Jype

Everton have a lot of tough fixtures early on (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man United all in the first seven gameweeks) so at the moment I wouldn't go for Barkley nor any other Everton player. Still worth keeping an eye on them because from GW8 all the way till GW20 they only face two top teams and by then some of the prices on their players may even have reduced a little if they don't perform against the big teams and people pull the trigger on them prematurely. Not sure I'd pick Johnson at £6,5m either but that's up to you. If it's between those two I'd go for Johnson early on and then maybe get Barkley later but if you can afford it and are willing to take a chance on some new players there are some pretty interesting choices in the £7,5m price range, for example Tadic, de Jong and maybe even Herrera if he gets the right role under van Gaal. They'd also be a lot easier to swap for Barkley later because you wouldn't need to worry about the price difference when all are more expensive than Barkley whereas with Johnson you'd have to switch some other players too.

Nah, the price difference is only 0.5m and I trust Sigurdsson to be their main man for set-pieces which I consider to be worth the difference alone. I still remember how good Gylfi was in his loan spell at Swansea before joining Spurs and if he can get anywhere close to that form again he'll be back in everyone's teams pretty soon.Shelvey is also a pretty good shout for a mid-price midfielder but I've made up my mind.

Gylfi Sigurdsson the first name on my teamsheet.

So you think the rest of the family didn't come with him to England at the time he joined Chelsea when he was 10? They just stayed back in Marseille while their pre-teen son moved to London to pursue a career of a professional footballer?I don't consider it a good idea to let a 17-year-old lad make that kind of a move on his own just yet and asking his parents to move with him for such a short term loan isn't really fair on them. We've all seen these cautionary tales of players who get too much too young and we don't want Boga to become like that, let's just let him be a kid while he still can and when he's mature enough he'll either get his chance to go on loan or be promoted to the first team.

The lad is 16, you don't loan out kids who probably still stay with their parents and have no idea how to live independently. Absolutely no need to rush him.

Boga to Vitesse?

Ake getting Romeu's number 6 shirt and Romeu switching to 20 is interesting. Wonder if that means Ake is staying with the first team this season?

Costa, Cesc, Cahill and Azpilicueta only have a couple of days training since their holidays so it makes sense for them not to be involved just yet. Luis is only playing because he trained for a while with Atletico before joining the Chelsea squad. No worries, we'll see the rest of the new lads on Sunday then.

I actually would have preferred if he kept it tbh but what's done is done.

I can only imagine the scenario. Two club chairmans having an MMA match and the loser has to buy Torres for £15m.

Nah, he can make a legacy for himself wearing the odd 28 shirt.

This will definitely be my year, last season I held the lead for most of the season but let it slip in the end. We Go Again, as a certain Liverpool player would say. Anyone here up for a little private league on the side with some money involved? :eyebrows:

Yay, let's keep paying £18.5m annually for Torres because he's got a shitload of facebook likes.

It's much worse than that if we think about it further. Deduct manufacturing costs, Adidas' share of the profits, taxes and whatever additional costs there may be and the club are lucky to get even £20 per shirt so the total amount would need to be significantly higher than 1.3 million. Also, people who buy the shirts are mostly fans of the club who would buy one with someone else's name on the back if Torres wasn't around so in reality the amount of money Torres has earned the club through merchandise sales matters fuck all if the costs are £80m+. In another news, I just read on AS that Simeone has green-lit a bid for Torres. As they say, it's the hope that kills you.

All these sources are quoting Eurosport, nothing to get excited about unfortunately.

http://www.oddschecker.com/football/football-specials/fernando-torres/club-after-summer-transfer-window On 888Sport.com they have odds of 7/5 that Torres will still be at Chelsea come September (Atletico are 3/5). Talk about a win-win situation, bet a lot of money on him staying at Chelsea and if by some miracle he does leave then who the fuck cares about some lost money if the ladyboy is finally gone?

Hardly anyone is questioning Lukaku's talent, it's more a case of people being fed up with the attitude he's shown towards the club with his comments to the media. Of course the opposition fans think even more highly of him if he's badmouthing Chelsea because they agree with him whereas we naturally think he's full of shit when he's saying those things.

If it was true in the first place I would guess it had something to do with Jorge Mendes being Tiago's agent and them still having an ongoing contract between them. Anyway, doesn't matter anymore now that he re-signed with Atletico. Good for him, although I would have liked having him back. Wouldn't be too worried about the homegrown quota. It's true that we don't have enough of them at the moment, only the three you mentioned and maybe Lukaku too if the rules are like I've always assumed them to be, but we can still have a big enough squad even if we left a few HG places unregistered. 17 non-HG, three or four HG and a few U21s is more than enough to have a full 23-24 man squad. We just need to make some room to the squad if the plan is to add any more players but I'm sure the club will take care of that. At the moment it's not looking likely that we'll be adding any players other than Drogba to the team and we'll only need to offload two players to be able to register everyone and having guys like Torres, Mikel, Romeu, MvG and three non-HG goalkeepers I'd say it's not impossible to sell or loan enough players to make room for everyone else.

Jorge Mendes owns a part of Tiago's economical rights so we'd have to pay him some money to get Tiago because in England these part-ownerships are not allowed. No such problem in Spain.

How is it official?

At least in that one picture he looks a lot like Javier Mascherano with that haircut.

"Atletico Madrid sources and sources close to Fernando Torres have flatly denied negotiations as reported by Eurosport" [Mundo Deportivo]

Today is Monday.

Manchester City's Negredo out for three months with a fractured foot.

20 goals in 53 games for Galatasaray is not a bad return and the Turkish league is a lot better than people here are giving credit for. Drogba knows the club and Mourinho inside and out so adaptation would be quick and I feel he can still contribute a lot as a third choice striker / coach. Costa, Lukaku and Drogba would be a perfect strikeforce IMO, though first there's just this small matter off telling Torres he's not wanted anymore and finding him a new club. Easier said than done I'm afraid.