BlueLion.

LAD! Look at Cech, probably watching a DVD of the opposition like normal, then Ross is nursing a semi flicking through Nuts! LMAO!

And that's all fine and well in a 4-3-3 with a defensive midfielder behind you. In a 4-2-3-1 it isn't simple. Ramires is a great squad player. Can do a job at RM, RB, CM and CDM if necessary. But we have players better than him for each of those positions, IMO.

Whether it fuels his ego or not is entirely irrelevant. By taking the flak of the media himself, it leaves less room for scrutiny of the players. The Terry affair and racism storm, and man-management of Torres, for instance, would both have been managed better by Mourinho. He'd had made the focus of the media shitstorm focus around himself rather than his players. It is a simple but brilliant ploy, and it makes him the best man-manager and motivator in the game. You'd want to play for a guy who does that.

Just fed up of white away kits. We need one that is yellow, or green, or something different. Very uninspiring. EDIT - and I'm also fed up of adidas changing the colours of our fucking badge. KEEP IT BLUE.

His haphazard style makes him an exciting player but a potential disaster in a Premier League side. Put him in a Spanish team and because their playing attitude is so laissez-faires he would be considered a great.

^ gay.

He's played more than 300 games for us, won everything you can possibly win in the domestic game with us, and played an integral role in winning us our first European Cup. That definitely is legend material. 'Legend' is thrown away too often in regards to this period in our history, but with this being the most illustrious period we have ever had in terms of success (and probably ever will!), identifying the likes of Lampard, Terry, Cole, Drogba and Cech as modern legends despite their close proximity is befitting their status at the club. They have achieved more success than the likes of Tambling, Greaves, Dixon, Zola, Bonetti and Osgood ever enjoyed on the pitch, and by that reasoning they will one day be celebrated in the same fashion. We won't know how good these players have truly been for us until they leave.

Oscar has been our consistently-best player thus far in 2013. Really impressed with him. His transition into this team has been nigh-on faultless.

Very fair analysis, but in my opinion a little presumptuous over Nathaniel, who first needs a Premier League loan. You're right in Ramires should stay - as a valuable squad player in the same category as someone like Salomon Kalou or Ryan Bertrand. His versatility is excellent - he can 'do a job' wide right in a 4-3-3, in either of the pivot positions, and as an emergency right-back should injuries to Ivanovic and Azpi occur. Players of that versatility are effectively what win you titles, but I agree he isn't a good-enough player to feature in every game. The thing I like about him is his effort and work-rate, but it is his inability to perform basic functions such as incisive short-passing which really devalues him as a midfield player. He definitely should not leave, though. He'd be a great squad player, just like Anderson is for Manchester United. It is having players like that who can come in and play mid-week games and then be a really strong option off the bench that wins you silverware as much as the goalkeeper or the star striker, in my view. You can't underestimate their importance. I love Rambo and cannot fault his work-ethic and the fact he can play relatively well moreorless anywhere on a football pitch is a desirable trait. He just doesn't fit the dynamic of our current system well enough; he is like the size 7 shoe for the size 9 foot - a very uncomfortable fit indeed. As I said previously - square pegs and round holes.

Dammit why didn't I think of that?

Only finding out you have HIV is worse than Torres. Even herpes is preferable.

This is our trophy. We don't lose in it. Petr Cech has never lost an FA Cup game (you can't count the penalty shoot-out against Everton, really) and I expect that run to go on. I believe! We'll win this 2-1!

That being said Steve, remember what happened last time we did that... Jim got a bit jealous!

Depends how you quantify 'failing'. 'Failing' for Torres. ergo a supposed £50 million striker, is his current consistent toiling in front of goal, where anything less than decent performances and fewer than 25 goals a season fails to justify even a third of that price tag. For Ba, a player valued at less than 20% of that pricetag (in my opinion an unfair valuation; we were lucky signing him for such a fee - in reality Ba would have commanded a £12-15 million sum), 'failing' is an altogether different beast. He can perform an Anelka-like role as the second-main goalscorer in the team and consistently net 15-20 goals a season and that would be a good return for our investment. Even in a system that doesn't suit him and with players he barely knows, Ba has netted four goals in six starts and created space and opportunities for the midfielders in behind him, as yesterday shows. On another day Oscar nets a couple and both goals are down to Ba creating the space and causing trouble. Torres, on the other hand, as I have already said, has failed whichever way you look at it. His performances are not even at Ba's standard, which is the performance of an £8 million striker. His goalscoring record this season is distinctly average, but when you consider Luis Suarez and Robin van Persie have both more than double the number of league goals (in fact, Suarez has 21 to Torres' 7), you question his true value both financially to the team. The bottom line is at £8 million, Ba is a better, more-complete player with a better goalscoring record this season. Going by the law of averages of what he has achieved at Newcastle and what opportunities he will get in the future (it is obvious he will be rotated with Falcao/Lewandowski/Cavani, etc. as our main striker next season but playing in a secondary capacity, as Anelka did to Drogba in 2009/10 especially) he will do a basic goal of getting 15-20 goals a season guaranteed. That is a prudent investment. Torres has failed, but Ba won't. Because he is a quality striker. You can judge their performances and say Torres was the bargain buy and Ba the big-money acquisition. The sooner Torres goes and we have Lukaku, Ba and a new number 9 leading the line the better. Because when Torres has a shit game, we are effectively playing with ten. With Ba playing poorly, he'll still probably get on the scoresheet. As for Torres, he is the worst signing in the history of this football club. Ergo: Ba @ £8 million (realistic value of £12-15m) should be getting you 15-20 goals a season, á la Olivier Giroud. Torres @ £50 million (realistic value of 50p) should be getting you 40 goals a season, á la van Persie. Ba will achieve those targets, justifying his pricetag. Torres won't. Simple.

I don't think we were watching the same game.

Well, going by their league form, they're a good side! Won 16 of 20 matches this season, and losing only two. They have won all ten of their home league matches, conceding only four goals in the process.

Men of the match: 1. Oscar - just brilliant. Here, there, every-fucking-where. Deserved a goal. Industrious defensively and ingenius offensively; a pleasure to watch. 2. Cech - keeping a clean-sheet is as good as scoring a goal in my opinion, but making the saves he did, Cech deserves a nod. 3. Ba - he did what all strikers should; he scored the winner. But his all-round game was better than anything Torres can off in all capacities. He defended well, too. Special mentions to Ramires and David Luiz who were also players who had good games. Mata and Hazard were effervescent at times but drifted in and out of the game too often, especially in the second half. For the first time in a long time, no-one played poorly!

Staff aren't allowed nominations, which is good for you lot, I guess. Otherwise it would be a straight-up stalemate between me and Steve that we'd need to settle with a naked mud-wrestle!

There you have it boys and girls. Any questions, you can ask here directly.

Really good shout. Often slips under the radar but a brilliant poster. I second this nomination!

The site has journalists based across the world - I'm therefore guessing that whilst there may be some editing required for the standardisation of prose, Oxford English may well be fine! Being US-based, however, it is likely that it will be referred to as 'soccer' but thinking about it, how often do you actually use the word 'football/soccer' in an actual article, except when referring to a specific Football Club (in which case, as an institution, Football Club would not be changed).

My vote goes to Peace this month. A welcome return to form from him.

Morning all, I've recently been contacted by Thomas Atzenhoffer, the managing director of SWOL-Soccer WithOut Limits. You can check the site out by clicking this link. The site is a digital publishing platform with the uniform goal of uniting football fans from across the globe into a single news and views network. Here are some details from the MD himself: Currently we are in the middle of investment planning and discussion meetings for SWOL on a weekly basis. The site has been live since June of last year and was in development since the end of March 2012 and conceptually back to the first of the that year.We continue to be building the relationships for the site and with potential investors. During December we were selected to be part of a Miami based start up accelerator program that continues to pay dividends in growth potential. We signed a new web design contract for the site at the end of January to start building a completely new platform that will be stand alone for major growth again from advertising and additionally writing and marketing potential.We have already attracted interviews with former USMNT members Alexi Lalas, Brian McBride and Tony Meola, as well as former Manchester United defender Mikel Silvestre, USWNT legend Brandi Chastain and Fulham's Philippe Senderos.As far as background on the site it is brain child of myself, Adam Davis, who is a Rogon Players Agent based in Miami, and former Arsenal player turned North American scout, Danny Karbassiyoon. We have strong player connections we are working with to grow the site which you can see from the various signed Jersey competitions that we have been doing through the site.The writing team is in a constant state of growth for the time being and there are no current paid positions, but there will be in the coming months. Currently the team as of now consists of a group of 40+ contributors putting out 1-4 articles per week individually as well as a group of 15 college interns that I run in a program called SWOL University that is a soccer specific journalism internship that I am developing to be used as a university or collegiate accredited intern program for students in the future.Assignments are emailed out either Saturday or Sunday afternoon, whichever of the two days I can get the weekly schedules finalized, and is done primarily in a topical manner rather than using strict and specific titles because in most cases we want writers to write about what they are passionate about in the realm of their topic. Specific titles are available if wanted, and also some times are given out if there is a certain audience we have in mind for a story idea.If you are interested in joining the team, please let me know, and we will talk further. This is an incredible opportunity as TalkChelsea has been personally sounded out by Thomas. In his own words; "I appreciate your willingness to jump on board and work with us on this project and I think it will be a great way of bring not only more Chelsea fans together but interconnecting the US and UK fan bases as well". If you are interested PLEASE submit your interest in this topic. I have passed on the link of this thread and hopefully Thomas will be able to pop on and answer any questions you may have. This is a really exciting opportunity that can work for the benefit of both sites! Alex.

STFU&GTFO.

Half of them are just me spamming the crap out of the Staff Area