Jype

Correct, but your figures are still somewhat off. You substracted the whole of Fabregas' £27m fee from the profits made on selling Luiz when it should have been amortised over the length of his contract and even if a part of the Fabregas deal was somehow included in the 13/14 finances because the transfer went through already in June it would not have been a significant amount because the amortised fee for half a month as well as two weeks worth of his wages do not count for much. Also the Luiz deal, whether it was in these figures or the next year's, did not profit the club all of the £50m but rather somewhere around £36m when his remaining amortised book value became due. No matter what Ian Herbert is saying in his article I'm still yet to be convinced that the Luiz money was really included here because it'd make no sense. The deal was announced in June before the deadline for the 13/14 financial year, that much is true, but it did not officially go through until the 1st of July when the transfer window opened in France and therefore any money gained from the sale should only affect the club's finances for the 14/15 season, which goes from the 1st of July 2014 to June 30th 2015. Guess we'll have to wait for one of the experts (The Swiss Ramble, Jake Cohen etc.) to put their minds to it and give us a proper answer on the matter.

Actually the exclusions for youth development costs, infrastructure etc. are way more than £5m a year, in fact I think it's closer to £15m p/a. Basically that makes sure we have absolutely nothing to worry about regarding FFP because like you said, the rules allow a certain amount of operating loss made during the monitoring period and I believe that as things stand with the excludable costs Chelsea's total FFP result for the years 2012-2014 will be a profit instead of a loss so for now I think we could even afford missing out on the CL for one season and still not be in any kind of trouble. Yep, that is correct. The sales of Luiz and Lukaku will be included next year and given the fact that the club's spending this year was much less than it was for the 13/14 season, which also ended trophyless if I might add, I wouldn't be surprised if the annual profit was in the region of £30-40m next year. Just had a look at the FFP topic on Bluemoon to see what the City fans think about the news and it was really cute. According to them we would have made an £80m loss without the sales of Mata and Luiz, therefore failing FFP, and the only reason we passed was because of creative accounting and PSG laundering money with the David Luiz deal even though the Luiz deal was not even in the books for the 13/14 season. Fuck logic.

Chelsea FC announces annual profit £18.4m to be precise. I made a prediction in this thread a few months ago that for the 13/14 season the club would be posting a nice profit and I wasn't wrong. Bear in mind that these figures don't even include the sales of Luiz, Lukaku, Ba etc. from this summer. The transfer business of 13/14 was around £115m spent on new arrivals and roughly £60m from the sales of Mata and De Bruyne. With the fees being amortized and all that other complicated stuff we can't really draw a clear line here but surely breaking even on the market this year rather than make a big loss like last year will only give a huge boost to the profits for the 14/15 financial year and even more so if we also manage to pick up some silverware along the way. Good times.

No, still injured.

You said only strikers and Zidane go for that sort of money and I gave you three examples from the last year alone to prove you wrong so clearly it wouldn't be just a case of a player going for a ridiculous inflated fee out of the blue like David Luiz for example. Hazard, if he signs the extension and stays for another couple of years, will almost certainly have developed further from the player he is today and be at least as good as any of those three if not even better and I don't think around £60m would be over the odds for a player like that, quite the opposite actually. The market is what it is but for a world class attacking player 50m seems to be the starting rate these days and for a guy being hyped as a potential future Ballon d'Or winner it's not at all unreasonable to ask for even more. Anyway, we shouldn't even talk about selling Hazard at this point. I'd rather just enjoy the qualities he brings to the team and if (right now a very big IF mind you) he wants to go after a couple of more seasons then we'll talk more.

Bale, James, Di Maria... Need I go on?

You really didn't get the joke? I didn't think it would need explaining...

Matic, Fabregas, Hazard, Oscar and Costa. For me, as good as they are none of the defenders are untouchable because we have five equally excellent players in Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta and Filipe Luis. If one of them is sidelined with an injury or a suspension, the replacement will fit right in and we hardly even notice anyone's missing. Same can't be said about the players mentioned above because their replacements are nowhere near their class.

Courtois Ivanovic - Cahill - Zouma - Filipe Fabregas - Matic Schürrle - Oscar - Hazard Drogba Get Costa on for the second half if needed. Maybe fit Ramires in there somewhere to allow him to get some match fitness and also keep one of the other midfielders fresh for Liverpool.

He's nothing till he's showed he's got what it takes on a cold rainy Tuesday night at Strawberry.

Right on schedule.

Fitting, given Gerrard just slipped on his ass seconds before. While that's true I still don't rate Moreno all that highly. He could be better if he was at Chelsea but still not as good as our lads. Lovren on the other hand is a really good player and him playing like shit at Liverpool as well goes a long way in showing Rodgers' complete lack of managerial ability. "Anyone can coach defending, it's easy" - Brendan Rodgers Hard to stop laughing at the man.

Moreno is shit, I'm really glad we opted for Filipe Luis instead.

This Liverpool is incredibly similar to AVB's Spurs. One season of success having built the team around a proper world class player in Suarez and Bale but with the star man gone neither team can produce shit. Called it already this summer but was constantly laughed at by nearly everyone.

Do you send so many pictures of your penis to people that you don't even remember who you've sent them to? :eyebrows: But no, this time it wasn't you. My secret admirer has been revealed and it was a friend of mine who at the time was sitting just a few meters away from me at a lecture. When I started receiving the messages I immediately asked him if he was the one behind it because he's a lot like you Tom, and when something like this happens he's usually everyone's prime suspect. He kept his poker face and I noticed that the guy had his phone just laying on the desk and I still kept receiving stuff so I thought it must have been someone else. When I got messages saying he knows exactly where I live and so on, things started getting from funny to actually pretty fucking creepy and that's when he confessed. Now the only mystery remains is whether or not the dick picks were actually his or if he just got them off the internet. I'm not sure if I even want to know the answer.

Some anonymous guy on Whatsapp keeps sending me pictures of his junk and asking if I'm gay. Lovely.

Personally I don't rate him and always considered him to have been a freeloader in Barcelona's success. He'd count as HG having spent four years at United as a youngster but other than that I don't see why we should go for him. There are plenty of better value for money options out there if we decide to go for another CB, which I'm not even sure we need to.

Ivanovic will serve his suspension tomorrow so he'll be back for QPR and there's no chance Zouma will play RB for that one. Other than that I agree, playing well against Shrewsbury and Maribor would go a long way in convincing Mourinho he can do the job when called upon and that there's no need to move Ivanovic to CB if Terry or Cahill get injured.

Yep, had that been Ramires to come on it would have been a different story.Fucking disappointed is all I can say at the moment...

Can you blame him though? Anyone would find it hard to focus on football if they had Shakira to go home to after a game. Anyway I've never really rated Pique. He played his best football next to Puyol in his prime and back then he had it a lot easier than he does now. Playing next to a makeshift CB like Mascherano requires Pique to be the main man who organizes the defense and at least in my books he's not good enough for that.

Still an hour to go till the lineups are out, can't wait.

The club didn't want to keep him so it's hard to be annoyed about that. That being said, in their current state Eto'o is better than Drogba and having him fully settled would have been better than having 36-year-old DD who's been away for a couple of years so I'm not exactly sure why Jose didn't want him to stay. Either way I have absolutely no complaints about having Costa, Remy and Drogba as our three strikers.

Mata in central midfield.

The only one saying it at the moment is a Manchester United fan blog. Today a number of English newspapers have been reporting that Costa is set to start and even though we all know the quality of Daily Mail etc. I know which one I'll trust first if it's between them and one random Man Utd fan.

I like it more when we're the underdog, now there's a lot more pressure to win the game and I'm way more nervous than I was for the game at the Etihad for example. It makes no sense because this should be a much easier game than City away. Doesn't help that I'm watching this with my United supporting brother...