Jype

I have a feeling Mkhitaryan will be the signing of the season. Great player, a shame he's about to join Liverpool.

He most certainly will leave but the question remains where he'll go. He may love Barcelona but for the good of his career he needs to leave and now he has begun to realize this himself too, thus all the reports of him moving to one of the English top3 clubs. Last season he played less than half of Barca's games and he won't develop any further if he can't get a game and things don't exactly look like improving anytime soon either if he stays. He has learned all he possibly can from training with the likes of Xavi and Iniesta but now it has reached the point where he needs to play week-in week-out and if he can't get that at Barcelona then he must go somewhere else. At some other club he can immediately become a star and maybe even get to Spain's senior NT squad but at Barca that won't be a realistic dream anytime soon. A few more years of not playing enough might permanently damage his career and by the time they have the right place in the team they may already have another La Masia graduate to fill it and Thiago could end up regretting it. Maybe his plan is to eventually return home when he's established himself as one of the best in the world but right now the best option would be to leave. That being said, I would still welcome him with open arms if he ended up at Chelsea (which is unlikely imo). Would give us a great player for peanuts and if he one day wanted to return to Barca we'd make a nice profit on him. Personally I'd put my money on him going to United. They don't exactly have any good midfielders apart from Carrick so he'd be a guaranteed starter there. They also seem to be the team most linked to him, City are getting Isco and God knows who we are really after with all the ridiculous media stories flying around.

Swap deal for Torres?

He's just keeping his options open and being polite to everyone because he has no idea where he will play next season, nothing wrong with that. Last week he was saying it would be an honor to play for Chelsea under Mourinho and now he is flirting with Real Madrid.

Mata already stated that the club have told him they're very pleased with him and the man himself said he wants to stay and win the PL next season with Jose. Not at all like Luiz who keeps his options open in case the club decide to cash in on him. I believe he was hoping to go to Barcelona two years ago when he eventually joined us but at the moment I just can't see it. He's one of the best players in the world and a key man at Chelsea, a team challenging for multiple trophies, but at Barcelona he probably wouldn't even get in their team when they got the likes of Messi and Neymar as well as all those (imo inferior) players who keep him out of the national team starting lineup. Barca can have Torres for whatever the price, and despite being one of my favorite players maybe I'd even sell them Luiz if they offered +50m euros but Mata? No fucking chance.

Better than Mata? What have you guys been smoking, I want some too. That being said he's still an exceptional talent and I hope he goes to Real Madrid, wouldn't want such a great player to improve an already good Manchester City side.

2015 is only two years away so that still doesn't make sense. Five years more likely, I don't think I remember the club ever giving a new signing under 25 a contract less than four years.

Remember guys, Mourinho wanted Witsel at Real Madrid but Benfica priced them out. If he's available now, we should definitely be in for him.

I'm curious, how would you buy those three with just €40m? Mangala alone would fetch close to €30m because he plays for Porto who are tough to negotiate with. For De Rossi and Boateng I'd say around €15m each sounds fair. Anyway, €40m for Matic is crazy money especially when he has already played for Chelsea and we let him go for as little as €4m only two and a half years ago. Around €20-25m would be closer to reality and for that price I'd happily take him back. Don't believe it will happen though, something tells me the club won't admit their mistake so easily.

Gutted if he goes but there are very good replacements available who may even be better suited for our team so if the money is good, the board have my blessing to sell him. Any estimates on how much Mikel could go for? First time he's even rumoured to be on his way out so it's hard to say where the club value him at.

I believe he was talking about Thorgan Hazard as the second one. But yeah, I agree with you. No point mentioning the likes of Marin, Moses, Piazon, Davila, Kakuta and Thorgan Hazard who simply put it aren't as good as Andre Schürrle. Isn't the whole point of a transfer window to try and improve the squad, not stick with the ones who weren't anywhere near good enough this season?

Can they? This season Mata and Hazard sure did but we didn't do very well in the league, now did we? At times they looked fucking exhausted and we certainly would have done better if we had more useful players in the squad than Moses and Benayoun to replace them with. To be successful in the league and not just the cup competitions we need a bigger squad than we did this year. The manager needs to have the right approach and use all players accordingly and not just field the same 11 players week-in week-out because sooner or later things will go sideways. If we just trusted Mata and Hazard to play another 60 games next season, we would be bound to suffer when they get tired and in case they got injured we'd be truly fucked over. Manchester United are the perfect example here. As a team they played 54 games last season but only a handful of their players appeared in over 40 games while most of them only played between 30-38 matches. With a relatively low amount of matches most of their players won't have the chance to get insane records like Juan Mata this season but at the end of the day the only thing that matters is the team's success and not the individuals.

Not going to choose a starting eleven because it clouds the big picture. To win the league title we need a team, not just 11 individuals, and it's really not very useful to post the first choice starting lineup because in the ideal situation we won't have one and instead we would have a proper squad full of players who can come in and do the job whenever needed. Here's my team for next season: CF: Cavani, Lukaku, (Ba) AM: Hazard, Mata, Oscar, De Bruyne, Moses, Schürrle / Hulk CM: De Rossi, Van Ginkel, Lampard, Ramires, Mikel DF: Luiz, Ivanovic, Terry, Cahill, Kalas, Azpilicueta, Cole, Bertrand GK: Cech, ??, Blackman Torres, Marin, Essien and perhaps even Demba Ba out this summer but certainly wouldn't mind Ba staying either. Lukaku, KdB and Kalas recalled with Cavani, De Rossi, Van Ginkel and one out of Schürrle and Hulk to come in as new signings. Piazon, Chalobah, Romeu, Ake etc. to go on loan with an option to re-call in case our midfield gets plagued by injuries. New backup keeper to replace Turnbull and Blackman to be promoted as third choice.

Like a boss.

No, he was a Chelsea player for only two seasons and I believe three is the minimum to qualify as HG.

You're not seriously comparing Courtois to Ben Foster, who had one decent year at the age of 27 for a relegation candidate club in the Premier League? At Thibaut's age this guy was playing for Kidderminster Harriers in the Conference. Courtois immediately took over as number one keeper at Genk in the first season of his professional career and won them the title and has now been the first choice GK at one of the biggest clubs in Europe for two years and has won them three trophies in the process, while also being selected as the best goalkeeper in the La Liga this season. All this when he has been under 21 years old and still you're saying he's no good? Was Iker Casillas not world class three years into his career when he had already established himself as Real Madrid's number one keeper? From outfield players, was Lionel Messi not world class three full seasons into his career when he won his first Ballon d'Or? I could go on...

Good read as your posts usually are.

Could be a good move for him, if true. Celta have just appointed former Barcelona B manager Luis Enrique to take charge of their team. He's the one who gave Oriol a chance at Barca B and Romeu soon became a guaranteed starter in his team. Coming back from a nasty injury like that, it would be good for him to play at a club where he could regain fitness by playing a lot of games without too much pressure.

Let's hope we have in fact signed him and not only the way we supposedly signed Markovic.

First of all, I have seen nothing to suggest Schürrle's price would be £20m. German clubs deal in euros, not pounds, and every reliable source have quoted the price at €20m which equals £17m. Second of all, top clubs pay top money even for squad players. These days £15-18m gets you a good player who can eventually become a starter if he proves to be good enough but if a team wants immediate fireworks from a world class player the price starts from £25m upwards. There are exceptions of course if a player's contract is about to expire soon or he has a release clause but a player who has at least two or three years left will go for a lot of money if he's any good. Let's look at our title rivals and their options for the three AM positions. Both Manchester clubs have recently played pretty much the same 4-2-3-1 formation as we have so it's easy to compare. Man City: David Silva £25m Samir Nasri £24m James Milner £20m Scott Sinclair £7m (Kun Agüero £40m) (Carlos Tevez £25m) That's one player who cost only £7m but Scott Sinclair is shit and it's no surprise he hasn't featured much when the other options are a class above him. Man Utd: Antonio Valencia £17m Ashley Young £18m Nani £22m Shinji Kagawa £14m Wilfried Zaha £12m Ryan Giggs free Danny Welbeck free Aside from the two academy products that's a lot of money spent on each and every one of them. Shinji Kagawa would have gone for a lot more if not for the fact his contract had only a year to go. Wilfried Zaha hasn't even played for them yet and he has only proved himself in the Championship but still they insisted on paying a decent amount for him. Time will tell if he turns out to be a good buy or not. Then there's Nani, Valencia and Young who all went for around the same price as a player like Andre Schürrle will go this summer. Were any of them any more proven than Schürrle is now and were they expected to be guaranteed starters from day one? That's a negative on all accounts. Now let's look at our squad: Hazard £32m Mata £23m Oscar £25m These are the ones who were bought to be immediate starters and they've done what was expected and at least in Mata's case even more. Marin £7m Moses £11m De Bruyne £7m The first two who were brought in as squad players to replace Kalouda and so far they haven't really been up to the task. Some disagree with me on Moses and they have every right to, but that's just my two cents. De Bruyne was sent on loan and by the looks of it we have hit the jackpot with this guy and the club have done brilliantly in getting a player like him for a mere £7m. In your last sentence you said there's already depth in our squad. Are you out of your mind? Last season clearly showed that the likes of Moses, Benayoun, Marin and Piazon simply aren't as good as the squad players of our rivals and every time we had to rest the 'Three Amigos' we played like shit while the Manchester clubs got three points comfortably when they had much better players to come in and do the job. We were very lucky with injuries when Mata, Hazard and Oscar were able to stay nearly injury-free throughout the season and I can't even imagine how bad our season would have turned out to be had we been struck with even half the amount of injuries than say Manchester United. Sure, we are likely to have De Bruyne back for next season and he will bring depth as well as quality to the side but one additional player is still required and Schürrle fits the bill. While Andre Schürrle may not be quite as good as a player like Hulk, Sanchez or Di Maria would be, overall (transfer fee + wages) he won't come even close to what a player like that would cost and I for one would be very happy if we got him for the £17m price quoted. I have a feeling he would prove a lot of these doubters wrong.

Yep, E10 is the last of season 3. And yes, it aired like 10 hours ago in the US.

First the Game of Thrones season finale and straight after that Mourinho's press conference. Couldn't really think of a better way to spend the next two hours.

Nice, been keeping an eye out for this guy a while now and he's been impressive. A bit raw, but definitely bags of potential and two years on loan at a top club like Benfica would really do him a lot of good. Wasn't keen on him going there permanently if the plan was for us to eventually buy him once he's ready because we all know how hard it is to negotiate with the Portuguese top clubs but a loan would be perfect. Maybe something for Jose to announce in a couple of hours? The way this Partizan president spoke about it everything seems done and dusted already.

So looks like this deal could well happen. On a personal level I'm not holding a grudge on him for Ballack like many Chelsea fans but I'm not quite sure what he'd bring to the team. I'm under the impression he's best playing behind the striker but that's the only position where we really are stacked as it is. How's he in a deeper role? If we're really getting him, maybe we could try negotiate a part-exchange deal involving Essien going to Milan? They've been interested in him before.

Kalou was much better to be honest, the perfect squad player imo.