BlueLion.

Signing Hulk would be more a prestige thing than anything else, I feel. Would he add much more to the squad? He definitely has his qualities, but on the whole I am unconvinced by him. I think in Schurrle we have a better, younger, hungrier player, but if he does indeed come here of course I will support him.

Correct, I remember during the coverage of that exhibition game in honour of Ballack, he went on record to say he especially moved back his holiday plans to play.

No bigger gamble than going into a season as defending European champions with Fernando Torres and Daniel Sturridge as your only recognised centre forwards.

That laid-back attitude you talk about was about before Daddy Roman came along and people became spoilt by success. You talk about £53 million like it's nothing. Read up on financial fair play, it'll explain why quite a lot of us aren't willing to spend such obscene amounts of money when we already have £102 million worth of attacking talent in Moses, Schurrle, Torres, Ba and Lukaku already at the club.

For that amount of money, we might as well talk to Madrid about Modric. Farcical. What's that got to do with the price of fish? "£20m more" isn't just like sticking down an extra fiver ffs.

Hazard is lethal no matter where he plays, if you can't recognise some of his best games for us have been where he has drifted to either wing (key example being West Ham at home), then....

I'm not saying it is a bullet dodged. I'm saying it could be. I think you've gotten the wrong end of the stick. Of course Cavani is a wonderful player - but is he a £55 million player, or whatever price Napoli are demanding? He is a notch above the rest of our striking options, but why go out there and spend so much on a player who won't even be the focal point of our team? Unless we totally revise the way we play to cater around him - which, if we didn't do for £50 million Torres, we won't for Cavani; especially since Mourinho is pretty rigid in his systems - there's no point buying someone who will get no service whatsoever. The way we play, we're better off signing a poacher like Dzeko or Gómez.

^ he didn't say that. He said one of Schurrle's best attributes is taken away from him if he is deployed on the right wing, whereas Hazard is lethal wherever he is played - hence why him moving to the right would not be such a negative aspect.

€40 MILLION?

Funniest thing I've read in this topic are those posts along the line of "why don't we just pay the other €8 million", etc. - just like it's an extra fiver! This isn't FIFA, some people - nay, a lot of people - need to realise that.

That Palmeri guy is an absolute cunt, just fishing for Twitter followers. Every day he says we'll offer another 50p for Cavani, or some bollocks like that. Absolute bullshitter.

Absolutely gutted this has stagnated. I don't know if interest was genuine in the first instance, but he would really help add dynamism to our midfield. Would love him to come.

^ says the person who said we'd win the league this season

Not actually that bothered, let him go where he wants where the money is highest. Nothing against Cavani, nothing at all. He can't do anything here - the Napoli president is simply a greedy, greedy bastard. Fair play though, shows a bit of back-bone. And why should Napoli sell? They've truly re-established themselves in Italy for the first time in 15 years, and Cavani is a massive part of that. Not signing him means we either invest a bit of faith in the £75 million-worth of strikers we currently have at the club - Torres, Lukaku, and Ba - or we revise our targets and bring in someone to do a decent job for a third of Cavani's price. And if Lukaku can score 17 goals for West Bromwich Albion in a rotation role, imagine what he can do for us - I'm very excited for him to be given a real chance at Chelsea. The way we operate is almost ignoring the strikers anyway. Ba and Torres struggle because our midfield is our real attacking outlet - Mata, Hazard, Lampard and Oscar will get you 60 goals a season between them, easily. That is, in most seasons, 45-55% of our goals tally. Why spend £50 million + on another striker who probably will struggle, just like Torres, to score 20 goals a season for this team? Everyone goes on about Drogba, but he only had two seasons where he scored more than 16 goals for this club. Strikers typically struggle in Mourinho teams, as well. Bullet dodged? Possibly.

Exactly, that's my job. As for Andy, stats are misleading. Remember when I used statistics to make Salomon Kalou look a brilliant player in 2009? Andy puts away 9% of his shots - that's because he shoots more than most players I can think of - as opposed to Torres, who probably puts away 15% of his shots but shoots half as much.

Considering I'm one of those who appreciates Mikel and his role in the team... I'm actually feeling pretty happy with this reported move.

Very disappointed the topic in the Matthew Harding Stand about "real fans" was even made, let alone remain open for so long. Embarrassing. Absolutely cringe-worthy that, after all the time and effort that people like Jim, Steve and myself have put into this forum, CFC-Fans and the old TalkChelsea over the best part of the last 9 seasons, people can't be civilised enough to act like adults. Very disappointing indeed. I don't expect to see any more posts like this, it really is destroying the community. From now on, I'm just going to suspend people who detract posts, maybe that will encourage people to stop acting like children?

Won't happen, I'll put a lot of money on it.

Haha I prefer it when people think he's crap, but when I tell them we have Cech and Courtois, the obvious envy is brilliant

He won't.

Oscar and Mata on the wing? No thanks. Schurrle, Hazard, Moses and Marin = job done in 2013/14. J. Cole, Robben, Duff, SWP = job done in 2005/06.

Can't wait for him to fuck off somewhere so I can delete this thread.

After what Rodgers did to McEachran at Swansea, I wouldn't loan him a turd.

We need squad depth, and cover. If Hazard is injured next season - Heaven forbid - you'd seriously be happy with just Moses and Andy for the wings? Are you desperate to see Oscar, Dave and Rambo out wide again?

Why? Oh yeah, forgot we were inundated with genuine wingers, would leave to see Ramires, Azpilicueta and Oscar on the wings again next season