BlueLion.

[/Chelsea career]. I personally think he's better than Bertrand. Shame. Best of luck to him, but we just seem to be farming youngsters off on loan until either they improve substantially (i.e. KdB), or we sign a younger, better replacement. Luke Shaw, anyone?

Will close this tomorrow. If it's still a draw, I win by default.

^ Done. REP REP REP.

1st choice - Lukaku. Sky-high potential here. Considerable strength, but also surprising pace and acceleration. Dominant in the air, and effective at hold-up. Relatively good finisher, good goal instincts, and clearly incredibly confident. Deserves his chance after 17 goals in a mid-table team such as West Brom where, let us not forget, he was heavily rotated. His minutes-to-goals ratio was phenomenal; I think in the league only van Persie was more frequently putting the ball in the net. 2nd/3rd choice - Demba Ba. Experienced, with little chance of further progression at his age. However, like Lukaku, he is very strong, but he is less direct that Lukaku. He is better at holding the ball up and a slightly better finisher. Also, very good in the air. A perfect option to throw in with 20 minutes left against tiring defenders. He has barely any pace, but he will enable us to further utilise the long-ball. 2nd/3rd choice - Fernando Torres. An altogether different player to both. Prefers to run on to through-balls than trying to hold it up/turn players. Generally an excellent finisher. Brilliant against low-profile teams.The fact is, we have three brilliantly different players here. Lukaku has so much room to grow, it really is exciting! Torres and Ba can get the job done. The truth of the matter is Chelsea is a team that barely utilises a striker. Even under Mourinho in 2004-2007, we relied on our midfield to score goals. The same will be true next season - I guarantee that Schurrle, Hazard, Mata, Oscar, and Lampard supply us 60-70 goals between them. You look at our defenders, there is the potential to 10-15 goals there, and the same outlay from our other attacking midfielders (KdB, Moses, etc.) gives us 100 goals, give or take. Then, Ba, Lukaku and Torres can reasonably add, what, 30-45 between the three of them? Obviously this is only a crude measure, but it shows that probably 60-70% of our goals come from elsewhere. Our style of play almost bypasses our forwards. There is a reason why the likes of Ba and Torres - players who were previously completely dominant before joining us - are average at best, now. Even when Drogba had his two 30+ goals seasons, and the likes of Anelka and Kalou were ably offering 15-20 themselves, they were still only contributing about a quarter of our goals - maybe a third, at a push. That ratio is far lower than teams such as United, for instance. Since Mourinho first came, the centre-forward has been a foil for our other attacking players. That's why your Lampards and your Matas have been so productive. So, I ask this - do we really need to spend £30-45 million on someone who is barely going to contribute more than our current strikers presently do?

Absolutely. That's moreorless the same as a footballer donating to charity his underwear after following-through. What a cock-juggling thundercunt this little bastard is.

Good luck Patch! I don't think we'll ever see him wearing Chelsea colours, but I definitely think he will have decent resale value in two-three years time.

We have two options: Go into the season with two mediocre players in Ba and Torres, and a very young player with bags of potential (Lukaku) - plus two auxiliary strikers in Schurrle and Moses...or jizz out £30-45 million on a big-name forward, ie. Lewa, Jovetic, etc.What's your preference?

When people go on about gay footballers, and gay people in general as being a big issue, it makes me laugh. Especially when there are absolutely massive TV series like Game of Thrones, which is watched by tens of millions of people around the world, have two gay people getting some and people go insane; no-one bats an eyelid at the brother-sister incest! It's just totally irrelevant, not even sure why people bring things like that up. It's not people people go OMFG HE'S A CHRISTIAN, or FUCK ME, HIS SHOE SIZE IS 12!!!!!!, no-one would really give a shit!

Both have been done. Now rep me.

No shit, just making the point that I don't think Ruddy is much of a step up on Turnbull, especially for £10 million.

P.S. - tactical vote ftw

^ I don't think Josh is, or ever was good enough, sadly.

Why? For many, many Brits - myself included - the Royal Family is a symbol of tradition and British nationalism, and remain extremely popular.

Waste of a transfer. Blackman and Turnbull can do a job. On the off chance Cech is out for a long period, we can recall Courtois.

Nice work, Roman. Nice work indeed.

Inb4AnyoneCallsHimBieberOhShitTooLate

Please stop the unnecessary topic bumps. If you wish to talk about players in general then please use the general transfer topic. Bumping threads for no reason is SPAM - stupid, pointless and meaningless. Please refrain from unnecessary topic bumps. Persistent offenders will have posting rights revoked. Alex.

Can people stop bumping these fucking topics? Banhammer urge...

Besides Rooney at United and Dzeko at City, Ba is, by some distance, the next-best second-choice striker in the Premier League. We haven't even given him a real shot, yet. I genuinely think he could do a job for us as an option from the bench, or to be rotated alongside Lukaku and Torres. He brings us a different dimension as he is very, very good as a long-ball target.

Super opportunity in a WC year. Wish him all the best.

^ yeah, such a shame. Wish it was simply plastic.

Topic locked. Please discuss the move in MVG's thread - http://forum.talkchelsea.net/topic/16365-marco-van-ginkel/

On 3 July 2013, English Premier League club Chelsea announced that they had reached an agreement with Vitesse for the transfer of van Ginkel. With the fee reported to be in the region of £8 million. On 5 July, Chelsea confirmed that they had completed the signing of van Ginkel, with the Dutch international midfielder signing a five-year contract with the club. Speaking to the official Chelsea website upon his signing with the club, van Ginkel described himself as "a box-to-box player" who "covers a lot of metres and can score a goal. Click here to view the record

Makes sense on so many levels. We've made numerous long-term signings and put a lot of money into potential and the future. Signings like this, in the short-term, supplements that ambition.