manpe

There have been talks about Cech's fitness, especially by Courtois... he said that the club told him that they were worried that Cech might have shorter career than expected.

The club and Courtois have said that their plan is 3 season loan before joining us... 1 (or 2) in Spain and 1 (or 2) in England.. so it's either 2+1 or 1+2, I don't remember which. The club is handling him very carefully and won't be thrown in starting squad like De Gea.

Very strong links with him... I'd say 80% chance it's happening

I can't see anybody in our squad filling that role once Terry, Drogs and Lamps make way.. I'm worried that we won't have any real leaders.

guess we can't make fun of arsenal anymore.. recently we've been pedobearing around too

Do you count the spilt header to Ramires's goal as an assist too? Don't remember in which game it was... it will go down as an assist officially, but in reality it was unintended. But sure, Torres's overall play has been better than it was in liverpool.. I think he's managed more assists for us already than in his entire 'pool career. But it still remains that his general play has been poor, and his assists come mainly because he is too afraid to be in positions to score them himself.

I don't believe he is anymore, no dunno about 2012, but in 2011 it still was there

what do you mean? Sturridge has scored more goals this season than Torres in a year

he had man utd as his favourite club in FM, I was wondering what's that about too

no way he's worth that much now, I doubt he would surpass Robben in price.. 20 million tops maybe but only because of his name

because it has never benefited him, yet he still attempts... all of his goals so far have come from pinpoint passes, not once has he succeeded by outdribbling the whole team. he loses possession more than not. anyway, imo he just engages into too many impossible situations.

yeah, now that you mention it, I haven't tried the advanced search before... I thought the simple search, even if it searches content, would give priority to keywords in title (that's how I'm used to in other forums). But thanks for the advice, I'll use advanced search from now on.

They are few but ones that he should be taking much better. How often does he attempt ridiculous dribbles at 3-4 defenders? Those kind of things puzzle me.

bingo, 2 things that he's missing... but when he does get proper service, his confidence comes into play and manages to screw up. It's a downward spiral that is hard to break. His confidence at the beginning of the season was better, you just need to watch the goals against manu and swansea, the Torres of 2012 would have taken n+2 touches before attempting a shot (n being the optimal time to shoot).

yes you can, the limit is 3 letters. I just searched "snow" and the thread Snow came last in 3 pages... horrible.

and Bertrand

Since the bugs thread is closed, I will repeat myself here. Something needs to be done about the search... it's completely useless. More than once have I found the thread I am looking for on the last page or in the middle, even though it contains all or most of the keywords, but some random off-topic threads are on first pages. The algorithm it uses is illogical. Tbh, when I searched for "bugs", it didn't even appear anywhere.

That's true, although it's said in this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/feb/04/fernando-torres-chelsea Not sure what the author meant by that, you can always count on the likes of Mikel and Ferreira to have worse records Although comparing him to our defensive mids, full-backs and even goalkeeper tells the whole story.

Surely if he was that talented he would have figured in Notts Forest first team?

Why was he with their reserves if he's an England international? And the better question, why would Chelsea want a reserve player from a low league team?

let us know later how it went

Really? How and why will you meet?

Is it a lengthy injury? Wonder what it means for Romeu

zero chance he's gonna play until Cole and Bosingwa are available and healthy

Sturridge will get better. A slump in form was always expected and it's important we don't start writing him off (which would be typical of us really). Rejecting him for his current faults would be a big mistake, City already regret and see the potential they let go. If he was the age of Malouda, then I would understand, but he's on the right side of 20s. I would be satisfied if we got a proper winger and let Sturridge be back-up for striker next season and start the more easy games. If Torres is still here next season, then I see no problem why they can't split time between the three of them (Lukaku, Daniel and Torres).. Sturridge would take the CF spot left by Drogba and we get a new winger to replace him. Also his heading ability is not that important, because with the new possession philosophy we need players with great feet, not great head... for that job, if needed, we'll have Lukaku ready to step up. Sturridge will also be able to cover for the wing 'cause of the experience he's getting this season, making him more universal.