CHOULO19

To be fair, if we do sell Loic, we would absolutely NEED Inzaghi to maintain the team's offside averages...

Azpi is totally checking him out!

Should really start tomorrow. He's not at all behind Pedro the way they've each been playing so there can be no excuses about needing to take Dons seriously.

He's had about 4 or 5 brilliant games (most recently in the cup against Inter) but he's mostly been average or below for the rest of his matches. Be sure that there's no way that Juve will pay what we paid for him. If they do decide to sign him permanently, they'll be signing a squad player not a nailed on starter.

What a RAWKish thing to do!

So basically he's here to fill the Djilobodji role? Brilliant... Btw, "Djilobodji role' should become the official name for signing for Chelsea, taking a photo with the jersey, wearing that jersey for 60 seconds in a cup match before being loaned out...You know, kinda like the 'Makalele role' only a lot shittier..

Never even noticed that on the old layout.

Then that brings me back to my original point that we need to sell him because our team performances are too reliant on him. The problem with Costa, aside from attitude and tendencies to act like a right prick at times, is that all he brings is goals. His technical ability on the ball is largely poor (except when finishing obviously), his dribbling..................................his passing is erratic at times and for a big bully he can often be muscled off the ball too easily. So when the goals dry up, we basically play with a man less in attack. Seriously? You want proof how Costa is unprofessional? Have you even watched him play for us?! Costa is NOT a leader. I wouldn't give him the armband if he was the last man in the team. Leaders are role models. They set an example for the rest of the team to follow. They don't elbow and stomp on opposition players and they don't get themselves needlessly into trouble in almost every single game. Take the blue tinted glasses off for a second, there are probably youth coaches showing kids videos of Costa as a guide for how NOT to act on a football pitch!

You mean if there has been new posts since you've clicked on a thread and you wish to view them before posting? If so, you should get a small pop-up notification saying something like "2 new replies" and you just click on 'View'.

Not a full answer, but the likes you've received are mentioned in your own feed on your main profile page along with your posts:

Genuinely very sad to see him go, purely for sentimental reasons as the fee was too big to turn down and he deserves to be playing regularly. An incredible professional and servant to the club and generally a very underrated player. Never really got the credit but he was one of the best players in Europe in 2012. Certainly changed the history of this club when he played a crucial role in us winning the CL. But what a story he is. From a construction worker in Brazil to basically winning every possible honor in England and Europe with us, to this big-money move now. Generally, I'm not at all fond of rich people, but I couldn't be happier for Rami picking up those massive paycheck. His erratic technique on the ball served as a constant reminder for me that this guy was never even part of a youth academy, but maybe it was part of the reason why he seemed to only score wonder goals. Genuinely believe he was one of the best finishers in our squad. Just wish someone would make a video compilation of all of his goals here. Thank you for everything, Rambo. Wish you all the best in the world.

Costa has many limitations, so we can easily have two types of strikers and keep them both happy a la Torres and Ba under Rafa (but hope fully A LOT better). We can have for example a Cavani who can hold up and a ball and be the focal point of attacks and start him in game when we need such skills while playing Costa in game when we need a lot of movement and runs behind. Or we can bin Costa, which as I said, I wouldn't at all mind.

Btw, Lukaku is still a very frustrating player to watch. He makes all the wrong decisions on the ball then waves his hands annoyingly blaming everyone else.

Yeah, sure, why wouldn't we? This season alone, we've already actually paid money to acquire the worst player in the league last season in Falcao, extended the contract of the worst player in the league this season in Ivanovic and then signed another has-been striker with one of the worst injury records at the top level and who has not played since November. This wouldn't even be one of weirder decisions this season...and we wonder why we're in 13th!!

The reoccurring injuries are part of his inconsistencies and why we need to get another top striker.

But I just don't agree with the assumption that to players would refuse to sign for us, even if we finish 17th. The ambitions for next season will be the same whether we finish 8th or 17th; we are one of the most successful clubs in Europe in the past 12 years and everyone knows our financial powers. I'm not saying it won't be a factor at all, but saying that all top players would refuse to sign with us because of it is pretty baseless, imo.

RLC has got to start this one after his performance in our last FA cup match. Would be a complete joke if he doesn't.

I don't mean to be cruel or disrespectful to Cahill in any way, but if this is actually true, I'd regard it as very good news. This is nothing against Gary himself who has been an excellent servant to the club and has helped us win a lot in the past four years, but we NEED to sign a top center half in the summer; someone who can partner Zouma and become a long term solution. Cahill leaving would ensure the club would go out and do just that instead of trying to rely on a JT on the decline or Cahill himself who just isn't good enough to be first choice. That said, his departure would leave us with a problem to solve regarding the homegrown quota and we might be forced to do something radical like, god forbid, actually give playing time to some of our youth products..

Sorry, but that's not at all convincing. There is no difference between 7th or 17th. The motivation for players to join us with CL football is the name and ambitions of the club and the money we offer. Heck, even Inter still manage to get players based on their name alone, and they can't even offer decent money anymore! When we're safe from relegation, and top 4 is certainly impossible, there are NO excuses not to play youngsters.

With him being a nailed on starter, now, I reckon he has a good chance, probably next season, of making it into the top 5 most PL appearances in the history of the club. He's 18 behind Drogba right now: http://www.11v11.com/teams/chelsea/tab/stats/option/appearances/ He's also top 4 in the all time appearances by players from outside the UK. Legend.

No he isn't! Apart from a few exceptions, he was sub-par and at times awful throughout all of 2015! How is it short sighted? He's been here for a season and a half and during that time, between the second half of last season and the first half of this, he's probably had more poor games than great ones for us. Everyone who's worked with him describes Diego as 'very emotional'. I'm sorry, but that's not AT ALL a positive quality for a professional footballer. It's unprofessional and a recipe for inconsistency. We can't afford to have him as our only top striker.

Sky reporting it now. Looks done and dusted. He has the easiest task in the world: Do better than Falcao did here.

Tbf, I'd have taken Shevchenko over Falcao this season...

The official language in Nigeria is English, you racist! Yeah, I totally agree that the board is largely to blame, but when it comes to defenders I think it's likely that so was Jose because we didn't try ton increase our defensive cover in the period after selling Luiz.

That is very true, but we need to remember that Jose himself is also to blame for why have so little options in defense from before this season. He sold Luiz with no replacement, let both Ash and Bertrand go for "best-LB-in-the-world" Luis. We've desperately needed a center half and full back since Jose's arrival here but both he and the board didn't act. We currently have just 6 defenders in the entire team. That's suicide!