Jype

Why wouldn't he be? Atletico were intereted in buying him on a permanent transfer from Genk but we beat them to it. Had they gotten him first, he'd be exactly where he is now or alternatively he'd already have been bought by Barcelona. He's never spent a day in his life training at Cobham with the Chelsea staff, let alone playing a game for the club, so how on earth can Chelsea take credit for his development?

Cech will be 32 before next season. While he could without a doubt go on for at least another three or four years, maybe even a couple more if he's lucky, he's still not one for the long term and when players near the 35 year mark their decline can be fast. Courtois is ten years younger and already one of the best goalies in the world so why take a significant risk on something Cech might be able to do for around 6-7 years maximum when we already have Courtois who will definitely be able to do the same, if not even more, for around 15 years? It's not even a question of money either. Some argue that Courtois should be sold because he will command a massive fee which could then be spent elsewhere but that's a shortsighted way of looking at it. Sure we could sell Courtois now for £20m and stick with Cech for another few years but what then, spend the same Courtois money on some up-and-comer who might not even be anywhere near the level of Thibaut? Selling Cech for around £8-10m sounds a much better option to me. I'm sure I speak for everyone around here when I say we all love Cech but if we threw sentimentality out the window it's a no-brainer really.

Exactly. Getting rid of the deadwood players you mentioned can potentially fetch the club somewhere around £15-20m on top of the £10m left over from January and let's not forget the situations with Cech / Courtois and Mikel / Romeu. One of the goalkeepers is bound to go, either it will be Courtois for around £25m or Cech for something like £8m. I reckon one of the DMs will be kept and the other moved on but both should be valued around the 10 million mark so it makes no significant difference financially, just comes down to Jose's personal preference. Add all these together and we should be looking at a figure between £45-65m, depending on the outcome of the goalie situation and on how much we get for the fringe players. Either way the club will be getting a lot of money to spend and considering how freely we have bought players in the past even without sales we can easily afford to splash the cash in the summer. There's absolutely no reason to sell players like Luiz to be able to improve the squad.

And who is the LB capable of linking up with Hazard because it sure as hell ain't Cole? Ash hasn't offered anything going forward in years so it's not like Azpi can do any worse.

Exactly. Hopefully Josh can now get some regular first team football at Wigan and maybe continue there next season too if he gets his development back on track by playing there under this guy. In fact, Wigan aren't that far behind the play-off spots and could even be making their way back to the Premier League if they play well for the rest of the season, maybe then McEachran could even get some proper PL experience for the first time in his career.

Valencia are about to be taken over by a new owner in the near future. Latest rumours are suggesting the new owner will be either the rich Singaporean dude who bought the rights for Benfica's Rodrigo and Andre Gomes to himself for €45m a few days ago or some rich Qatari investment group. This change in ownership would clear Valencia of their €300m debt and also provide them with enough funds to finish the construction works of their Nou Mestalla stadium so it's reasonable to assume they would be getting a lot of money for transfers as well. Getting Romeu on a permanent deal should be pretty high up on their list and if Oriol continues to impress, his value is almost guaranteed to be at it's all-time high so I can honestly see the fee being over the €15m mark. However, from what I've been hearing lately he's improved his game massively and in addition to being an excellent player defensively he is now constantly starting attacks from deep and is covering more and more area on the pitch so we could have some use for him as well, maybe as a replacement for Mikel. Only has a year and a half left on his contract though, so another loan is definitely out of the question and any decision will have to be made this summer.

It's David Moyes trying to catch some Pokémon, isn't it obvious?

He did well, didn't have much to do defensively when his team was dominating the game from start to finish but he did his job whenever needed. One thing's for sure though, one simply does not overpower Zouma and when it comes to one on one duels, this lad has the physique that scares the living shit out of his opponents. Showed glimpses of his massive leaping ability and surprisingly good pace too.

Could be something wrong with your computer then, both working very well here.

http://bliner.tv/tv4spswe.html Some Swedish girl commentating the game.

Zouma starts against Valenciennes in 15 minutes in case anyone's interested. I will watch the game and keep you guys posted on how he plays. Chalobah is on loan at Middlesbrough. He had a disappointing six months at Nottingham Forest prior to that move but he's now playing under Mourinho's former right hand man Aitor Karanka at Boro so hopefully he will give our lads Chalobah and Omeruo lots of first team opportunities. Anyway, Zouma shouldn't be an obstacle for him because Chalobah has mostly been playing in midfield lately.

That moment got me thinking whether or not Moyes still has the dressing room. Fletcher looked absolutely disgusted he wasn't being taken on even though he was clearly the better option at the time. Moyes decided to go with Welbeck, which caused them to lose the midfield and therefore the whole match. After the game Moyes even told the press they played well and that he has no idea what went wrong. I mean, really?

Moyes post-match: "I don't know what we have to do to win. I thought we played well." Is this guy for real?

£23m actually, which only makes it even funnier. Playing on the wings, has done fuck all so far.

Stoke Juan nil up.

Really? I always thought Aftonbladet was a reliable newspaper. Or is it a case of him being injured but not for that long?

Källström out for 2-3 months before even kicking a ball for them, you couldn't write this. Will probably never even get a game for Arsenal, they won't care if they get him back in April or May because they needed him now with all their injury problems and Flamini's suspension.

He might have been talking about 18M USD.

Romeu had a slow start to his Valencia loan but lately he's been one of their best players and has started nearly all of their games for the past couple of months. I agree that he's not exactly what we need but if he plays well for the rest of the season it might be enough for Mourinho to at least consider giving him Mikel's place in the squad and getting rid of the Nigerian. And yes, Van Ginkel's situation is very much unclear at the moment but he is close to making a return to full training and should have a good few months to impress Mourinho on the training field before the transfer window even opens. If he doesn't, then he could go on loan and enjoy a full season of regular first team football somewhere else before analyzing the situation again in 2015 but from what I've seen of this guy it would be a shame if he didn't get a chance next year. Getting another central midfielder would basically require selling both Mikel and Romeu, as well as deciding not to extend Lampard's contract. Personally I wouldn't mind that happening and having Matic / Ramires / MvG / 'new signing' as our options at CM would be amazing but I guess we'll just have to wait and see what Mourinho has in mind.

The squad is two or three signings away from being completed, all that's left is getting a new left-back and a proper top class striker. Getting a new midfielder might be an option too but only if someone like Kroos, Pogba, Gündogan etc. was on the market and the money was there to be spent but that's not a priority IMO and we should do well with our current bunch too because we still have players like Van Ginkel and Romeu to come back. Expecting a lot of outgoing players because we sure as hell have a lot of deadwood out on loan and a couple first team players could use being replaced by some of the more successful loanees as well.

In other news Liverpool have failed to sign Konoplyanka and all their hard work has gone down the drain, again. It's laughable how they can't close deals. First Salah who was nailed on to join them but Ian Ayre managed to fuck it up after months of negotiations and now Konoplyanka whose transfer was supposed to be dead certain as well. Might have a peek at RAWK to see what they have to say about their board, will have to act fast though before they once again bury all evidence of their embarrassment of a club by deleting all threads regarding the matter.

Mata 37m + De Bruyne 17m + Essien free = £54m Matic 21m + Salah 11m + Zouma 12m + Traore free = £44m Only £10m in profit but yeah, still one hell of a January window for the club and I'm very proud to be a Chelsea fan right now.

They've been that way for years despite not really having anything to show for it other than the one nearly bottled league title won on goal difference. Most of them are obviously just suffering from an inferiority complex towards the two most successful English clubs of the last decade or so and that's why they're so hostile. Not even going to get started with how insecure they are when it comes to United but regarding Chelsea, they seem to think they've surpassed us and our achievements in every way possible. If that were true, then where is their Champions League trophy? The first time their club even sees knockout stage Champions League football other than on TV or in Football Manager will be next month. Most of them don't even see us as a threat anymore, not even for the future seasons. I'd understand if they said they're feeling confident about their chances this season because clearly they're favorites and for a good reason too but to not acknowledging the fact our team is going to be one of the best in the world once our young players start hitting their prime and Mourinho gets to bring in more players he specifically wants is just being ignorant and they got another thing coming if they think they're just easily going to dominate the English football for the next ten years. Also, apparently playing against Manchester City is both the club's and personally Mourinho's 'cup final' and has been for a long time. Well, I suppose it's understandable for those people to consider the biggest league game of the season a cup final of sorts because they've never experienced the joy of playing an actual cup final like the Champions League...

Playing as a striker now, this lad is incredibly versatile.

Exactly. In his presser today Mourinho said something like 'in the summer people will understand why Chelsea didn't buy a striker in January' so he must be planning on bringing in someone big. With the way the club have been able to do their business in this window, Jose should be fairly confident about getting this guy too, whoever he may be. Ideal scenario for next summer would be to get rid of our current strike force entirely (at most, Eto'o could stay on small wages as the 3rd choice CF) with a new world class striker coming in and also Lukaku returning from his loan. That way we would be set for the near future as far as the strikers are concerned but if we now bought another stopgap like Ba last year, it would make things more problematic for next summer because we either wouldn't be getting the top class forward or alternatively we would be seeing Lukaku leave permanently, which I'm quite certain most of us wouldn't like.