Superblue

Think he's a wing back so not sure how easily he could transition into a left back. We only have to look at Alonso to know it's not a guarantee.

You feel that Conte almost planned the result of this from the summer of 2017 when he was spitting his dummy out that Chelsea weren't getting the players he wanted and reprimanded him for his handling of Costa. You'd like to think though that the club is learning. We have in recent years shown greater patience with Jose, Conte and Sarri through difficult periods where in the past others would have been sacked, which is hopefully a good sign for giving Lampard more time and patience to build this team back up. The handling of Sarri's departure was far more improved also, as the easy choice would have been to simply let him go but ensuring we got compensation to at the very least cover Lampard and his staff was a step in the right direction from the Conte shambles.

So on your philosophy we should also be playing Hudson Odoi through struggles because of his potential and explosiveness. This is football mate, you can only play 11 players and use 3 subs. This isn't NFL where players are regularly rotated in or out every down. Chelsea play a lot of games every season and on top of this the Premier League is the most physical and relentless of all the top leagues. In his position where there are 4 or 5 players vying for position (all of which are or have been internationals for major nations) there will be rotation. Pulisic isn't an Eden Hazard yet who earned a status of being pretty much undroppable. If you think he's in that bracket right now you're deluded. He also is used to an extended winter break in the German league not the ridiculous number of games you get here over Xmas. He's being managed fine, getting plenty of minutes and should keep developing as he gets older. Which is good for Chelsea and should also be good for you lot and increase your chances of beating the likes of Bermuda and Haiti.

My dad was always a fan of his and said he could more than hold his own in that Chelsea defence with Chopper, Webb and McCreadie. I don't think any of them got the sort of reputation that Chopper earned but they were all prepared to stick the boot in when necessary (and probably sometimes when not!). The goal he scored in the Cup Winners Cup final was something else for a centre back. Obviously wasn't alive at the time but I've seen the clips and highlights. That was a great goal.

Just so you're aware this is a Chelsea forum, not a Pulisic forum. Clearly you are going to have a hugely biased view of him, but from my view as an unbiased Chelsea supporter he struggled in the first few weeks of the season which I think was fair enough as he's young and needs time to acclimatise to the league. Some would argue that keep playing him to push through this period is the best option but Lampard chose to pull him out and to be honest I think the rest did him some good. We had a lot of injuries at the start of the season and he never had a rest in the summer playing for his country. This clearly worked as when Lampard brought him back in he started looking much sharper and dynamic. He had a great run which coincided with the team's great form and was clearly an important player in that period. He has been out of form though in the last month or so. He's not the only one, most of the team have been pretty poor in patches and our results speak volumes for that. He's also had a couple of knocks and niggles and so hasn't been starting every game. I think that's fully fair. Bearing in mind also that our two best results in recent weeks against Spurs and Arsenal he hasn't played in either one. He's made a solid start to his Chelsea career and I personally believe he will develop into an excellent player for the club (it's easy to forget with the academy players we've brought through this year that he's of a similar age to them all). However, let's not get this twisted, he's nowhere near the finished article yet and doesn't command an automatic place in the starting XI like you seem to be expecting.

You wonder how he could possibly get away with that barnet until you see what a hard, dirty bastard he truly was!

I've read a few reports, etc that suggest Gabigol can also play wide right as an inside forward. If that's the case it would add more flexibility at times when chasing a goal. He seems a different profile of player to Tammy which would be good. Buying from Brazil is just such a lottery which I think is why most are left to move to Europe first. Surely anything must be better than Batsman at the moment though?!

I don't know enough about Barbosa to make a decision on him but for those who use the 'he flopped at Inter' as an excuse, one Thiago Silva moved to Europe at a similarly young age and flopped massively (couldn't get a game at Porto or Dinamo Moscow) before he went back to Brazil and rebuilt his career. Milan took the punt on him when he was about 24/25 and the rest is history. Sometimes it is better to take a step back, and from the looks of things he's done completely the right thing to go back to Brazil and restore the reputation he had before he originally left. That shouldn't be used as a stick to beat him.

I think a lot comes down to your personal preference. I agree that Azpi has been the more consistent player for a longer period of time in the decade but the couple of stellar seasons that Cole had, for me, were at a much higher level than any seasons that Azpi has produced. To be honest even defensively Cole in his prime I don't think there was anyone better. Those two legs against Barca (especially the second leg where he played centre back) and the final were incredible performances that probably didn't get the same recognition as the likes of Cech and Drogba did. So do you go for longer term consistent play, or shorter term high level play. I think a similar argument could be put between Willian and Mata. Willian has been here much longer but been a little up and down in performances and form, compared to Mata who only had two seasons here but won player of the year in both years (deservedly so too).

I'm pretty neutral over Zaha. I think looking at his stats you have to take the last 2-3 seasons as a snapshot rather than his whole career because he's clearly kicked on in that time. He's been closer to averaging 1 in 3 the two seasons prior to this one which isn't bad at all for a wide player. Adding 8-10 goals a season to Tammy's goals right now would be a boost to winning a few extra points that we haven't recently. The biggest question mark is if he is someone who thrives from the step up playing with better players (Van Dijk, Kante, etc) or is Palace his level. Does he feel more comfortable being the main man at a smaller club and thrive off that responsibility. Lots of people on this forum used to bash the club for not surrounding Hazard with better players and that he would 'blow up' in a more attacking team but so far he's been average at best at Madrid and perhaps Chelsea suited him where we were set up to allow him freedom to play and be the main player. His age doesn't concern me too much because, for me, we have two of the most promising young wide players in world football who should take over that mantle anyway in 2-3 years time. I'm pretty sure we could get at least 3 years of high productivity before the decline kicks in. We could do far worse than Zaha in my opinion, however I do feel that the £80m being quoted is too much. If he was closer to £50-60m I think it would be a really good deal to pursue.

Agree extremely unlikely. Having said that as the report states, he only has 18 months on his contract and he has been at Bayern now for 10 years. If he wants to try a new league with a big club then really it has to be soon unless he leaves on a free transfer in 18 months time when he'll be just turning 29. If there is any chance of getting him for somewhere around the price in that report then he has to be our first choice. Even at 27 I think we would get 3 - 3.5 years of him at the top level and he has experience of playing centrally too which he could possibly do as he gets a little older.

I don't think I'd be too concerned with last year's figures. Someone please correct me if I'm mistaken but those results will take into account us buying Jorginho, Kepa and Pulisic last season, whilst there was only one sizeable player sale I believe in Courtois. Also we didn't have Champions League football last season. Despite winning the Europa League, I think we've already over doubled our european money this season compared to last or something nearly as ridiculous. Having sold Hazard in the summer, Morata this coming summer and likely some other player sales, I think a good amount of money will be spent across the next 2 transfer windows. To be fair the times we feel we've shopped at Harrods, we've come away feeling we haven't got value for money so maybe that's not the best idea anyway.

Seen a couple of reports on Twitter that Zaha wants in excess of £200k per week and Chelsea aren't prepared to pay him this figure.

Seems the best option at present who is available and has a reasonable price attached. The only question mark is stepping up from the Portuguese league to the Premier League but plenty have in the past.

It would be interesting if we offered them say £30m, to see what they would do. I don't think any foreign clubs will bid for him in January when they can take him for free in the summer. I read somewhere that Spurs may be prepared to deal with a rival to get a return on him and Mourinho has previous selling Mata to United to help fund moves he wanted to make. If Eriksen wants out, they may be forced to accept such a bid to give them more flexibility to replace him.

I wouldn't be surprised if Real target Mane or Salah in the summer, especially if they can ship out the likes of Bale, James, Isco. It's quite possible if (or I suppose when) Liverpool win the league this season, either of those two may be ready for a new challenge as they haven't much else left to do or win at Liverpool.

Did you not say the other day that you thought these buy back clauses were a guarantee that he would re-join and there is nothing that club or player can do about it? I disputed that and Matt Law seems to agree with this notion as he's suggested due to our buy back clause that Bournemouth would likely have to accept offers only slightly higher than this from other clubs too, i.e. giving Ake a choice of clubs and not just guaranteeing he comes back to us. I'm sure first refusals, etc all work in the same way. You can't force a player to move if they don't want to.

It just seems a sensible option if it can happen. That way we could potentially ship out Bats on loan and make him hopefully a more saleable player in the summer market (unless someone desperate is willing to pay silly money this January for him). Like your point, Jovic could arrive, have a purple patch and score 10 goals and Real will want him back for next season. But if those goals have got us Champions League football which potentially means easier to attract key targets and more money to budget in the summer then it has still been worth doing. And if he went back to Real and still struggled, I'd imagine we would have a good chance of snapping him back up if we wanted him back.

I'd still love to see us pursue some sort of deal for Jovic. Our relationship with Madrid seems to be excellent with the number of players been traded in recent years, which may be able to sway a deal and the player could really benefit from more football in the second half of the season. Even if they weren't willing to do a loan with an option to buy, I'd still be inclined to attempt to get a loan deal for him for the second half of the season and then we can review our options properly in the summer (i.e. Werner with his release clause, or at least if someone like Dembele is what we want we don't pay a January premium for him). Some may see it almost like a small club mentality to be borrowing another teams player but at the end of the day if we could add someone of his ability to Tammy and he scored a few goals for us that helped us get Champions League football then it would be well worth it even if we've just helped somebody else's player get back on track. Like Kovacic who i believe Real were willing to loan out but didn't want to sell, if Jovic came here and did well he may want to stay anyway and it doesn't matter if it's Real Madrid or whoever, having an unhappy camper in the squad isn't the greatest thing, especially if that player may not warrant being first choice anyway.

Based on how this team of the decade has been done, then the second half of the 2009/10 season is included in the last decade and with that in mind it only strengthens the case of Cech, Terry, Cole, Lampard and Drogba in a team. Cech, Cole and Lampard were all key in Champions League and Europa League wins after that double season, and Drogba almost is in by default from his contributions when we won the Champions League. Terry went on and was a key player in another title winning season. I struggle to put Azpi in at left back when he only played there regularly for 2-3 seasons, so less time than Cole during the decade. Azpi should probably be in but actually where do you include him when he's been shuffled around every position in the defence. I love Essien. He's one of my favourite all time players and in his prime I'd have him in any team over both Kante and Makelele. But he was never the same player from 2009/10 forward. Any of Mikel, Ramires, Fabregas and Matic all deserve to be in ahead of Essien.

I think in recent weeks we've felt the loss of Hazard. Now teams are beginning to work out that they can defend deep centrally against us and force us wide we either need quality width (full backs) or a top drawer creative spark and unfortunately we lack both at present. Having said that since Roman brought the club we haven't had the greatest of luck with buying ready made, world class stars. We've had much more success buying players either on the cusp who need to be taken to that next level or younger players that have developed into world class players. With the profile of the players we have here and a pool of them likely to start really peaking over the next 2-3 years time, do we go down that route again and buy those types of players or do we go for broke and get 2 or 3 world class players added to what we already have. Hate to reference back to Liverpool so regularly because I cannot stand them but their recruitment in the last 3-4 years hasn't involved buying world class players. They've brought the right players who have become world class when playing for them. I just hope there is a real plan in place for January and the summer that we can bring in 3 or 4 players that are designed to suit around what Lampard is trying to build. This doesn't necessarily mean the best player available, it means the best fit for the club and manager.

I agree, you only have to look at the sudden emergence of Loftus Cheek last season that a number of these younger players could do something similar. It is vital to get the recruitment right in January and the summer. If we can hit a home-run with 2 or 3 signings on top of what we have we'll be moving really positively in the right direction.

One point gained

We're still in a position where we have players from the Conte/Mourinho era that aren't suited to how Sarri and now Lampard want us to play. That's why some people are preaching for time and patience because we cannot make such a drastic shift in style and philosophy within a year or two. It'll likely take 3-4 years to really bear fruit because the player turnover and culture shift won't be immediate. If we went back to Simeone we would have half of the players who suit that style still here but mostly ageing and/or spent the last season or two out of favour, and the other half which are mostly our younger and expensive players no longer suited. We have to keep following through with this for the next season or two and see where we're at then. I believe we'll be in a far better position by then compared to now.

A couple of big results this afternoon with Spurs and Wolves losing. We could easily have lost today so maybe needs to be viewed as a point gained to a degree and we move on.