CHOULO19

Honestly I see nothing wrong with it. He is our captain, it's normal that he lifts the cup even if he misses the final. Especially if that captain has done and sacrificed for the club as much as JT has. Besides, I enjoy the funny photoshopped images

He helps around in training and does a lot behind the scenes. Most of our new signings, like Torres, Luiz, Marin, Mata (Luiz even said that Paulo is the most amazing person he has ever met) have come out and said that they have learned a lot from him. Which is why I can only see him taking up a coaching position if he decides to hang up his boots.

And then people get offended when I say that most of the Mikel 'criticism' is just hare and insults

The thing is, I think this united squad has the ability to 'flop' if the manager does not get it right and finish way off the top because in terms of quality of players, they are no where near city or even us which is evident from their performances in 'big' matches this season. If they lose that little belief that they could always scrape a slim win against smaller teams, they're in big trouble.

@Shogun, great work, mate. Thanks!

I have some excellent "Opposition Views" for you this week thanks to @Shogun I asked him about Moyes leaving, Everton's future and this game of course: Opposition Views Here

We really should have an option on this forum to "Like" something more than once..

With the final match of the season, against Everton, a few days away, I had a a chance to have a chat with our own Shogun, who gave us an insight of an Evertonian's opinion about Moyes' departure, the season as whole, and, of course, the match itself. Here is what he had to say: Q-Another good season for Everton in the league, but again just not quite good enough to make the CL. Does it get frustrating or are you just happy that you can consistently finish in the top half of the table with the small budget you have? Most of the time, 6th place in the league would constitute as a good season for Everton but there is an air of disappointment this season seeing as we won't be in Europe at all next season due to the way the cups have planned out, otherwise it would have been a successful season. Although a win on Sunday would take us above our record premier league points tally. Im not sure whether it is frustrating or not, before the last ten years or so we were the 4th most successful club in England behind Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool so to finish in the top half for a club of our stature should never really be enough. However, given the way the premier league has developed and how yourselves (even though you were in the champions league a few times under Ken Bates' ownership) and Man City have evolved, it's pretty much impossible for us to compete under our current financial restraints. Also when you look at Leeds, Notts Forest etc, then maybe I should be a bit more appreciative even though no club should be content with just maintaining what they've got. Q-Last game for David Moyes as your manager will obviously be an emotional affair for you. Tell us a bit about the Moyes era. How good was it? Where could it have been better? We had our send off at Goodison on Sunday really, I don't think it'll be as emotional as it was that day, won't you be commemorating the end of the Rafa era? I think it's a lot harder to acknowledge what Moyes has done from an outside view but I'm appreciative of what he has done. When he took over his first full season at Everton it was the 11th season of the premier league and during those ten years prior we had amounted just one top ten finish. The early years were quite inconsistent finishing 7th in his first season and then finishing 17th the following season (I wonder how many would have sacked him at another club?). After that he finished 4th after selling Rooney at the start of the season and reinvesting £8m of the £27m fee. And since then we've had a couple of European runs and some more top 8 finishes, we've had 8 top ten finishes in his time. He's had a net spend of approximately £16m in his 11 years which makes it all the more impressive. It's taken a while, but he's really built us up into a good side. The clubs image has also improved because of him, we're a lot more respected and more importantly he brought a lot of pride back into our club that had been missing since the 1980's. I can't lie, not winning a trophy is disappointing but anyone can fluke a trophy, what he's done for us in the grand scheme of things is a much bigger and more difficult achievement. Q-Do you think Moyes made the right decision moving to united or was it foolish of him to leave all he has built at Everton? Do you think hell do well at united? He has the majority of people's blessing, Chelsea fans might not like to hear it but Manchester United are possibly the biggest club in the world, he'd have been a fool to turn it down to stay at a club who simply can't compete on a financial front. The Everton squad is ageing a little bit as well so whoever takes over will have to sort that out. I do think he will succeed at United, there'll be a few hiccups obviously but he has the credentials. He'll also bring back a bit of class to United which was so sorely missing under Ferguson. He probably won't do that well in Europe for a couple of years but I don't think he'll take too much time to get going in the league. It'll be interesting to see how he approaches a title race, especially one with Mourinho involved. Q-With Moyes gone, do you think it will be a tougher task to keep hold of some of your key players and keep the team that the Scotsman built together? No, and this is one thing that annoys me when any manager leave any club. Players aren't employed to the manager, they're employed to the club and a manager leaving shouldn't make a difference. Fellaini, although speaking a bit better about staying lately will probably leave but apart from him, I can't see any other notable players leaving. Even if they do leave though, we'd receive a good enough transfer fee to replace them, we don't sell cheap. Q-Speaking of key players, youve had some excellent performers this season. Who has been your man of the season and who was the biggest disappointment for you? Man of the season, as per usual is Leighton Baines. He really is a phenomenal player a real role model too. I think he created more chances than any other player in Europe this season... and he's a left back. You could make a case for a few others such as Fellaini, Coleman or Jagielka who have all had a decent season too. I think you can guess who the biggest disappointment has been, Nikica Jelavic. I wish I could tell you why but I don't know, his confidence is just shattered this season. I'm willing to keep him on and give him a chance for next season. Johnny Heitinga has been majorly disappointing as well, he received our fans player of the year award last season but he's been due a howler every time he's played this season. Q-Who do you want to replace Moyes and where do you see the club headed in the next couple of seasons? It would be easier to tell you who I don't want to be honest. I don't want Hughes (awful), Lennon (classless), Martinez (overrated) or anyone internal such as Stubbs, Neville or Duncan Ferguson as they're all inexperienced. Preferably, I'd like Vitor Pereira from Porto who's out of contract in June, he's just gone unbeaten and will probably win the league again this season over Benfica. Porto fans don't seem very complimentary on him but they've never had Walter Smith or Mike Walker manage them. Malky MacKay I could live with as I don't think he'd take us backwards, however I don't see us going forward with him either. I could live with Laudrup or Di Matteo too. It's really impossible to tell what the future holds at this point, it all depends on the manager. I just hope Kenwright gets it right. Q-Chelsea come into this game with emotions being sky high with Lampard breaking the goal scoring record and the team winning the EL. What do you make of those two achievements? crap Lampard's achievement is incredible really and I'm glad he broke it last weekend before you played us! I identify him with Chelsea more than I do John Terry, I think he's a much better representative of your club. His full game as a centre midfielder now isn't spectacular but you can't argue with his goal scoring record. There's been a lot of good Chelsea players in the past from Osgood to Zola to Drogba and he certainly belongs in that category. The Europa league is a great achievement as is winning either of the major European competitions. Obviously it's not a big as the success of last season but its no Mickey Mouse competition as you can see by the the champions league winners and quarter finalists from last season contesting the final. Q-Last game of the season, but Chelsea still fighting for that third place. Do you think our players will be up for this more than yours? No, we're up for pretty much every game, it's the sort of spirit we have at the club under Moyes and the players know they have to give it all when they step onto the pitch otherwise they can't expect anything but a backlash from fans. We have the 'advantage' of not having won a European competition in the week as well. We might not field our strongest side but we won't give you a walk over. Q-Chelsea are the only team that won at Goodison Park this year in the PL thanks to a Frank Lampard double. What did you make of that match at the time? How similar will the match on Sunday be? We played well in that match and I'm pretty sure we didn't deserve to lose it, I think Jelavic hit the post and the bar as well. We had a lot of players missing that day, I think that we had Coleman, Gibson, Mirallas and Fellaini all out who are starters so I guess I should fancy our chances more in this game! Especially with Hazard potentially missing. We will still probably lose though, we're better with our backs again the wall. Q-Finally, what are your expectations for this match? What do you think will be the final score? I think it'll be a decent game, We haven't lost a lot on the road this season but we haven't won a lot either so I'll go for a draw 1-1. It really does depend on the teams either side puts out though. Click here to view the article

I think Moyes will flop at united, but i don't think it'll be as bad as Woy. He had Liverpool in relegation zone!

Well, I'd be very happy if that's the case, although, tbh, that doesn't make much sense to me, especially the first point.

I'm sorry, but the reasonable arguments are buried underneath mountains of BS and insults. Nope, I won't bite, I have studying to do and I won't get into a pointless argument now. You want to know my opinion on Mikel is? I've stated it here countless times and explained it in great detail. You want to know what Mikel provides to the team? Here, read this: http://forum.talkchelsea.net/topic/13977-john-mikel-obi-the-keystone/

But it's not 50m that we have to spend because like I said, you did not divide the fees of Sturridge and Meireles by 5, so it's closer to 30m. Now let's assume we spend 50m in fees, or 10m per year assuming they all sign 5 year contracts, that still leaves the wages which are the biggest expenses that you forgot. 40m per year in wages equates to about 380K/week. So if we say we use those 50m to buy 4 players, that means that on average each one of them gets 95k/wk. That seems to me about right. Even with your optimistic figures, I still honestly think that 50m is our limit, not because of the 50m itself but because of the wages we will be adding unless we can get major players to agree on wages below 100k. On any account, I don;t think we need to spend more than 50m to challenge for the tittle. We need two major signings in a CM and "Schurrle/Rooney signing" for about 30-40m and a couple of squad players for 10-15m.

There's really no point in arguing, you spend an hour on a 1000 word post to try to explain Mikel's role and what a DM should be like by giving examples and stats and all you get back is the usual "Mikel is shit" or personal insults aimed at you..

I have only one thing to say: LOL

Merged with the Benitez thread.

Congratulations! You've just won the award for the worst comparison in the history of TC!

This debate should have really ended after the first reply by Skipper. Can't see what's left to debate after that reply.

Yeah a couple of years at Inter would be perfect for him. Why not? He's better than their options on the bench and they could benefit from him. If Malaga, a CL team, can take Piazon on loan, I'm sure Inter can take Lazar on loan.

Two things: 1) Why are the fees of players we buy divided over 5 years (btw not all the players signed 5 year deals, Demba for example signed for 3) but the fees for the players we sell don't? That would make the income from selling players 4m instead of 20m. 2) How did you jump from 50m to 100m?! Realistically I think we will spend something like 40-50m, but not 70m and certainly not 100m.

But no where near the level he used to play at. Even this season he has not been nearly as good as he were last season or the one before.

Alright, let's just wait and see..

That really doesn't change much. I was already aware of most of the things stated in there. The only major thing I did not know was the player wages from before 2010 and that accounts for very little now as only JT and Cech have contracts from before that period. As for the youth development money, that is already negligible compared to the wages and fees we pay. One major point you're still missing is, we made profit between June 2011 and June 2012, meaning before we spent a whole lot of money last summer on signings. Signings that we are still paying for. And considering our income this year has been less because last season we were boosted by the CL win, I don't think we can spend 100m without exceeding the -45m margin. There were never any rumors from reliable sources for those links. Just the regular BS from the likes of Goal, dailymail, mirror..etc Those same sources told us for long periods that we signed Falcao..last Jan!It's obviously my opinion that Mikel will be starting next season. There is no evidence that any player will be starting next season for us, but we're expressing opinions. Anyway, we've completely derailed this thread, so I'm moving all this to the summer transfer window thread.

But you forgot that we are still paying the fees of players we've signed recently like Torres (10m/year) Hazard(6.4m/year), Oscar, Mata..etc Not to mention that those players coming in will have wages that are probably higher than the ones leaving or at least equal. I did my research on FFP back in Jan when I was arguing that we can't afford Falcao. I still think we can't. Like I said, there have absolutely no reliable links with a DM. Just everyday media bullshit that dies down a couple of days later. Yes and I'm just saying the first 'IF' you mentioned about us spending 40m on a striker and 30m on a pivot duo is unlikely!

Read it, still sounds like you expect us to spend 70m on 3 players..

At his best he could be very good, but he is too injury prone to maintain that level. He won't come cheap, so I would much rather someone else if we're looking for squad players.