Jype

I've seen enough of him at Shakhtar to tell his end product, while could still be better, is nowhere near as bad as we saw last season. A valid point that the others have shown more glimpses of what's to come if things go according to plan but I think Willian is also capable of great things and there is a reason why a bunch of clubs were willing to pay £30m for him last year. Coming into a new club and country is no easy task for a foreigner, especially for one who didn't speak English at the time, but he has already shown he's capable of adapting to living in countries like Ukraine and Russia which for a Brazilian are surely harder places to fit in than London so the mental strength should be there somewhere and hopefully by the start of the season he's fully ready for the challenges that lie ahead. If not, then there's always Schürrle who will definitely be a hit this year.

And almost true. Since June 2012 Oscar has played 111 games for Chelsea, 4 games for Internacional, 6 games for Brazil U23s in the Olympics and 33 games for the senior Brazil side. A total of 154 official games and if we include pre-season games there as well I'm pretty sure we'll end up with around 160 matches. Crazy numbers really, got to be some kind of a record.

They haven't really been spending big in the past, maybe on paper someone like Falcao looked expensive but in reality Atletico only paid a small portion of the €40m with the majority of his rights owned by an investment group led by Jorge Mendes. That's all well and good because unlike in England, in Spain such things are allowed and it gives teams like Atletico a chance of attracting top players with relatively little risk but then again the downside is that they can't keep hold of such players for too long and when they finally move on Atletico don't receive much of the transfer fees. That's what I predict will happen with Rodrigo too if he ends up there and I think Atletico are happy to agree deals like that because it at least gives them a shot of going up against Barcelona and Real Madrid who, no matter if it has changed a little in recent times, still earn at least three times as much money from broadcasting revenue than Atletico do. But yeah, one thing people can always count on is Atletico having a world class front line. Players come and go but they always seem to find the perfect replacements to suit their needs and I think this time it will be no different. Correa is another interesting prospect and it will be great to finally see him in a European league playing for a big team, been hearing good things about him for a while now but never really watched the Argentinian league so can't say if he's as good as they say he is. They'll definitely do well again next year but I think it's still safe to say Atletico getting back-to-back titles won't happen. Would love to be proven wrong though.

Yeah, no chance of them winning the title again this season. To lose roughly half their starting lineup (Costa, Villa, Tiago, Luis, Courtois) will be too much no matter how good the replacements. I think Rodrigo would be amazing for them. Atletico have history of developing world class strikers and Rodrigo at the moment is a rough diamond, a player who's got all the talent to be one of the best players in the world but so far hasn't really been able to fulfill his potential playing in the low-level Portuguese league so Atleti would be a perfect team for him. Hope they get him, I like Rodrigo and would be nice to get to see him more often. He's way too expensive for Atletico though because he's owned by a third party who earlier this year bought his rights for €40m from Benfica but with the rules being what they are in Spain I think Atletico could just buy a part of him with the majority of his ownership still remaining with the investment group but to buy 100% of his rights is too much for a team like Atletico.

Can't see them missing Adrian at all, 3 goals in 39 games simply put it is not enough and to get €11m from selling Porto 60% of the player is fantastic business by Atletico. Sure, he was a substitute in most of those games but still should have done a lot better to earn a future at the club. Atletico have already replaced the Costa - Villa partnership with the purchases of Mandzukic and Correa who will probably be their starters, now they just need to get someone to replace Adrian as the backup forward and they're set to go as far as the strikers are concerned. Replacing Luis with Siqueira and Courtois with Oblak will be much bigger losses for them than the forwards IMO.

Also worth noting that last season he didn't even have any pre-season with the team, having only arrived in late August when the season had already begun. I remain confident he'll make a much bigger impact this coming season, same goes for Schürrle too.

I know, but playing for Stoke is the second best thing.

Not at all, at least now he can say he has tried what it's like to play on a cold, rainy Tuesday night at Stoke. Bojan > Messi

Wouldn't be surprised if the injury was just an excuse for him not training with his transfer being all but signed. Wouldn't be the first time that happened...

Courtois Azpi - Cahill - Terry - (Luis) Matic - Fabregas Willian - Oscar - Hazard Costa vs. Lukaku Schürrle - van Ginkel - Salah Ramires - Mikel Bertrand - Zouma - Omeruo - Ivanovic Cech Don't know about you but I consider the team below to be more than good enough for the starting XI of a club competing for top6 finish in England. Bertrand, Omeruo and most likely Lukaku won't be at the club come start of the season but we might still have some incoming players too so that more than makes up for it. Amazing squad depth really, especially when we add potential squad player signings like Tiago in the mix. As for the original question, it's still too early to say if this team is really as good as it has the potential to be. We'll know more once the new signings have had some time to settle in and we get to see how they fit Jose's tactics, and also whether or not players like Hazard and Oscar can step it up a notch which IMO is needed for this team to really be as great as the one from Mourinho's first spell or Ancelotti's debut season.

Yes and some of us love our girlfriends but would swap them for Scarlett Johansson without hesitation if it was an option. Mourinho only 'loves' Ramires because last season we didn't have anyone else with Ramires' skillset but if we had a world class midfielder like Pogba I honestly think Mourinho's supposed 'love' for Ramires would be put to a test.

You're barking up the wrong tree here mate because I always liked Kalou and defended him both here and elsewhere when others abused him. Everyone gets frustrated if players don't perform, we all do it sometimes, but when someone leaves the club then that's all in the past and as long as the departure is not under bitter circumstances with the player being disrespectful towards the club I honestly have no idea why the abuse should continue.

No I don't think you're in the minority at all with your opinion. Bertrand is a very solid left-back, not necessarily one I would trust to be first choice but still more than good enough to play second fiddle to a player like Filipe Luis. Only remember a couple of really bad performances from Bertrand, with the Shakhtar Donetsk game where he was constantly skinned by Willian and Srna in 2012 probably being the worst game of his career but other than that he's usually a 7/10 player whose hard work goes unnoticed because he just does his job without doing any fancy tricks everyone likes nowadays. Would love to still have him as backup next season but clearly he doesn't want to stay so might be best to let him move on. If the club can get the rumoured £8m price for him then I won't have a problem with him going.

Great, now it's time for Diego Costa to take the honor of being the biggest cunt striker in the league.

If the only argument against getting him back as 3rd choice striker / coach is the perfect way he left the club the first time around, then I'm not sure I understand. If Mourinho thinks Drogba at 36 to be a perfect candidate for the player-coach role because he won't complain about the lack of playing time yet can still contribute massively when called upon then why not get him? Also who's to say his second farewell wouldn't be even more legendary, for example after a treble winning season?

Taking joy in being proven right and being happy that he's sold for such an inflated price price is one thing but posting "funny" gifs about him in tears after the worst moment of his entire career and going on and on about it is another. To each their own but IMO that's a bit over the top.

Can't wait for the Liverpool PR department to force him to say they're a bigger club than Chelsea, if he ends up there.

Had a look at Redcafe and they're trying to paint Van Gaal as some genius mastermind who can easily utilize Shaw and Rodriguez in the same starting lineup. Apparently the solution is to play Shaw, the worlds most expensive left-back ever, as a centre back.

I really fail to understand why some Chelsea fans seem so glad he failed his country massively. Sure, after a performance like that I'm very happy that the club managed to sell him before the World Cup and not after, but I still like the guy a lot and wish him well in the future and it broke my heart seeing him cry like that. Say what you want about his footballing abilities, or lack thereof, but David Luiz is still an amazing person and a player who contributed massively in the club's recent success, especially the 2012 Champions League campaign where he even played the final injured and didn't put a foot wrong. Show some respect ffs.

Bayern Munich recovered after we beat them on their own backyard and came back stronger than ever the following season. Now they suffered a 4-0 defeat at the Allianz to Real Madrid only a little while back and look how their German players are performing at the World Cup now. People are underestimating the mental strength of professional footballers. I’m certain Oscar and the rest of the Brazil boys will take this as a lesson learnt and use this experience to drive them to bigger and better things in the future.

Always liked the guy and he's proving to be every bit worth my admiration. Will score 15 league goals for us next season, mark my words.

@RomeluLukaku9: No dissrespect to Arsenal who is also a big club but i don't understand why ozil has left real madrid.... I guess will never know.. Now that's the way to go lad, if you just have to talk about something then disrespecting Arsenal is always good.

Will this guy never shut up? Everyone and their dog already knows he wants to go so what’s the point of going on and on about it every fucking day? Chelsea are not a club to keep players against their will, especially ones that haven't even done anything for the shirt, so all he needs to do is tell the grown ups he wants a transfer and they'll sort it out. Absolutely no reason to involve the media every day and giving disrespectful interviews only makes himself come across an unprofessional douchebag in the eyes of many. Well done Romelu, in just a few months he's managed to turn me (and many others) from desperately wanting him to succeed at Chelsea to first being indifferent on whether he stays or goes and now even wanting him to fuck off. Lukaku's got all the potential to be a quality player and it's a real shame things didn't work out for him at Chelsea but no matter how many goals he bangs in for his new club I won't miss him because of the way he's acted.

Yeah definitely would have, but that's what you get when being paid £57m a year and for that kind of money Chevrolet are free to do whatever they please with the logo.

This Mexican ESPN journalist seems to think we're close to signing Khedira with moves for Kroos to Real Madrid and Di Maria to PSG also on the cards. Anyone know who this guy is exactly, looks like he has over 1 million followers on Twitter?