CHOULO19

Didn't see this one coming: Allegri will be the next Tottenham manager. Tassotti to be his assistant. No idea why anyone in the world would choose Allegri over Van Gal. But that's good for us because it probably means that they will be fighting for EL spot next season at best!

Granted he's not at all experienced at this level, but I find that harsh on the boy who has done well for us youth levels. But my point was, the issue with having 3 players for one position is that the third choice player won't be getting any playing time, in fact he might not play at all. I remember under RDM when we even only had two strikers: Torres and Sturrdge and Danny barely got something like 100 minutes off the bench in the first 5 months of the season and not a single start because Robbie decided (rightly or wrongly) that Torres was his first choice striker. I think that something similar will happen if we get a Costa or a Cavani in the summer.

I remember we were having a very similar debate in the summer when the club renewed Hilario's contract and I was arguing that Blackman should be third choice while still playing with the U21s and that the renewal was just a waste of money. If I'm not mistakes, Hilario made the bench once this season.

Think we've pretty much covered everything about it. Agree to disagree?

Technically, it was last year's "post-season" tour The things clubs come up with to get more money..

Yeah, I said so in the first post. It will depend on whether or not Jose wants to have a plan B involving two strikers on the pitch at the same time because having done a couple of times at the start of the season he seems to have abandoned it till up until the PSG game.

I'm pretty certain that we had already signed him and he has been on loan from us at Hajduk. He's actually been doing well there from what I've seen from loan reports and scoring a fairly regular basis. A loan to elsewhere is probably in order next season. Probably Vitesse as @lionsden said above.

Was doing some rehabilitation work on his own outside today according to CTV: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1p49wc_blues-news-17-04-2014_sport @01:55

Three consecutive FAYC finals! Incredible. Unbelievably good for his age. And like you said, he's a very all-rounded striker. Very exciting prospect.

And how often does it happen that a team has two strikers injured at the same time? I thought it was suicidal that we went into the second half of the season with only six defenders, much much more suicidal especially that defenders get injured as often as strikers do, but we did it because we had a settled back four who were going to start every game if fit. That's my point about next season, if we have striker who we know will start every game if fit, then I can see Jose going with only two striker to eliminate some selection headaches.

I really like Solanke.

The issue with that is that the third choice striker would practically be unused during the season unless there are injuries.This season all of our strikers were poor and we never really had a first choice striker, but still we ended up with Ba not getting much minutes. Imagine how that will be when we have some like Costa who will start every single match unless he is injured or unless it is a small match that Jose wants to rest him in. Ideally, that third striker would be a youngster who would be on the bench and cover when needed while still playing at times with the U21s to stay fresh, but we all know that's not gonna happen at Chelsea. But like I said, Schurrle can cover for emergencies. If Jose can decide to play half the season with only 6 defenders for the 4 positions then I'm sure he could decide to go with two strikers for one position.

Apparently they don't. Still, a 3-1 aggregate lead is excellent.

Do away goals count? If so, that was a crucial one.

Yeah from what I've seen, Marco has a decent shot on him and a good eye for goal. And I agree, it's not something that limits us because ideally we'd have an offensive system that works and certainly both have the technical ability to move the ball around and fit in any system. That said, it's always nice to have someone in central midfield who can come up with that individual solution at times.

I hate you for reminding me of that notorious day! You couldn't have made a reference to the 7-2 win instead?!

The teams: Same team as the first leg but with Jay Dasilva in for Izzi Brown. Match starts in 25 mins. It's live on Chelsea TV and ITV4.

Seems too defensive to me. And neither really is that great passer you'd want in central midfield. On the bright side, both are very dynamic and fit Jose's pressing system perfectly.

Second leg tonight at 7:45 pm UK time.

It's definitely a risk, but I think it's one we can afford to take. We can always play Schurrle there in case of an emergency or, god forbid, give a youngster a chance. Worst case scenario we stick JT up top and launch the ball into the box!

Am I the only one who wants Sherwood to stay? I mean he's entertaining and he'd probably get Tottenham relegated next season. What's better than that?

I think we went into this season with 3 strikers because Jose wanted to have a "plan B" where he would play two strikers at the same time. He talked about it in preseason and tried it a couple of times at the start of this season but obviously he didn't really like the outcome too much. So he might want to go into next season with only two strikers and not 3 if he wants us to continue with the current system. That way the second striker would still be getting a decent amount of time on the pitch even if he is not first choice.

The thing is, Sunderland didn't really park the bus yesterday except maybe in the last 10 or so minutes. They really went and attacked City and had more chances than them in the first half and I thought overall they genuinely deserved the draw if not all three points. Not sure if that should make me more confident because we want them to attack us and leave spaces and because even when they did park the bus their defense was not that good and they gave City a lot of chances or less confident because we're playing a team that have just out-played City (granted City were generally crap throughout the match).

That's excellent. Put all the pressure on Liverpool.