Jype

Seriously? Most teams haven't even begun doing their business and will only start dipping into the market after the World Cup whereas Chelsea have nearly completed a bunch of signings already. From what I've seen most opposition fans are actually quite jealous of how fast we get our deals done compared to their own clubs. We just don't see much of the drama other clubs go through with their transfers because we're not really paying as much attention to them as we do on Chelsea signings.

I'm thinking if we move back to 4-3-3 we would again get the best out of Ramires. It's no surprise his best performances in a Chelsea shirt were in the 11/12 season when he mostly played in a midfield three alongside Meireles/Lampard with either Mikel or Romeu behind them to cover. Would most likely fuck over Oscar if we started playing a midfield three of Matic, Ramires and hopefully Fabregas but if the team's performances were starting to be good again, I really wouldn't care.

Sooner or later it will be "Sky Nigeria are reporting Chelsea want to get Cesc Fabregas on a free transfer once his contract with Barcelona expires in June 2016".

I see no reason why this wouldn't work, at least against the bottom half teams we struggled against last season. Against the big boys, especially away from home, either Oscar or Fabregas could then be replaced by Ramires or MvG to give us a more balanced midfield. I really don't think Oscar is a player suited to play in the pivot of a 4-2-3-1 like some have been suggesting for a long time now, but in a 4-3-3 I think he could do really well as the most advanced CM of the three. However, I think you might be onto something here. Mata was already sold and due to his lack of tactical versatility he was for some time the main reason why we couldn't play 4-3-3 and if Oscar goes too I don't see why we should keep continuing with the 4-2-3-1 anymore. A midfield three of Matic, Fabregas and a box-to-box midfielder, someone with better technical ability than Ramires, would potentially be great. At the moment that third midfielder would probably be MvG and I think his qualities would be well suited to play there but I'm not sure if Mourinho thinks of him as a starter just yet. All this assuming we actually pull off the Fabregas signing.

^ Who wants to bet it won't be announced "in the next few hours"?

I got a feeling Fabregas wants to play in the CL because that, along with the Premier League, remain the only meaningful competitions he is yet to win in his career.

That's just so naive I don't even know where to begin. Surely you must be aware that building the stadia is actually a very small part of the bigger picture. Because of the World Cup there is a plan to spend over $100 billion between now and 2022 on all kinds of infrastructure projects to get the country ready to host the tournament so in reality the venues amount to less than 10% of the total works. Like you said the works on the stadia has hardly begun but ever since the WC was awarded to your country they have kept themselves busy with all the side projects and I think it's more than fair to include them in the "World Cup death toll". Too many people have already lost their lives and countless more will continue to do so in the next 8 years if they allow this nonsense to continue.

Maybe he means that stereotyping all wealthy Arab people corrupt is racist because they're not all like that. Kind of like saying all Jews are good with money, which is definitely considered racist. I see the logic but that's just a ridiculous accusation to make because the corruption is clear for everyone to see and he's just trying to make everyone to feel like shit to stop people looking into his corrupted dealings with the Qataris.

Then again the odds on him moving to Chelsea will be drifting at the same time as Man United's are shortening so surely there will be some sensible people who still believe nothing has changed and smell good odds when they see them and Skybet will have to pay up if the transfer to Chelsea is confirmed. Don't know any statistics and maybe they'd still end up in profit if people bet on Manchester United a lot but it's not so black and white as you said.

Tancredi Palmeri just said Man United have outbid us.

Exactly. If Lukaku stays, we'd already be ridiculously well covered up front with Costa, Lukaku and maybe Torres or Ba as third choice so getting Mandzukic would be overkill but if Lukaku leaves, we could do much worse than getting Mandzukic to replace him. Nothing will happen until after the WC so we'll just have to wait and see.

Either the lad is bipolar or some of the quotes are simply not true.

Serves him right for making such shit music.

If I'm not mistaken it says there he has already agreed personal terms and taken a medical and that the only thing remaining is negotiating a few things between Barca and the player, my guess would be some loyalty bonuses etc. How amazing would it be to announce the signings of Costa, Fabregas and Luis on the same day?

Can't see that tweet in the guy's timeline...

Again your point of him "having missed more matches due to injuries than he has appeared in" is just a flawed way of thinking because there has been a pretty good amount of games he has been fit for but for one reason or another has just not been selected, at least in Chelsea partly because of managerial instability. Maybe that makes him a useless player even for the bottom feeder clubs in La Liga but I don't think so. You of course are more than entitled for your opinion but I really don't care to hear more what it is. Like I already said, I'm not an expert on the finances of La Liga teams. The teams I mentioned were just examples of where I think Romeu would be more than good enough to play, not teams that I consider to have the resources or the interest to buy him. All I'm saying is that if there is a team with enough money, signing Romeu would IMO be a really good move for some club there. And I did not say we should get 5m for him, all along I've been talking about "a few million" which could even be as low as €2m. Again you are more than welcome to disagree and think a player of Romeu's potential is not even worth that but I honestly don't care, for me this conversation has ran it's course. Looks who's talking. Before you insult someone like that, you should first check what your own posts look like. It's honestly a bit hard to read with all the childish emoticons and the internet slang of a 12-year-old. Anyway, carry on.

Of course ACL's should be counted but what I've been saying all along is that 80% of his time on the treatment table in the last three years consists of that one injury, which could have happened to any other player in any given day and in the first time is clearly nothing but bad luck. During that remaining two and a half years he has missed 11 games due to injuries and while I don't have statistics to prove it right now I would say that's definitely below average and how you can consider a player like that 'injury prone' because of the one-off long term injury is just laughable. Feel free to disagree, I really don't care. And while Valencia had a bad season only finishing eighth, it would be delusional to call them a mid-table team when in fact they have been in the Champions League more often than not in the last decade and this was their worst season in over ten years. Clearly you don't have a clue on basic mathematics but let me educate you. "Excluding the obvious few clubs he would walk in the starting lineup of most La Liga teams" means that if we don't consider the teams competing for CL qualification he would only need to be good enough to be a starting player for 7-8 La Liga sides to be good enough for most of them (over 50% if you're still having a hard time figuring our what "MOST" means). The kind of teams I meant were clubs like Getafe, Celta Vigo, Levante etc. and if they can afford to spend a couple of millions to get Romeu I'm pretty sure they won't be disappointed. If I'm saying one of our players is good enough to play top division football, in a league worse than the EPL no least, I'm not having "Romeu goggles" on and I'm simply being a realist. I'm not saying he's good enough to be playing for a top club, although he might be one day, nor am I saying we should be getting some obscure amount of money for him so I really don't get why you're acting that way. Romeu sleep with your missus or something? They were not that desperate, and Arsenal have proven it in the past that they're not that hard a club to negotiate with. Buyout clause means nothing, in Spain clubs are obligated to have some kind of a release clause for all players but usually that's just for the player's own sake to make it easier to leave if a bigger club wants him. Clubs like Barcelona and Real Madrid don't have that problem because they're the ultimate destination for most players so when deciding on the release clauses they just throw a dice and put a couple of zeros after the number and there you have it. If you're seriously going to use Fabregas' €200m release clause as some sort of argument, just have a look at what the release clauses are for some of their other players. Ibrahim Afellay stands at €100m, was he supposed to be one to carry out their legacy as well? I know that they were not planning on selling him anytime soon but they're not morons and would never agree to a clause like that because for €40m Arsenal were going to sell either way. Barcelona are not what one would call an exceptionally well run club and their board has a fair share of idiots in it but no one is that stupid. You found a few links from three years ago to suggest Arsenal have a 50% fee clause in there and I found some as well to suggest otherwise. There's no way to know for sure but 100% of the people on Arsenal and Barcelona forums I've been to in the last few days seem to agree on the 50% profit clause and that's partly why Arsenal fans are so mad at them not going after him because as it stands they will get nothing. Anyway, that's enough off-topic for now.

You're one piece of work, you know that? Did you even bother reading what wrote to you? If we look at the time Romeu has actually been injured in the last three years we see that excluding the unfortunate ACL, that could literally happen to anyone at any time, he has been injured for a total of 58 days and missed 11 games because of those injuries. The rest is just him not being preferred by his ever-changing managers and has got nothing to do with injuries. Maybe that makes him a not good enough player for a club like Chelsea or Valencia but that doesn't make him a bad player and I am 100% sure that excluding the obvious few clubs, a fit Romeu would walk into the starting lineup of most La Liga sides. I'm not an expert on the finances of said La Liga teams but surely the wages wouldn't be a problem because I would assume the average wage in the Spanish top division is more than what Romeu is currently earning and that would leave only a few million in transfer fee for someone to pay and considering the potential gain if he manages to realize his potential I'm pretty sure we will find someone willing to take him off our hands. As for the Fabregas part, that should be a story for another thread but might as well reply here. Ever heard of this thing called 'common sense'? Surely you've read more than enough about this so-called first refusal clause Arsenal had installed in the transfer agreement three years ago. Why would they have even bothered negotiating such clause in the first place if they already had the 50% sell-on clause in the contract, ensuring they get 50% of his next transfer fee? If they really were eligible for 50% of any potential fee they might as well just not have negotiated the first-refusal clause at all and in the case Barcelona decided to sell they'd just need to play the long game by waiting for someone (us) to offer the asking price and then offer something way below that but still so that Barcelona would be getting more money than they would by selling to another team for a significantly higher amount. No sane person would ever agree to such a clause and that is a fact. Anyway, here are a few links for you: http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/manchester-city-rivalling-arsenal-cesc-3634584 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2085995-fabregas-to-arsenal-or-chelsea-or-is-he-just-toying-with-barcelona-again https://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/pitchside-europe/united-serious-fabregas-154908317.html

The old kit is what gave it away for you? Other than that it looks completely legit, no?

Ask anyone and they'll say your posts today in the threads for Lukaku, Fabregas and Oriol are far more rude than anyone else's and it really doesn't matter one bit if I use the word 'fuck' once in a post to emphasize my point if the rest of it is just calmly shooting down your ridiculous arguments in a civil manner. Anyway, did you run out of things to say when I proved Romeu had only been injured a total of three times in the last three years? Not bad for an injury prone player IMO.

Sign him up. Does he play in the pivot?

So basically he's been injured three times in the last three years, one of which was nothing other than bad luck. Him being "injury prone" has caused him to miss a grand totale of 11 games since his move to Chelsea back in 2011.

Some reports in Spain suggesting Roman is planning on buying RCD Mallorca who play in the Segunda. Another Vitesse type of feeder club for us, only potentially in the La Liga within a couple of years?

Why do you need to be so fucking hostile? In 2011-12 I really don't remember him being injured much, more like after some impressive performances his form just dropped and he got stuck on the bench by AVB. Then after Di Matteo took over he clearly wasn't fancied and didn't play until Benitez got appointed. Rafa immediately put him in his starting lineup for a few games but then he did his ACL and got ruled out for the rest of the season. For a player with no history of knee injuries that kind of a knock is nothing but bad luck and there's nothing anyone can do about it. He was out for a good while and got loaned to Valencia where the plan was for him to slowly regain his fitness by playing regular first team football. At first he didn't really get his chance and was not playing not because he was injured but because his manager simply preferred to play the ones he already had in his team prior to Oriol's arrival, but after a while he started playing more and became a starter after some really good performances. I think the new manager, Pizzi or whatever his name is, also played Romeu quite a lot but when he got sidelined for a few weeks in February his place in the team had been given to someone else by the time he came recovered and he never really took it back. So, the grand totale is one unfortunate 6 month injury when he was just starting to get back in the team under Rafa and then a month on the sidelines when he was beginning to cement his place in the Valencia starting XI. If that's your definition of injury prone, then fine, but I'm not buying it. The main reason why he hasn't been playing more either at Chelsea or at Valencia is because of managerial instability and the unfortunate timing of his injuries when he was just starting to make a name for himself in the team. Who the fuck is exaggerating anything? All I'm stating is that he's not as injury prone as you make him out to be and that he's still a young player with massive potential. At a cut price and on reasonable wages signing him could be some really good business for whoever gets him. If a team like Sevilla are seriously considering paying actual money for a really injury prone piece of shit like Marko Marin, there is definitely hope for Romeu too.

Why the fuck would Barcelona have agreed to that, basically that would mean they payed €40m for 50% of Fabregas three years ago.