CHOULO19

What can't be true? That Lukaku was behind Torres in the pecking order? I think that was pretty obvious in the first 4 games.

Interesting choice of name, Pedo Van.... I hope you won't be trying to get @hjperdeath, @Liquidator, @NishC300, or any of our other underage members into your van!

I think he's right though, as I heard Chelsea TV saying something about a loan window opening on Friday.

I thought so too, but I asked @ChelseaYouth on twitter and he said that it is currently closed but will open on Friday for domestic loans for lower divisions that don't exceed 93 days. But I was too lazy to research if he was right

Very surprised he did not get a loan! He was link with so many clubs on dead-line day, I wonder why none of the deals went through..

And he's not even starting as a striker for them from what I read but on the left wing.

I think Eto'o will start too. Jose knows him very well and Torres isn't exactly the type of striker you'd want to play against Distin and Jagielka.

I am. If I have to choose one of our players (bar the new boys as I don't know them as well yet) to go one-on-one with the keeper, I'd choose Rami. he always produces a quality finish inside the box. Not just the chip, though. See the finishes against City in his first season and Wigan and Tottenham last season. The Tottenham one in particular is a world-class finish that very very few strikers can come up with.

I have little doubt that Barry will eventually displace Osman, but maybe not from the first game. After all, he needs some time to settle in and Osman has been doing incredibly well for them. As for Willian, I'm not sure Jose will just throw him straight into the starting XI simply because he doesn't need to. I think he starts Schurrle and brings Willian on.

His shooting for range is just woeful. But his finishing from inside the box is unmatched by anyone in our squad, especially not at top speed like Ramires does. Goals against City, Barca, Liverpool, Wigan, Tottenham, Madrid,,etc and those are just off the top of my head; no one in our squad is capable of those finishes, imo.

LOL would be so awesome if the club agree to that!

For me it was all making sense up until the Willian deal. Our squad was strong enough with a lot of young players with incredible potential. But we needed proper depth especially at the Am positions. We did that with the return of KDB and the purchase of Andre Schurrle. Even though I was not too happy with the fee for him, seeing what other teams have paid for some players this window, I am now convinced that it was not a bad buy. We obviously needed a good back-up keeper and we got Mark Schwarzer for free which was some incredible business. And we also got MVG who has loads of potential and can provide depth for the pivot. As for a striker, the club and Jose where implying with what they were saying and doing that we won't be spending ridiculous money on the likes of Falcao and Cavani and rightly so imo. Our team is built around the AMs and any striker that comes in needs to fit in with them; he won't be the star of the team. And no one striker would be scoring 40 goals for us because the striker in our current system will always have to sacrifice some of his goals to create space for the AMs to score. So making a 100m+ investment between fees and wages for someone who will only slightly improve the team did not make any sense. I thought that, for our current system of 1 lone striker, Torres as first-choice, Lukaku as a super sub and Ba as third choice was good enough for the season. We ended up loaning Romelu out so he can get more playing time and getting Eto'o for free. I personally would have liked Villa for example who was an absolute steal and whom I think would have fit very well with our team, but what we ended up with is not bad and certainly not worse than Torres-Lukaku-Ba. At defense, we needed another body in there and we decided to give Kalas a chance; nothing wrong with that. I would've personally liked to see someone come in to partner Luiz (and maybe Iva departing) but Jose decided to put his trust in JT and although it has only been 3 games, that has worked out well so far. I still think that we'll get a CB in the next couple of windows, though. Up till then you could (well, I could at least ) see the thought process behind our business in the market. Yes, we tried to get Ronney, but even that made sense as he would have given Jose the option of playing with two strikers and can cover all over the front four (we probably would have loan Ba or Romelu out had we gotten him). But then came the Willian deal. Now I'm not criticizing the player himself. The lad has not yet put on a Chelsea shirt and he has my full backing and support. But it's just that the deal made very little sense. He's a great player, but 30m goes against everything the club has been saying and doing that implies that we won't be spending that kind of money just for the sake of it. I can fully understand us paying 30m for Rooney who would have definitely improved the team, but for Willian whose position is over-loaded with quality I just don't see what justifies this kind of huge investment. He certainly adds quality but he also adds a selection problem for Jose. I think our squad with Moses and no Willian made much more sense and would have kept everyone happy while now Jose will be really struggling to get everyone the minutes they want. What I think happened is that the team under-performed in the first 3 games, some players did not live up to Jose's expectations. The team still needs time to adjust, and Jose knows that at Chelsea he will not get that. Imo, the Willian (and Eto'o) deals were panic deals by Jose, unfortunately. So overall, I would have to agree with you: for the amount of money we've spent we really did not add an equivalent amount of quality to the team.

If you can't argue while respecting other people's opinions then don't argue at all. Insults in response to opinions will not be tolerated anymore.

You should learn to pick your battles more wisely, son

For some reason the game insists I'm Romanian and won't let me change it!

I hate having the flu

The fact that Jose played him 4 games in 12 days at the start of the season where fitness is not yet at it's best doesn't help much either.

Not really..

I hope it was a miss-assessment by our medical staff rather than Jose insisting that he plays through injury. We have enough AMs to cover his absence especially in a glorified friendly like the European super.

I used to like Didi Hamann as a player.. Not sure why I just addmited that

Got absolutely shredded by Bellamy. I also think Azpi should start ahead of Iva to actually stop crosses from coming into the box. I think their pivot can be prone to making mistakes if we apply high pressure like we did in the first half against Hull and to some extent against Villa. Osman, if he starts, is excellent at making great recoveries and tackles but can sometimes be out-muscled off the balled (not that any of our front four is particularly good at out-muscling opponents).

Hazard will play on the left, but on the right I'd rather Schurrle starts to snuff out the danger of Baines. Everything at Everton seems to go through him and when Bellamy man marked him at the weekend Everton struggled to create anything and Baines was terrible throughout the match.

Whether you think Romelu should be starting ahead of Torres, Ba and Eto'o is completely irrelevant. Jose obviously does not see him as the first choice and in this case a loan was best for him. He needs all the minutes he can get at his age and he obviously still has a lot to improve on and playing at a club like Everton where he will likely be first choice will help his development a lot. He's still 20 and has all the time in the world to play for Chelsea. This is obviously better than strengthening our direct rival, Arsenal. And Ba is an excellent 3rd choice striker; you won't find a better striker who is willing to sit on the bench for most of the season. Playing for Everton will also prepare Romelu for playing with Chelsea much more than WBA because he will have to improve his movement and hold-up and link-up play there. This is the right choice from the club as far as I'm concerned.

They've looked incredible solid at the back (bar the Norwich game), but they have struggled to create much going forward. Not sure how that would change with McCarthy and Barry. Distin has been excellent for them in defense and Barkley is finally proving why he was so highly rated at the youth level. Will definitely be another tough cagey game, imo. But I think we can nick a 1-0 win with the quality we have in attack.

It's all nonsense....Everybody knows that the best player in history is Roda Antar!