CHOULO19

I think it's hard to be a Chelsea fan and not hate those two months! The amount of times our whole season gets screwed in those two months is scary. Over the last few seasons it's become a rule that if we can avoid the infamous "winter slump" we'll be very close to achieving our season goals.

Not this again! It's really very simple. Members express who they think should win MOTM and the one who gets the most votes wins. It is a member of the month award, not a footballing contribution of the month award, or a funny guy of the month award. So members can nominate anyone they want. You disagree with who a certain member thinks should win the award? You have every right to and that is why we have polls to see who most people think should get the award. There are no right and wrong opinions about who should win. If you're saying that certain members should not be nominated and yet they still are then obviously more people disagree with you than agree with what you say. That's how democracy works. No one vote counts for more than another. No one's opinion is more righteous than other people. And no one should be preaching to others who they should and should not vote for. Most of all, NO ONE gets to come in here and deem other members unworthy of winning the award or even being nominated for it, especially not great members, and generally wonderful people, like milan.cech and BluesChick. For some reason people seem to fail to understand that this is just a forum award. It does not merit all this philosophical debate. And since everyone seems to have a problem with this award and everyone seems to disagree with its outcome every month, then maybe we should just stop having it at all.

I agree with you to a certain degree, but that's not a fact, it's just an opinion.

I think KDB and Schurrle will be content with squad player roles (with at least 10 starts this season) for now. But there is now way that any of the other four would be content with that. Mata is the most established out of the bunch and has been our best player for the last two seasons. Hazard is one of the hottest prospects in the world and is arguably our best player. Oscar is another top talent and a starter in the Brazil NT. Willian has just made a huge money move to us and you just don't pay 32m for a player to have him start 10 or less games in a season. That's why I think one of them will inevitably leave. You simply can't keep them all happy as there are not enough matches to give everyone the playing time they want. Tbh, they all deserve to be starters at a top club.

That Wales manager really knows what he's talking about!

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I know. That's actually what started this whole discussion if you read back I missed most of the second as I was watching the US Open, but in the first I thought his passing was very good and he even put Carrol through on goal with an amazing pass. But his tactical discipline was poor at times. Yes it was only Moldova, but he went forward too much and left the team completely open on the counter on a few times. They would have surely been punished for that against better opposition.

Yeah, reality can be so annoying sometimes when it contradicts our virtual worlds! I mean, seriously, why can't it just go away..

This. I would have been very disappointed had he went back to WBA as I don't think he has much to learn any more in their system. I think he needed this loan to a team that plays possession football high up the pitch in order to be ready to be a starter here. To be quite honest I really don't expect him to do as well at Everton as he did at WBA. I'll be very (happily) surprised if he gets anything near 17 goals this season. It's not a clause in the loan but rather an FA rule that loaned players in England (or is it only in the EPL?) can't play against their parent clubs.

Yeah but only the Reading loan was a season-long one which why I said that maybe short loans don't count as he would still be at the club for some part of the season.

How many PMs do you have? I think when you reach 50 your inbox becomes full and you can't receive any more.

No I don't think so because I remember that one of our youngsters once couldn't be registered for the CL squad because he had spent too much time on loan. Was it PVA? I can't quite remember. Maybe local short term loans (the ones that are usually under 3 months) don't count? I'm sure there is a clear explanation in the CL rules. I'll look them up tomorrow.

Yeah, that's what I remember as well. And a player should spend at least 3 seasons with the club between the age of 17 and 21 to be considered as "club trained" IIRC.

I'm too lazy to search it

Win-win situation for us. Obviously I'd like to see him play for us. But "record fee" doesn't sound too bad either Honestly, I'm not worried about him choosing Barca over us. If we want him back next season to be first choice, he'll come back because all his Belgian mates are here.

Funny you should say that: http://forum.talkchelsea.net/topic/13372-57-nathan-ake/?p=759242

Wales manager does not think that Ozil can take Ramsey's starting spot at Arsenal: http://www.thesportreview.com/tsr/2013/09/arsenal-aaron-ramsey-mesut-ozil-current-form/?utm_campaign=Twitter&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Twitter LMAOOO :lol2: Second striker. Even played on the wing a few times..

Yeah I think it's too early to tell, but I can definitely see someone going.

Help! I can't decide between watching the US Open Chalobah with the England U21!

I have a feeling one of them will be leaving if not in Jan then next summer; I think that's inevitable. It wouldn't be the end of the world, tbh.

It's not about the number but rather the quality. Everyone of those teams has players that will have very little role in the season. For Arsenal Ox and Rosicky will likely have small roles, for United Young Kagawa and Zaha, for Liverpool Sterling and ibe, for Tottenham Townsend and Lennon. City are not really over-loaded as Milner often plays deeper in a 3-man midfield. The problem for us is that all of our players are too good to be playing a very small role for any team, even Chelsea. Had we not signed Willian and kept Moses I would have said that we had excellent balanced depth.

I haven't even expressed an opinion about squad depth in this thread other than that I think it's importance is very subjective and I certainly haven't said anything yet about our current squad, so if you are including me in the bold part I have no idea how you have come to that conclusion. My opinion is that having squad depth is crucial to any team competing for several trophies, but there has to be some balance. There are countless factors that affect any teams search for silverware. Having depth and options to rest players and replace injured ones with little change in quality helps you a lot, but having unhappy players which inevitably affects the mood in the dressing rooms hinders you. So it's all about balance for me.

I really wasn't trying to debate with you the importance of squad depth because it's something that can't be quantized and measured and thus the gravity of its importance will always be a matter of opinion. You can't compare two teams and say this one lost the tittle solely because they had less depth than the other. It certainly can play a factor, but there are so many more variables involved between two teams or even between the same team from one season to another. All I was trying to do was answer a couple of specific points in your post. It started with Toronto saying that having this much players as we currently have means that some will inevitably be unhappily rotting on the bench. You tried to disprove that by giving an example about Bayern's squad and I didn't think that it was very logical since Bayern did indeed have players last season unhappily rotting on the bench. Then you pointed to Barcelona and I replied that they didn't have a big squad but on the contrary their squad was too small. So, again, I'm not trying to change your mind about the importance of squad depth; I'm just saying that you can't logically draw that conclusion from the examples you've given above.

Those players were left out of the Barcelona team because their performances were not good enough for the manager. Barca's squad was not a big one, in fact it was one of the smallest in La Liga. They often had to play players out of position because of the lack of cover they had. Does that mean, in order to be a top team like Barcelona you need a thin squad with no back up for players? Of course not. But similarly, just because Bayern had a squad bigger than they needed last season it does not imply that in order to win the treble like them your squad needs to be too big. Squad depth certainly helps you get results over the season; we learned that the tough way last season. But that does not mean that having unhappy players rotting on the bench is synonymous with being a top team. Balance is everything in football.

Let's be fair, at 15, Kakuta was a pretty special talent.