Fernando

I will say what wins you title is squad depth. This is why mourinho is trying his best to keep mata, but who are we kidding? Mata will not accept that for too long unless he has small ambitions. This is where I think mourinho will have to start using the youth set up to give a little more depth. Cause we will not have that luxury of having really good players like mata in a sub rotational basis. Or he can always buy decent players like guarin for depth, but I do hope he takes more chances with youth in the years to come, cause I didn't expect it this season.

Yeah he's been trolling the forum big, but whatever the admins do what they go to do. Can't tell them what to do. Just ignore the fool!

Is it me or has this place gotten a lot of trolls in disguise? They called themselves Chelsea fan but it feels like they are here only to troll around all over the site. Other then that what has happened to shonx? The Serbian administrator. I thought he would have been going nuts over Chelsea signing matic back. :-)

That sounds good. But my questions is with matic in the dm spot, can't we move Oscar back next to matic and mata in against team that park the bus on us? I feel like at home when teams park the bus we need more attack minded then the same set up we use against tougher opposition.

Well if you didn't know he clearly is a troll. Is that either the admin don't ban him and people are so gullible that they fall for him and keep feeding his trolls.

Okay people time to play armchair pundits. Bring out your best formation and all the other alternatives after that.

Yeah I'm still scratching my head into how we got it this low despite the buy out clause. Benfica must be desperate for cash, or our negotiators must be awesome!

Really? WTF happen to Benfica trying to hustle us? And I thought he had a buy out clause. How the hell we pull this of? Whoever did it, deserves a raise!

Good job Chelsea. Now any word if it's true we have given them 2 players on loan? Or Benfica just accepted the offer of 20 million? Thanks

Well to be honest, it does not makes sense that Benfica will accept an offer of 21 mill or whatever when his clause is like 30 something. So a player or two going their way makes sense, unless we are indeed paying more then what it is reported.

Any definite word on what players they are taking? They keep saying kakuta but I also heard is for two players.

Nice this is very exciting. Hopefully he is able to play at least part in the game against United. Wouldn't expect him to start because that is a bit too soon, but see a cameo of him after 70 minutes or so would not be that bad.

Yeah I know. I would like it if it's true. I think the man has shown that he is still up to the task. I was afraid that Madrid had killed his desire like it has killed many players in the past.

Very interesting sub headline: Roman Abramovich hands Jose Mourinho the power to decide whether veteran players are worthy of new contracts at Chelsea

I agree, I feel like it's a pr thing that they have to do. Because when Joe went to France he convinced hazard to join Chelsea. If he had any cared for Liverpool he would have sell the pr brand.

Wow 600 pages of Torres. From the excitement at the beginning pages, to hopefulness and then complete despair. Yes sir, Torres has been one hell of a topic for the past few years. May it long continue. :-)

Any details on what players benfica is taking?

Really good if true. When we gave him away we didn't know how good he would be. Also managerial instability was a problem. Now with mourinho we will have some stability and he will know what type of players he's looking for in his system.

Really looking forward to this match. But then again in the past matches that promised a lot fail to delivered and finish in a boring tie.....

Starting to do really good now. I think it also helps that he knows what his starting 11 is. All that chopping around made it hard to have any consistency, and in William-Oscar-Hazard he has a very direct and creative attack minded players. As always the missing pieces are the striker and Central Midfielder. So really looking forward to see who we get for these two positions.

Why is David Luiz now playing as DM? I thought Mourinho did not like this before? What changed?

Half a season and saw nothing that you mention. Kagawa and Sahin where amazing for the Bundesliga, but that's where it ends. Cause outside of the Bundelisga they where total shit. So KDB, Just another hype up guy from the Bundesliga like the other two mentioned

How do you know? I thought pochetino was average and he has done good. Maybe we should wait before coming to conclusion about Mel.

Just read that pepe Mel is the new coach of West brom. We are starting to get a lot of managers from La liga now hey?

All I can say is thank god we are allow to like different type of futbol and people can have their own opinions. While I don't agree with Xavi opinions, I respect it. We are not a nazi camp where we are not allow to have different opinion! You have been a great futboler Xavi, but sadly don't agree with your thoughts. It sounds like you are still bitter from the many times Chelsea or Mourinho has overdone you.