Jype

Marca are saying the clubs have now found an agreement with the Courtois situation and he will play against us, if there ever was any doubt about that.

Makes sense, didn't they recently sack two of their assistant managers without saying why?

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/apr/19/police-called-drug-scandal-major-club Interesting. Any guesses on which club we're talking about here? Seriously hope it's not us..

I was one of few people who preferred Vidal to Modric in 2011 when we were after both of them but Vidal ended up at Juve for a mere €10m and we missed out on Modric too. Time to get him was three years ago, can’t see him leaving Juventus now. Even so I think he’s the best midfielder in the world at the moment and if there was even the slightest of chance we could get him, we should go all-in. What the hell is 'footballdirectnews' though? Doubt a source like that would have any inside information from Chelsea.

The fuck? I'm sure everyone knows by now that I haven't spoken highly of Cole in years but surely a full-back pairing of Cole - Azpilicueta with Luiz in midfield is better than Azpi - Luiz and maybe Mikel at CM?

Costa 2-0 from the spot, that's another 3 points in the bag for them.

Modric would have been an amazing buy back in 2011 when we were after him but at the moment there’s no way I’d agree to that swap, not without a significant amount of money coming our way. He’s still at least as good as he was back then and would slot next to Matic perfectly but he’ll be 29 when next season begins and surely that means his value has gone down a little from the time Real Madrid bought him for £30m whereas Oscar, having now proved himself in European football, has got to be worth more than the £25m we paid for him two years ago. That being said, something like Modric + £10m for Oscar and I’d snap their hand off. We’d finally get our man for the pivot which has been a big problem for years now and I really don’t think Oscar, no matter how good he is, would be that hard to replace. For example Ross Barkley, who you mentioned, would be a very good replacement and with players like Modric & Barkley we would end up having a much, much stronger squad than we do now even if it meant losing Oscar. Not sure how to feel about potentially losing Lukaku though. I think he'd be the perfect 2nd choice striker for us next season with Costa likely to be the main man. With those two guys we'd have two very different kind of strikers which would give Jose a lot more options to prepare for each game, and also the impact of bringing a striker like Costa or Lukaku from the bench would be nothing short of devastating against tired defenses. Anyway, I'll leave Lukaku's fate to the hands of Mourinho and the board because there's really no way to know what's happened behind the scenes before / after he requested the Everton loan. After all this, I think it's worth noting that I don't believe for a second that we'd have any chance of getting Modric. I don't think Real Madrid are willing to sell a guy who has been one of their best players this season and anyway, why would they even need Oscar when they already got Isco?

21 would be even better. I find it ridiculous that proven world class players bought on massive transfer fees such as Hazard are even nominated for an award that in my opinion should only be given to a player who's made his breakthrough to the highest level in the last year or two. You know, players like Shaw, Barkley etc.

Also a major doubt for Atletico on Tuesday, though in that case I would think it's safe to assume he'll be fit to face Liverpool.

No, just no. A case can never be made for Torres starting a crucial away match against his former club because we've seen enough of him in the last three and a half years to know he will bottle it. Hell, even Drogba in his prime turned shit when we played against Marseille a few years ago and this season he was nowhere to be seen against us too. In fact, a case could be made to keep Torres as far away from the pitch as possible for the rest of the season because: 1) Ba and Eto'o are both much better players 2) Both of said players are also in much better form

Well isn't this typical, Chelsea fans have wanked over this guy all season and when it gets reported that Mourinho has made Costa his primary target and that we're finally close to signing him (for a reasonable price if I might add), the same people begin questioning his talent and start suggesting other players instead.

For €42m this would be a fantastic piece of business. If it's really happening, I hope it will be done before the World Cup.

Hope so. Would it be too much to ask for both Norwich and West Brom to help us out this weekend?

Even if they did lose to Norwich, we'd still need the three points from Anfield to ensure City stay behind us.

He's not only a 'wife stealing sex addict', he's also a huge cunt in general. Saw his goal celebration when he scored against his former club Sampdoria last weekend and also heard from a couple of Inter fans that throughout the game he was having a go at Maxi (the guy who's wife he 'stole', plays for Sampdoria). After the game he put pictures on Instagram of Maxi's children wearing Inter shirts with 'Icardi 9' on the back. To me, that's a whole new level of cuntishness compared to Terry having an affair with Bridge's missus, at least JT didn't constantly rub it to Bridge's face on social media how he's shagging his girl.

A cunt of the highest order, don't want him anywhere near our club.

If we are kind enough to give them Courtois for another two years, surely they could repay the favour by letting DC leave with us simply paying them €40m without having to activate the clause and pay additional €10m in taxes when the money gets transferred via Diego Costa's personal bank account. It will make absolutely no difference to Atletico where the money comes from because they get €40m all the same but for Chelsea it will be a matter of €10m. Release clauses in Spain are typically only activated when the club in question have no intention of selling but here the relationship between the clubs is supposedly a good one so why the fuck would we still end up paying €10m over the release clause for the player? Other than that, I would have no problem with that scenario. We'd get one of the best strikers in the world at the moment and Courtois would be able to continue his development in Spain until Cech's contract expires in 2016. I would say Courtois is already at least as good as Cech, perhaps even better at some things, but this way we'd at least get to keep him on a long term contract and the transition from Cech to Courtois would be a very simple one when Cech's contract would be up and he would either extend it and stay as a backup on smaller wages or leave chasing new challenges for the last couple of years of his career. Of course, if there was an option of recalling Courtois and making him our number one keeper for next season as well as getting Diego Costa that would still be my preference but the one mentioned in Marca is a close second.

Barcelona's transfer ban was given to them by FIFA, not UEFA.

Looks like both of them have had enough of being knocked out by Chelsea in the QFs after winning the first leg. If you can't beat them, try to join them. Seriously speaking though, don't know what we'd need Lavezzi for. I rate him very highly having watched him at Napoli and now occasionally at PSG but surely we don't need another AM. I know Lavezzi can also play as a forward but usually that's been next to another striker (Cavani or Zlatan) and I'm having doubts whether Mourinho would use him that way. Maybe if we sold for example Oscar to them in exchange, we could play Willian behind the striker and have Lavezzi rotating with Hazard, Schürrle and Salah for the two places on the wings but other than that I don't see how we would have use for him.

Who says we couldn't play a defensive full-back pairing like Azpi - Ivanovic against the teams you mentioned? Right now we don't have any other options and that's partly why we're struggling against the teams that sit deep but if we had an attacking LB like Shaw or Rodriguez we could alter our approach to the game depending on the opposition. edit: Oh come on, The Skipper said pretty much the exact same things seconds earlier.

No, just need to leave some free space in the 25 man squad if there aren't enough homegrown players. 17 is the maximum amount of non-homegrown players allowed, so if we only had like 4 homegrown players in the team we could only name a squad of 21 players. U21 players don't count so for example a player like Zouma would only need to be named in the squad for the 15/16 season. Also the homegrown players don't need ne to be English, just need to have been playing for an English club for three years before their 21st birthday. Not sure how loans affect that, for example in the case of our Vitesse loanees?

That's because he's always good enough to dribble his way into the box and score a goal from there. Nothing wrong with that, it's not like he's a 'poacher' type of player who only scores when the ball is played to him inside the penalty box. Would fit our team pefectly IMO.

Seriously? To which club exactly would you loan him out to, a team like Stoke or one of our title rivals? He's been one of the very best in the world for the last couple of years and right now he's fighting for the Champions League and also for the league title in Spain, with a team outside the two giants no less. He's already won a few trophies with Atletico and this summer will lead Belgium's defense at the World Cup, what could he possibly gain from going on loan to a midtable club in England?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-city/10766475/Manchester-City-to-be-made-to-pay-a-high-price-for-spending-spree-under-Uefa-Financial-Fair-Play-rules.html The plot thickens.

I do. You simply don't drop a player who's scored two crucial match winning goals in a row when the team were starting to get desperate. Deserves to start at least the next three games (Sunderland, Atletico, Liverpool) and after that we'll see how he's done and think about whether he should still start the second leg of the Atletico tie. Use Eto'o as the impact sub with Torres to be dropped completely because I seriously don't want to see him anywhere near the pitch when we play against either of his former clubs, the guy has the mental strength of a 10-year-old.