OneMoSalah

Delighted for Carlo as I am for any ex Chelsea manager when they win something (except Benitez), one of the only managers along with Bob Paisley to win the European Cup 3 times now. I still don't see how Real Madrid won the CL final 4-1 despite playing so poor collectively and to be honest individually in 120 minutes. Had Costa been 110% fit then I think it might have been a different story because well lets be honest Adrian is a good player but hes not Diego Costa and everyone in that Atletico team were very good until Ramos scored. Lucky enough for Real they have match winners like Isco, Di Maria, Bale and Ronaldo (even though the only two who really made an impact were Isco and Di Maria in the second half and extra time). Think Carlo's subs were good though, Isco came on, let Modric play a wee tad deeper which worked as he did a lot more than Khedira in terms of distributing the ball forward and quicker and then Marcelo was braver than Coentrao in getting forward. Still don't think Real were half as good as they were made out to be in times this season and third place is La Liga is still quite embarrassing for a squad with that players.

Apparently the fee is £40.1m and he is having a medical today. Good profit tbh giving hes not kicked on very much.

Really? Remember when he used to play for Arsenal as a deep lying midfielder? Hes exactly what we need; controls the tempo, great vision, wins tackles, good positional sense, started scoring a lot more goals the last few years too. If we were offered him for Luiz I'd hope to god Jose takes it because as a CB he isn't first choice and as a CM he isn't even first choice here. Sure hes not kicked on as much but Pep utilized him as a winger or false 9 a lot and only the last year or so has he been used again in his more prefered deeper position more regularly under Tata Martino where he got something like 13 assists. Also he played in England for 8 years or so from when he was 16 so he might count as homegrown but I'm not 110% sure though.

Lampard has been scoring 10 plus goals a season for the last 10 seasons or whatever now one man comes and gets near enough to 20 he's some sort of god and second best player in the world? Don't make me laugh.

Hahahah what a pathetic wankstain Toure is.

Still has plenty to offer a club fighting for a PL title and Champions League trophy next season in terms of ability and experience. The fact hes leaving is on par with Hodgson not taking him to Brazil, fucking ridiculous decision. If we don't renew Lampards contract (which I don't see why he would get a renewal if Ash won't) and possibly sell/loan Petr depending on what happens with Courtois before the start of next season, then we be in a very bad position in terms of experienced players. Giving JT a new contract was good but imagine losing both Ash and Lampard? As well as the talk of Cech going if he doesn't want to be number 2 to Thibaut? I feel we need to keep Cole as back up at least, I'm sure he could still play 20 plus games for us next year despite being a back up. Even Lamps tbh, although I think every player who plays in central midfield at this club if ahead of him in the pecking order. Possibly even players like Eto'o who have done it all.

Tbh if we do sell Luiz, I'd rather someone like Phil Jones or even Varane who have proven themselves in leagues better than the Portuguese. Also we don't need 2 new CBs, just the one if Luiz goes. Kalas looks more than ready to play a lot more based on the Liverpool performance.

Don't see why people are seeing this as a stupid transfer to go after. Phil Jones is still only 21 or 22 and has still got a lot of potential and is already quite a good center back. Look at the improvement in Cahill under Jose, look at Varane at Madrid, even look at Ramos at Madrid when hes not being a prick, look at Terry while Jose was in his first spell here. Jose would make him a really good center defender in my eyes. If we get rid of Luiz and we don't resign Lamps/Cole we will need homegrown players but its better to have a good homegrown player like Phil Jones, who is good and will only get better, than someone like Scott Sinclair, who was very average, who went to City to make up for the lack of English players and never play or when he did play not be able to contribute very much.

This is why it won't happen in my eyes. Good player, ok lost his confidence at Barca,has PL experience but he only picked up assists because Wenger let him off the leash a bit with Arteta next to him so he could push further up because Arteta was holding his position to contribute in building play in a deeper position but that still came back to bite Arsenal. I also think Matic-Song isn't going to be the most creative midfield pairing despite Song having 11 assists in his last season in the PL, it was the only time in his career he had more than 5 assists in a season. I doubt he will be given that same freedom when you consider Matic has periods in games where he is allowed to contribute more further up the park due to the fact he can carry the ball quite well and is mobile enough to do so.

Really? In a Mourinho 4-2-3-1, the number 10 is close to one of the more important roles. The wingers start deeper due to the number 10s positioning and the fact the wingers being deeper create space for the number 10 giving Oscar a chance to make runs into either channel. (watch this stupid video I found which isn't very stupid from when they start talking about the number 10 role) They use Ozil as an example when Jose was at Real. Oscar interchanged into the right side this season at times but when we are counter attacking like we seen for example against Schalke in Germany, Oscar ended up making a run onto the right wing after Hazard started the counter attack, running through the middle in a #10 position before Oscar took it and ended up squaring for Torres to score.

I will be a year older.

Costa is more than a battering ram like some people have claimed. He does have very good technical ability, he doesn't just do 'the basics' as you call it lol. You said on the next page you've watched all the Atletico games this season but still you make such a ridiculous claim that he just does the 'basics'? He is a good dribbler, ok hes not Luis Suarez or Messi but still a good dribbler, sure at times he might hold onto it a bit much but thats nothing to do with the technical aspects of his game, just greed. Still he manages to draw a lot of fouls, averaging 3.4 per game, he's won 116 fouls in total in La Liga. More than all of our strikers, more than Eden (surprisingly), Willian and the rest of them. He makes on average 1.3 key passes per game in a reactive counter attacking team which is more than all of our forwards. The same as Oscar. Only Hazard and Willian in our team make more key passes per game than him actually. Sure he only has 4 assists in La Liga (again more than Oscar and also Willian) but still 1.3 key passes per game is the same as our so called best #10 and only bettered by Hazard and Willian, I think that shows him off more than someone who does the basics as you said. According to Squawka he created 45 chances in 34 appearances, 3 less than Oscar, just under half of what Hazard created and less than Willian.. Also on his technique? Remember when he scored an overhead kick and was more than comfortable trying it against us while under pressure as well as a few other times in La Liga? Yeah 'not very technical' I doubt that very much. I think this stats show he isn't just a striker who can do the basics. Hes a very good rounded player to be perfectly honest, blessed with good technique and great physical attributes as well and someone who claimed to have watched all of Atletico's games this season would have seen that surely? I agree though sure he isn't a great striker as I don't feel there are very many these days but hes a hell of a player in his own right.

Great news. Ash next please.

For fuck sakes. He plays maybe 8 or 10 national team games a year and over 50 for Chelsea but hes still unhappy with how he's being used at Chelsea. Fucking grow a set.

How can you say that when players like Willian, Oscar, Schurrle, Hazard, Azpi, Lukaku, Salah, Courtois, Matic etc are still not in their prime years and are still very much playing in a team still without an 'exact' identity. A transition isn't 2 years, a transition is usually quite longer than that, it could be 3 or 4 or 5 or even 6 years. This team is still in transition, it could be for at least 2 more years I think then we will see what most of this lot are really made of. Still think we can win the title next season just because of Jose: his know how to win, tactical versatility, motivational skills for the bigger games (16/18 points vs the bigger teams) and if we get another player in that can play next to Matic, like a Modric/Alonso sort of player or a more rounded player than Rami then who knows? Think we need to strengthen at LB so Azpi can be used on the right but we should keep Ashley Cole on as his experience is more than valuable and hes a big game player. The same with John Terry who was ever present for us this year and exceptional. Frank is a difficult one, sure he offers experience but hes not at that same level John and Ash are in terms of his performances now a days so I'm still unsure on him. I think realistically if we win a trophy or two and maintain a top 3 finish or maybe go into the top 2 we will have improved and the players will be a year older and hopefully another year will have made them better in their evolution as a team. Jose will still go for the title, sure he didn't say we were aiming for that this season but he was and he always will because hes a winner and winners like him don't like not winning anything.

Yeah but I think it is they need to sell a big player for big money so they can spend big money due to not progressing out of the groups.

Well they did miss out on money after not making it past the CL group stages and I'm sure they would rather keep Pogba due to his young age than Vidal although he is a genuine world class player, if a club were to bid for any of the two. The director said they would consider a bid for Pogba because of the CL money thing I think.

Stupid decision by Roy Hodgson I feel and I'm not even English lol. Why take 2 players to a World Cup who have NO CHAMPIONS LEAGUE, WORLD CUP OR EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP EXPERIENCE? Baines is a good and solid defender but still he's better going forward like most fullbacks these days, the same with Shaw. England aren't going to be playing a particularly open or expansive style anyway so really it also doesn't make sense as much because Ashley Cole has been playing in a Chelsea team which has always been good at defending deep and soaking up pressure for years, like England will no doubt play in some games with 2 banks of four and a low block. Even if Ashley is gonna be a back up, hes better to have as backup for experience incase Baines gets injured than Luke Shaw. Imagine if Baines gets injured or suspended and England have to play Uruguay or Italy or any other big team in the tournament like a Brazil, a Spain or a Argentina with a very inexperienced 18 year old LB who has played 45 minutes for England? Not saying hes a bad player, he's a very good young player but you'd think Roy would want some sort of 'safer' backup option in Ashley Cole or even Kieran Gibbs who is a bit older and has played in Europe with Arsenal and looked pretty good this year. Shaw will get plenty of world cups and be an England regular but sometimes you throw young guys in at the deep end and they float and sometimes they sink, imagine if he has a bad world cup? I mean if he does move to Man United like expected this summer then he needs to have a good World Cup and then hit the ground running there, so it really is a big big challenge for him if say Baines gets injured or Roy starts with him. Still I can't believe Cole isn't going even if hes apparently 'past it' or is too old, still the best LB in the Premier League. Showed how good he can be against Liverpool where he contained Raheem Sterling and Atletico where he was outstanding also.

Not really they usually always start these 3: Kuba - Mkhitaryan - Reus starting and have Aubameyang (who is a CF) who can play on the wings if needed so signing Firmino wouldn't be stupid given they lack more players at a higher level who play in the 3 behind the striker. Hoffman is just a kid really and that Grosskreutz (unsure how to spell it) is really just a utility player who can play full back or on the wing or whatever. Immobile is another CF who will undoubtedly replace either one of Robert Lewandowski at Dortmund or Diego Costa at Atletico Madrid so who knows and Adrian Ramos is a good player but he is hardly gonna be a starter really if Dortmund get Immobile as well. Dortmunds problem this year has been their lack of quality to replace injured players like Hummels, Reus, Subotic etc so they are looking to sort that out by the sounds of things. We dont need another #10 player anyway. Even though I'm sure Firmino has said to the media in Germany he plans to stay another year with Hoffenheim.

What sort of loan deals include specific clauses for them to play the whole time lol. Hes best at Fulham where Felix Magath will more than likely use him in their attempt at getting back to the PL. Also we are never getting Dzeko, he proved his worth to City when Negredo was playing shit and Pellegrini also used him a lot in the start of the season. We needed to sign him in 2011.

This season has been a success in my eyes, no rhythm midfield player or relatively good striker but we are finishing 3rd. Next season we will be better offensively, Mourinho like many other coaches seem to focus more on their team's defensive positioning and shape in the first year so they have a solid foundation to build on. Wait and see.

He looked good against the young lads in the FA Youth cup final but I'd hardly say hes exactly at a level to be playing regularly for a top 10 team in the PL, never mind Chelsea.

I think what Mourinho is saying is right, Oscar was good at the start of the season then tailed off and when he says about Oscar having his mind on the world cup I think hes right. I feel players playing for a huge club who were competing for a league title and a potential champions league final shouldn't have been prioritizing a world cup which doesn't happen to after the season ends. Did Willian or David Luiz do the same as he did? No, did they hell. They got their heads down and kept going giving everything. Tbh if we play another player like Schurrle/Salah on the right I'd prefer to see Willian starting in the #10 position next season based on how well hes done the this season after adapting to the pace of English football.

If Ballack and Zidane are overrated in your eyes then its fair to say every footballer is overrated... Most overrated footballer though, hmm I don't know.

Please no. Not that hes a terrible player or that, just an average one we don't need. We don't need another box to box midfielder anyway.