can't wait for the interview?