Jype

Where is this injury prone bullshit coming from? While at Chelsea he had that unfortunate knee injury that kept him out for a long time but other than that I don't recall him being injured much except now this year for a while. Is Van Ginkel now also injury prone and shouldn't be trusted? And when he's fully fit he's not just a "decent player", he's actually pretty good. His wages are not so high either, reportedly somewhere around 20k a week, so I can't see why there wouldn't be some Spanish teams lining up to sign him if the fee was well below €5m and his wages stayed pretty much the same. For around €4m and €20k a week some La Liga side could be making a real bargain of a signing. The lad is still just 22 years old and with regular football week-in week-out could still easily get his career back on track and develop into the player a couple of years ago everyone were seemingly expecting him to become. Low-risk high-reward type of signing for me IMO.

And for that very reason I'm having a really hard time figuring out why Chelsea would agree to loan him out for a year and then let him go for free when there's still some money to be made from selling him this summer. Surely there's some club out there willing to pay a few million to tie him up on a permanent deal this year.

Arsenal will get 50% of the profits, which at the moment it looks like Barcelona aren't going to make. Wouldn't be surprised if a significant part of the transfer fee was add-ons, just to fuck Arsenal over.

That's some mad Photoshop skillz.

Jon Snow knows nothing.

Arsenal fans have already given him a new name, Cheques Fabregas, because apparently it's all down to money again.

Fabregas is also HG. As you may know, I also rate Song quite highly and wouldn't mind having him but clearly Fabregas is the better player of the two. Can't really say much on who'd be the better fit because we don't know exactly how Mourinho is planning on using Fabregas if he gets him but I think both of them could do a job for us. If / when we're only getting one I'd prefer Cesc but Alex Song is not at all a bad shout either.

If you hadn't heard of Filipe Luis a year ago, then mate I'm sorry to tell you but you don't know much about football because he's been one of the best left-backs in La Liga for at least five years now. Luis has been Atletico's first choice for four seasons while even prior to this year they were always challenging for at least the minor trophies (UEL, CdR) and before that he put on some very impressive performances for Deportivo, enough for Atletico to splash out €13m for him back in 2010. Mangala was heavily linked with us last summer after having a brilliant season at Porto so that means most people were starting to see his quality in around 2012, when he was 20-21 years old. Aside from the freak exceptions that's usually the age when players start to develop massively so it's not a surprise the majority of people didn't really know Mangala until quite recently. Just because you haven't been paying attention to football played outside England and don't recognize talented players when you see them doesn't mean everyone is as ignorant.

Witsel - Matic - Fabregas in a 4-3-3 though...

Maybe this is a ploy to finally get the best out of Torres, after all they do link up well in the national team? :

Last of the Munich penalty heroes gone.

Cadena Ser reporting he's already signed.

Typical. First people slagged him off and ridiculed those of us who tried to defend him and explain that he really is a great player, then when he got sold the same people were going on about how we robbed Wolfsburg and KdB was never in a million years worth that money but now a few good performances later it was all Mourinho's fault to sell him..

Wow, away for a few hours and we go from just dreaming about a signing to being favorites to actually get him. Trying hard not to get excited but can't help it.

http://as.com/diarioas/2014/06/01/english/1401656370_120309.html So, now we're about to get Godin too? If we're going to get Costa, Courtois, Tiago, Luis and Godin we might as well buy the whole club and be done with it.

He's a cunt but I wouldn't mind if he was our cunt because he's pretty good at this game called football. You don't see many United or Liverpool supporters complaining about the likes of Van Persie, Rooney, Suarez etc. as long as they're contributing on the pitch and it's not like Fabregas is anywhere near those players in the cuntishnes-scale.

Number 4 shirt is free...

Azpi is more versatile than Carvajal and now especially with Moreno left out as well it means they only have Alba at LB so getting Azpilicueta made a lot of sense. They can start with Alba - Azpi, Alba - Juanfran or perhaps even Azpi - Juanfran and if anyone gets injured or suspended he can be replaced easily with the remaining of the three but with Carvajal or Moreno in the team instead of Azpilicueta it would have been much harder because they can only play one position and I don't think it's worth wasting two valuable squad spots to cover the full-backs if they have a player like Azpilicueta who can just as well do the job in either position. Don't know if you're referring to Azpilicueta with that Catalan thing but he's Basque...

Why are people mocking Liverpool's Lambert signing so much? Can't really think of a more reliable third or fourth choice striker for so cheap and if he is to play a similar role to what Demba Ba played for the majority of last season for us I think he will do very well. Lambert will be infinitely better than that piece of shit Iago Aspas they had as a backup striker last season and being a very physical player he will also offer them a completely different tactical option to the likes of Suarez or Sturridge. Lambert to them will be like Tiago for us, should the deal for the latter be completed, and I can't really see anyone laughing at the Tiago signing.

Just did some quick calculations during my lunch break at work. 2014: Luis @ £19m and £80k a week for four years 2016: Thoroughly scouted "new Azpilicueta type signing" @ £10m + £40k a week for three years (before new contract) 2019: Contract extension for the new LB at £100k a week for another five years 2024: Filipe well into retirement and new left-back probably nearing the end of his career at around 30-32, total amount spent £76m OR 2014: Shaw @ £27m and £100k a week for three years 2017: Contract extension with £150k a week wages for another four years 2021: Another contract with £150k a week 2025: Shaw 29 years old, total amount spent £102m Getting Shaw for the amounts being quoted is ridiculous even if we got him for over ten years because if he receives such a big contract from the start, then renewing it will be expensive as fuck and we can easily get Filipe for the next few years and a reasonably priced 20-25 year old at some point for the same price as getting only Shaw and I would consider the Filipe + another LB route a much safer bet.

Filipe Luis would cost 24m euros max, because that's his release clause. In pounds that's like 19m and there were rumours in Marca yesterday that due to the good relationship between our clubs the price could even be slightly below the release clause, something around 17-18m GBP. No way Moreno or Rodriguez would go for any less than that, let alone Shaw who would be double the price if we include the slightly higher wages too. I agree that Moreno or Rodriguez could be good deals, maybe even better long-term than Filipe Luis but are they available? I would be equally happy with whoever we got be it Luis, Moreno, Rodriguez or even Shaw.

Like who? There's no one out there at the moment and we really need a left-back now, we can't afford to wait a year or two for a bargain. If we get Luis now, we can start looking for a cheap long-term replacement immediately but for a few years there's no hurry because we'd be more than fine with Luis. If out of desperation we start getting some second-rate youngsters for 5-10m and hope for them to come good, we could end up paying Filipe Luis kind of money in a few years anyway while getting fuck all in return. That's just the reality at the moment, either pay 20-30m for a youngster who is likely to become top class or get guaranteed "short-term" success (still 3-4 years) with someone like Luis while patiently looking for the 'left-footed Azpilicueta' type of signing. We could buy Filipe now for 20m and find a long-term replacement for less than 10m within a couple of years or we could spend the 30m now to get Shaw, who's still not guaranteed to be a success.

Don't really understand why everyone is so against this. For the next few years Luis would no doubt be better than any of the other names out there and for now he would also be cheaper than for example Shaw in both transfer fee and wages. While Filipe might not be as long term player as Shaw has the potential to be, he can still easily offer us four seasons at the highest level and in football that's a really long time. After that we could have a look at the market again and look for a bargain like for example Azpilicueta was while with Shaw in a few years he'd either be demanding the wages of a proven world class player if he'd come good so he would still be very expensive, or alternatively he'd just have ended up another useless young English full-back like Kyle Walker so 30m + big wages would have been a huge waste of money. People have been playing way too much FM, where players are always bought at 18-20 and kept for ten seasons while players of 27 or older are overlooked completely as "too old". That's the way I play the game too but let's not kid ourselves and think it has anything to do with what's really going on in real life.

Just realized Torres has 17 goals in 40 matches in European competitions, that's actually a pretty decent return for a striker at Chelsea of the last few years. His record in the PL is shocking but hopefully some desperate cunt will fall for his goalscoring record in Europe and in the national team. Not holding my breath though...

Torres only has two years left on his contract and it's not like he's even close to getting an extension so he will be going sooner or later anyway and I doubt it will have any effect on how long Mourinho stays.