Jype

I thank him for his fantastic service to the club, great player and a proper gentleman. Will never forget Mata's heroics in a blue shirt and will be wishing him all the best on a personal level but I hope he wins fuck all at his new club. I just hope he understands how much he's meant to all Chelsea fans and doesn't start badmouthing the club to please the United fans like for example Sturridge did. So far he has loved living in England but let's face it, Manchester ain't no London. Who knows, maybe at some point he gets depressed in that shithole and wants to return to Spain?

Pre-match press conference already well in over time before the first question about the Stoke match.

"Wenger complaining is normal because that's what he always does" Mourinho at his best.

He's late.

Wasn't saying he's currently better than Shaqiri, just going by what I've read some Basel fans saying on the internet when comparing these players' performances for their club. Didn't see much of Shaqiri at Basel and only seen around ten games of Salah there so I couldn't possibly tell who was better but what I meant was that the leap from being a superstar in the Swiss league to being a squad player for a top team isn't really that much, especially when the player has already proven himself in the Champions League as well.

With both Mata and De Bruyne gone there will be plenty of playing time available to Salah. If he won't come I would doubt his ambition and confidence but it's probably just poor scousers trying to convince themselves they still got a chance.

Xherdan Shaqiri was still playing in the Swiss league at 21 before moving to Bayern and he's been a great squad player for them. Salah was Shaqiri's replacement at Basel and from what I've heard he has been more impressive for them than Shaqiri so if Salah does as well for us as XS has done for Bayern I'd be happy. Mind you 21 is still very young in terms of football.

‏@BenSmithBBC: Salah may not be the last one in the door at #CFC. Busy at the Bridge Wonder who he's talking about? Shaw or Zouma, maybe?

That's what I'm hoping for. After the Salah signing there's no doubt he's going but it would be a huge victory for the club if they managed to sell Mata to someone outside England. Also I don't think Manchester United with Moyes are really Mata's first choice so it might just be Mata himself who's stalling on the deal and encouraging other clubs to bid too. Clutching at straws here but at the moment there's not much else to do than hope for the best.

I would laugh so hard if United's Mata deal collapsed and someone else hijacked the move like we just did to Liverpool with Salah. There's still hope.

Yep, even seen some news suggesting we'll have to pay some of his wages for the remainder of his contract at Chelsea because Milan won't pay him as much as he's currently getting. Still, better for everyone if he goes. Essien will get more first team opportunities at Milan and we will get at least most of his wages off the books and can give someone like Aké the opportunity to play the games Essien would otherwise play.

Don't bother with him, he's just saying that because Salah hates Israel and he takes that personally. Probably won't take much for that guy to start wishing him to die (check Anelka thread for more info).

All the best for the Bison at Milan, a top human being and in his prime a world class player. Shame his career took a massive hit with the knee injuries but I hope he can get back to playing regular first team football in Italy.

Out: Mata, De Bruyne, Bertrand, Essien (?), Ba (?) In: Matic, Salah, new defender (?), new CF (?) Some of these have already happened and some are heavily rumoured. Mourinho turned this January window into real life Football Manager, players coming and going like crazy.

@LalkovicMilan09: Buy buy buy buy buy The lad ain't even good enough for our reserves and is now having a go at the club for buying another player for his position? Fuck off.

Hope not. Maybe he could get De Bruyne's old number 15 shirt and next summer the number ten could be given to Hazard?

Didn't Liverpool already pay for his flight?

Don't think there's ever been a more appropriate time to post the "well, that escalated quickly" meme. Chelsea FC don't mess around when it comes to getting transfers done.

Cool. If we get this guy, we'll have Hazard, Oscar and Willian as clear first choices for the three AM positions with Schürrle (LW) and Salah (RW) as backups, both of whom are very much the kind of players Mourinho likes to use. If Oscar gets injured or rested, Jose can play Hazard or Willian down the middle and the team has an opening for one of the wingers to prove themselves. In my opinion that's the kind of balance we should be looking for instead of having too many players who possess completely different kind of qualities and who all expect to be guaranteed starters I wouldn't be against bringing back Bertrand Traore either because he looks a cracking player already at 18 but I don't know, maybe it would be a little cuntish thing to do if the club just recalled him now after Vitesse have already made plans for Traore and how they're going to use him this season when they're looking to win the title.

Have you seen Moses this season? To say he's been shit would be an understatement.

Exactly this. We already have three starters in Hazard - Oscar - Willian so we don't need a world class player of Mata's quality as a replacement. What we need is a reliable squad player, someone who's better suited to Mourinho's tactics than Mata. From what I've seen Salah fits that bill and getting him to replace Mata would also leave the club with around €30m in the bank to improve other areas of the team so why not? Mata's too good to be sitting on the bench and it's become clear he doesn't fit Mourinho's tactics either so no point keeping him just because he's a nice guy. Him going to Manchester United is obviously hard to take because we all love Mata but purely from a footballing perspective I don't see anything wrong with replacing him with Salah. LW: Hazard / Schürrle ACM: Oscar / Hazard / Willian RW: Willian / Salah Not bad IMO.

Good thing I got mine with Hazard on the back.

Wouldn't be surprised if this did happen. A left footed right winger with great dribbling skills and good workrate, isn't that pretty much what Jose wants? Don't know much about his end product but he looks a talented young lad with great potential and he wouldn't be too expensive either, maybe €12-14m would do the trick. I'm just going to go ahead and say it. I honestly don't think replacing Mata by getting this guy to rotate with Willian on the right wing would be bad business, in fact I think it would be a great move by Jose because basically he'd basically be replacing an expensive bench warmer who he doesn't know how to fully utilise with a player more suited to his tactics while also getting a profit of around €30m. It's only the part about Mata leaving to join Manchester United of all clubs that's causing people to be butthurt and rightly so, but if he left for someone like PSG and we replaced him with Salah I would say job well done.

When Mata goes it leaves us one AM short, can't see us buying a replacement so could recalling one of the loanees be an option? Piazon maybe? Selling De Bruyne is all of a sudden not looking so good anymore...

Whilst it makes me sick that our board are willing to do business with those cunts after they refused to do the same when we wanted one of their players, I'm surprisingly cool about this. Mata is just too nice a guy for me to start hating him even if he was playing for one of our rivals. One thing I don't get though, if Mourinho refused to loan Ba to Arsenal because he considered them our rivals then why is he happy to sell Mata to Manchester United? Still hope PSG or some other club does a Willian here but at this point it's not looking likely. Will have to start looking for a new avatar now, had this one since May 19th 2012.