CHOULO19

Rumors: Azpilicueta, Bertrand, Oscar, Marin (1st start) in. Cahill, Ramires banned, Cole & Hazard subs This would make it: Cech, Azpi, Iva, Luiz, Ryan, Oscar, Lamps, Moses, Mata, Marin, Torres Pretty much expected.

Is it me or are team news running a bit late? I hope no last minute injuries..

Hmm, weird. Have you tried marking the whole community as read?

And whose to say Falcao won't turn into that loser if sign him? And I would take a good striker, a RB and a CM over Falcao alone any day of the week. A few players can sometimes win you games on their own. Players like Messi, Drogba, Del Piero ( I'd even say Cech)...etc I wouldn't say Falcao is in that rare bunch (he relies on his teammates service and very rarely creates for himself) but even if he did, those players can't win you a league or a competition alone, you need 10 other players doing their jobs. That's why squad depth is more important than one star, imo. I have no idea what you label as "elite". But we have arguably the best keeper in the world in Cech, we have JT who may have lost what little pace he had but is still a top class defender, we have Ash who is still the best LB in the world on his day, and we have the best play maker in the League in Mata, not to mention all the young players who are on their way to being world-class. I really don't like how our team is portrayed as a mid-table team with shit players and even worse how Falcao is the supposed messiah who will turn us into world-beaters. It's not either death or the demise of Chelsea FC. Falcao is one player, an excellent striker but still one player. We can sign him if the deal is suitable or we can look at other players if the deal does not suit the club; simple as. Again, Falcao is not the only striker in the world. Yes, we need to replace Torres, but it does not have to be by Falcao. If one or two of the 4 players we could buy instead of Falcao flop, then it won't be the end of the world because signing players is always a gamble and you can afford lose some average gambles but the last time we made a 50m gamble it cost us 4 managers and we still have not recovered from it.

Lol I know mate, it was a (bad) joke

Happy now? Great work Seb. I hope this puts to bed all the nonsense about signing Fellaini to replace Mikel.

What picture?

^^ Why is JT training next to giant penises?

Hope to be proven wrong but I'm going with 1-0 to Leeds tonight.

I don't get it. People are getting excited about us paying 50m and 200k/wk for one player? We have the thinnest squad in the top 6 of our league. We could use that money to get 3-4 good players and solve a lot of problems. Besides don't we already have a striker that cost the same and with similar wages?! Funny how many people saying that Torres was done when we bought him because I don't remember a single person saying that back then. Same goes for Shevshencko who was a much better striker and all around player than Falcao. Point is Falcao can flop here and I don't think, we can afford that risk tbh.

Well Avram did get us the CL final...

^^ Congrats

How many of these have actual quotes from Danny saying so?

Found this article which is either completely misleading or greatly informative: http://plainsofalmeria.co.uk/2012/12/17/no-love-lost-how-chelsea-and-leeds-teams-learned-to-actively-dislike-each-other/

I know that. I've known that since three month after Torres signed here. But that does not prove that we won't make it to the CL with him as our main striker. That is not guaranteed that he would be successful here. In fact, by that same logic Torres should be scoring more goals than Falcao now since he cost more.

Not disagreeing with what you are saying. But you were complaining about people making assumptions in this thread then you go and make 2 huge assumptions yourself.

That's a bit self-contradictory, don't you think? Saying we can't make it to the CL with Torres is a huge assumption. Saying that Falcao will enable us to get into CL is a completely unfounded assumption.

Amen!

I love you Jim!

1) Again, it's a possibility not a certainty. 2) It's not about quantity but quality. Essien is finished. Oscar will play at CAM more than the pivot and Josh will most likely be loaned out again. KDP could be loaned as well. In fact I'd say after ST the second thing we are missing the most is a CM. Cesar is only an option at LB in case of an emergency, we still need to buy another RB. So no, Josh and PVA are not adequate replacements for the departure of the players with the expiring contracts. 3) We might only be short on starters at ST but we are lacking squad depth all over. That has been our main problem this season. If we are to be serious competitors in the PL and Cl we need to sign at least another RB, a CM and if Danny leaves, 2 strikers. 4) Our winnings last season barely made up for our spending last season, it did not fund our spending this season. And we don't know that our board is looking to sign Falcao, it's all rumors. 5) Still that won't make up for 35m difference from last year.

Apologies. I did some research and it seems that you get 3.9m for getting into the group stages then 550k for each match, 800k for each win and 400 for each draw (all in euros) which would make our total income 11.8m euros or less than 9.6m pounds as opposed to last season's 47m pounds. Still, I think my point stands and the sponsorship deals won't be able to make up the 37m difference.

A few logic gaps: 1) The transfer fee does not have to be uniformly divided on the length of his contract neither do we have to give him 5.5 years. But let's over look this point because both could be possible. 2) Josh and PVA are not adequate replacements for Lamps and Cole, at least not at the moment. 3) Our squad is very thin and we need reinforcement not just at ST but in several other areas. 4) Our expenses this year have been far more than last year. This year we bought the likes of Moses, Oscar, Hazard, Marin and Azpi who cost a whole lot more than last season's signings who, apart from Mata who cost 23m IIRC, were relatively cheap deals. 5) Last and most important, we got 47m for winning the CL last season but we'll only get 3.9m for making the group stages this season. And even if we win the EL we will only get 3m. That is 40m less than we made last season! There is no way that the deals we made can cover the this deficit, we'd be lucky to even be getting 15-20m a year from those deals. That is still a 20-25m less than our income last season unlike the article that assumed that we would have about the same income. Sorry boys, but this is written in hope rather than logic. Exactly what I'm saying. They won't sign him because we won't be able to meet FFP rules if we do.

Really? And how did you come up with that conclusion? Last season, despite the huge CL win money, we only made a profit of 1m. Even though we added some sponsorship deals this season like Delta and Gazprom, we will likely be more than 20m even without signing Falcao.

Red card against Corinthians. Hmm, good point.

Don't get your hopes up, people. We can't afford him now that we are out of the CL unless we find someone to buy Torres for 50m.