Jype

Promised a while back I would donate to the cause when I get some extra money and I usually try to be a man of my word so I just put in a fiver. Not much, but it's a start.

That's nothing new, as Brazilians are always overpriced and now even more so when Brazil's economy is in a much better state than it was earlier and the clubs can now afford to keep their most prized assets for themselves if they don't receive an offer too good to turn down. Also for some reason the players don't seem to have a problem with staying in the Brazilian league for a while longer because they know they can still go to some European club in the future and have a respectable career in European football even if they stayed at Brazil till the age of 22 or so. It's basically a win-win when both sides are happy. This year clubs haven't spent as much as before for numerous reasons (FFP lurking around the corner and also the European economy being what it is now etc.) but that hasn't stopped some quality players from moving clubs, for example the likes of Kagawa and Cazorla. There are always exceptions to be found one way or the other from previous years and the present, but in general I have found the fees to have slightly lowered recently, though I fully expect them to skyrocket once again when the FFP turns out to be nothing but big fancy words with no action to show for it and when the economy in general has recovered from it's current state.

Agreed. Me and that other guy who started this thread weren't by any means suggesting we push the panic button and switch the formation instantly after a few bad results with the 4-2-3-1 because that stuff happens only in FIFA and FM, but just some food for thought and if /when sometime in the future it has come to the point where a change in formation is necessary, then something like this 3-4-3 (or 3-4-2-1, whatever) should be taken into serious consideration. At least on paper we seem to have the right players for it, apart from central midfield which seems to be our problem with any formation but more likely than not we are going to improve our midfield next year at the latest so it really shouldn't be a problem then. Interesting times...

Actually I think the average prices of players have decreased a little this year, probably because some clubs are afraid of the FFP and don't want to spend too much. Only PSG has been splashing the cash like there's no tomorrow but most clubs have been mostly sensible this year. Some could even include us in the big spenders together with PSG but we as Chelsea fans know there's a reason for this spending with the long-awaited squad rebuilding finally starting and many important players on high wages left on free transfers this summer. Also our income has been much greater (and constantly rising even higher with better sponsor deals, compliments of being Champions of Europe) than let's say Man City's or PSG's so that allows us to spend more than those two without having to worry too much. How many player this year have even cost more than 20m? Hazard, Oscar and a couple of PSG signings? Last summer we had the likes of Sanchez, Fabregas, Coentrao, Falcao, Ibrahimovic, Mata, Young, De Gea, Aguero, Nasri, Downing ( ) etc. all moving for big transfer fees and surely I'm even forgetting someone. Of course there's still a couple of weeks before the transfer window shuts and some big money moves can still happen, but so far there have been far less than last year and generally the fees have stayed reasonable.

He was poor at the Euros and because of that no one wants him anymore. I never wanted him from the start, having seen him play quite often but for the majority of fans the wankfest over Van der Wiel stopped instantly after he was shit for the Netherlands. I would guess the same goes for our scouts too because before the Euros he was widely rumoured to be on our radar (in 2011 Arnesen even admitted that VDW was one of our major targets for RB) but haven't seen him being linked to any decent club anymore, and rightly so. Anyway, back to Debuchy. Can't see him coming to Chelsea and haven't even seen any rumours in a very long time. Too bad, because I rate him very highly.

Of course we should be them. Only question is, will we? I honestly don't know what to expect. Could turn out ugly if our players play like we all know they're capable of, but a frustrating 1-1 draw or something like that would also be typical.

So I take it you're happy now he's gone? After all, your club did receive a hefty fee for him. Any news on his replacement or is someone from the youth team being promoted to take Rodwell's place?

Yep, a great player in his prime and even did well for us during the two years he was at Chelsea, but I still think we should never have signed him and instead gone after someone younger who would probably still be ruling our midfield. I'm just glad we have since then moved on from making such signings, and aside from Torres the players we've bought in the last couple of years have mostly been very sensible and of great age, meaning they are yet to hit their peak and have decent re-sale value even if things don't work out they way they were planned. Crucial things now that the FFP is coming. This thread seems to be going way off topic.

I suppose so, but that was only because of the way they are as players. Anelka, a centre forward being played out of position and Malouda being his usual self, which is nowhere near a traditional winger. Still, our team played some magnificent football back then. Oh, those were the days.

At first something like this: Drogba - Anelka Deco Lampard--------------Ballack Essien Cole - Terry - Carvalho - Ivanovic Cech Midway through the season it became clear it wasn't working as expected and we switched back to the 4-3-3 with the usual lineup being something like this: Drogba Malouda------------------------Anelka Lampard------------Ballack Essien Cole - Terry - Carvalho - Ivanovic Cech edit: Slow as fuck.

Not sure if you're joking or not. But anyway, I was talking about Bosingwa.

e: fail edit

You stole my idea. Just kidding with you, it just so happens that I posted something very similar to another thread earlier today but I guess it's better to have a separate thread for this discussion so I'll just quote myself here: In my opinion this really is something we should be trying sometime in the future. Maybe if RDM was planning for something like this he would have tried it during pre-season already and it would now be easier to implement so I'm not expecting anything like this to happen anytime soon because these things take time and require a lot of work before it can work properly.

Yep, I wrote about it in the 'future chelsea team' thread, have a look. We certainly have the defenders for it, also Ramires and Cole / Bertrand as the wing-backs sounds tempting at least on paper. Only problem could be the central midfield but tbh that's a problem for us, no matter what formation we use.

Clearly he wants to leave but isn't saying it so directly because he doesn't want to offend any Porto fans. As long as Porto keep playing hardball over the transfer fee, nothing new is going to happen but maybe Hulk will have that discussion tomorrow with his agent and if he really wants to go that badly then he will have to go Pinto da Costa's office and submit an official transfer request.

Now that Ivanovic is going to be suspended for 3 PL games after being sent off today, we need a new right-back asap, or we're going to have to start either Sam or Paulo there against Wigan. I have someone in mind. He's a two time Champions League winner and would be free too. I'm hearing he's had trouble finding a new club.

One of the few positives from todays match, keep up the good work Ryan!

How does being maybe a better player rule out the possibility of having a similar playing style with someone else? I have noticed the similarities as well, and that can only be a good thing because at his prime Joe was a very exciting player to watch.

Didn't think of a better thread to post this in, so here goes. I was impressed with Mancini's choice of tactics today against us. Over the pre-season Man City seem to have adapted to a new 3-4-1-2 (or 3-4-2-1, whatever the way you want to look at it) formation, which is actually quite common in Italian football and Mancini as an Italian manager seems to like it too. Juventus used it to go through the whole season unbeaten in the Serie A when they won their first title in a long time this year and Napoli have played some really nice football too under Walter Mazzarri. I was looking at how Man City lined up using that formation and I realized how it could suit our players nicely too and maybe Di Matteo could sometimes try it because he must surely have the knowledge, being Italian and all. Looking at our recent performances with the 4-2-3-1, it couldn't really hurt to try something else sometime, now could it? For example something like this: It's pretty solid at the back with three centre backs and also the two wing-backs providing cover whenever needed. Ramires, in my opinion could thrive in that right wing-back spot, or at least be far more effective than in any of the positions available to him in the 4-2-3-1 we've used under RDM. Having played as a winger for quite some time during his youth career and being occasionally used in midfield with Chelsea too, I could see Bertrand doing a great job there too. Whoever two would be playing behind the striker (or one if there were to be two strikers, like with Man City today) would be given free roles to roam around the pitch and create chaos. Players like Mata, Hazard, Marin and probably Oscar too are all more than capable of drifting out wide too so they could provide width if the wing-backs sometimes wouldn't be enough by themselves or if they would have to provide help for the back three more than usual. Only problem with this formation, is of course the central midfield but that is nothing new to our team and the problem is possibly even worse with the 4-2-3-1 we're currently playing with. Teams like Man City and Juventus have very strong midfields and that's something we can't match at the moment, so that's a big stumbling block. I'm not expecting Di Matteo to even consider playing something like this and with the rumoured additions of Victor Moses and other players not suiting that kind of a formation it's not looking likely but just some food for thought.

Hilarious stuff in this thread, overreact much? City, at the moment are much more closer to the finished article than our lot and I can't believe some here don't realize that. They were supposed to win this and I for one would have been very surprised if they hadn't. Considering we played with ten men for the whole second half I can't really say I'm that disappointed we lost. Maybe Di Matteo should have done better and changed something at HT rather than go out with the exact same team but still, it was only a glorified friendly match ffs.

But you do win against the best team in the world.

Nice to see Bertrand getting his first ever Chelsea goal.

Horrible defending, you simply don't let a player like Tevez shoot from that distance so easily.

JT should have done better in the clearance.

Ramires at right-back, this should be interesting.