Jype

"Sky Sports sources say MUFC have made a £40m bid for Juan Mata through a third party." Wonder who the third party is, can't the cunts afford him by themselves?

It's really not just down to Mourinho, is it? Jose's already said all he needs to say about this and by all accounts he would prefer Mata to stay, especially after De Bruyne already left. If Mata himself asks for a move, then it's up to Jose and the board to think what's best for the club but so far Mata hasn't struck me as a guy who would demand a transfer and even if he did, I doubt Manchester United in their current state would interest him as much as returning to Spain or going to a club like PSG would so I have a feeling he will stay at least until the summer. He hasn't been a major part of the national team no matter how well he's played in the past so unlike in De Bruyne's case playing a minor role for the rest of the season and then carefully thinking about the next move in the summer is a good option for Mata if the alternative is to go to Manchester United now and play in the Europa League with Moyes for who knows how long.

Whoops.

All things considering a £37m bid from a club outside England would probably be enough to tempt me but United can go fuck themselves. If they're not willing to sell us one of their best because they're afraid he might strengthen our title challenge then why would we let them have a player who has the potential to be one of the best playmakers in the league when properly utilised? Wouldn't be surprised if Mourinho wanted to sell though, it would only further boost his ego if he could say he sold one of the finest players in the league to a rival and still won the title.

Would love for this to happen but I've been around long enough not to believe this twitter bullshit.

That just means you're next.

No, but I suppose it means he will at least be on the bench.

Great round for me so far, got 57 points from just six players and still have Lukaku, Hazard, Coleman, Chiriches and Cech left.

Transfermarkt reporting it as €22m but most media outlets say it was slightly less than that. We'll never know the exact amount but if I had to guess I would estimate it to have been something like €19m + add-ons.

What the fuck? He was a Chelsea player for two years and in that time most of us grew somewhat fond of him so I don't see a problem with wanting him to succeed elsewhere because it's not like he joined our direct rival. I can't imagine him making Chelsea look like mugs no matter how well he does at Wolfsburg because we will still have a ridiculous amount of wonderful attacking midfielders who will continue to bring success to the club, not to even mention youngsters like Piazon and Traore making their way up the ranks as they grow older. De Bruyne's market value could not have gone any higher than the £17-20m he now went for if he stayed at Chelsea and kept sitting on the bench so even if he was worth double that amount in a few years it will still have been a good piece of business by the club to sell the squad's sixth choice attacking midfielder for a big profit and then re-invest the money on a central midfielder who has the potential to have a huge impact on our title challenge not only this season but also for the next five years or so.

I wish him all the best. Quality player but still way behind our other attacking mids and judging by reports he wasn't willing to fight for his place as hard as everyone else so it would have been hard for Mourinho to give him a bigger slice of the pie when the others were playing well too. Good move for all parties I would say, we made a big profit on a player we didn't really need but Wolfsburg will be getting a great player for a reasonable price and with De Bruyne's contribution they might even qualify for the Champions League next season.

Don't know how much it was in pounds at the time but in euros the price was around €52 million. Insane amount of money for a goalkeeper, especially given the fact this transfer happened 13 years ago when the market wasn't anywhere near as inflated as it is now.

Another world class prospect who's a Chelsea fan and would jump at the chance to join the club? This one's a no-brainer, get him now and let him stay at ASSE on loan for the remainder of the season.

He already had 21 at Benfica.

We couldn't have given them Romeu because he's on loan till the end of the season at Valencia, we would have to pay the penalty clause for breaking that contract. As for Gael, I really doubt that we would snub their request to have him. He clearly has no future at the club and the sooner he's off our wages bill, the better. We gave them Matic back in 2011 despite him being on loan at Vitesse, only joined them at the end of the season though. But yeah, no chance of the club letting Romeu go there and I have a feeling the player himself wouldn't want a move to Benifca either because he's already playing at a higher level at Valencia.

Why wouldn't he be granted a work permit now that he's one of Europe's best central midfielders when he already had one five years ago?

Christian Atsu perhaps? Always thought that transfer was a weird one, we won't be needing him for at least a few years so why buy him in the first place? Benfica may have been interested in his services in the summer but there's no way Porto would have let him go to one of their main rivals so there could be some long term plan here, for example us sending Atsu on a two year loan to Benfica as a part of the Matic deal or something like that. Can't see us letting him go permanently though.

"I could have stayed at Chelsea because the fans loved me and I won things, but I wanted to challenge myself and when I knew Liverpool were interested it was a no-brainer because they are the biggest club in the country. This is a massive club." Basically he's describing a move from Chelsea to Liverpool to have been a step up and there you can also see all the usual 'massive club' nonsense that often comes with people associated to Liverpool FC. Still love Joe Cole though, nothing Liverpool's PR department made him say will never change that.

Nah, it was Joe Cole first.

Thing is, Matic has already proven himself in the Portuguese league and now has a chance to move back to 'the club he loves' (his words) and work under the best manager in the world. Chelsea are still very much in the title race and by joining the club Matic will have a good chance of winning the Premier League title this year. If he waited till the summer, there would be a lot more midfield options available for Chelsea and he might not have this chance anymore so you should understand his reasoning for wanting a move now and not in the summer. It's got nothing to do with Russians or Sheikhs, it's got everything to do with the Portuguese league not being up to the standards of the Premier League and players as good as Matic will always want to test themselves at the highest possible level. The more lucrative contract offer obviously won't hurt but that's not why he's moving.

By the way what's up with Javi Martinez at Bayern, has he been injured a lot this season or does Guardiola just not fancy him? Only started six games in all competitions this season and not many substitute appearances either. In some games Guardiola has even played Lahm in the DMC position with Javi on the bench.

Had a look at some of Benfica's previous transfer dealings on the stock exchange and there seems to be a pattern of them only announcing 'negotiations to have begun' earlier in the same day as the transfer already being done and dusted. For example in the Ramires deal they confirmed negotiations to have taken place on the 4th of August 2010 but later that day he was already officially a Chelsea player so I suppose they're free to hold as much unofficial negotiations as they want and only when a fee has been agreed by both sides they have to announce the beginning of the negotiations, and the official confirmation once the player has taken a medical and signed a contract at his new club.

Sky Sports just confirmed Matic is in London for the medical.

Matic and Van Ginkel are completely different kind of players who can easily play together in the pivot so I wouldn't worry too much. Lampard's on his last legs, Essien is about to leave and I strongly suspect that either Mikel or Romeu will probably move on this summer as well. If he makes a full recovery from the ACL and impresses Jose once he's back in full training, I have no doubt he will be a big part of the club's future. Matic, Ramires, Van Ginkel and one of Mikel / Romeu would be a great selection of central midfielders in my opinion. Would offer many different combinations of players whose qualities compliment each other, for example Matic - Ramires and Mikel - MvG etc.

Just received an e-mail I've been waiting for a long time, got offered an internship at an engineering firm in Munich.