capriccioso

Mikel's got experience on his side though, Romeu doesn't. Mind you it would be suicide if our next manager decided to play Mikel every game; he's best used in the big games and the easier games. He should be getting ~ 30 starts a season.

I don't yet buy all this hype about de Bruyne. He'll probably be a decent player, but how many of us have watched him play 90 minutes week in week out? I hazard a guess that most of us have only seen youtube clips; lets not forget that even Fernando Torres can be made to look like he had a great spell at Chelsea on youtube.

Of course you haven't You were expressing your opinion of Mikel, I disagree. That's all there is to it

Agree with everyone. Except Bosingwa and Bale. Messi and Xavi look like gentlemen because they are surrounded by cunts, take them out of Barcelona and we'll know just how petulant, childish and generally all round twats they are.

Mikel is probably our best midfielder bar Ramires. He's leagues ahead of Meireles and post knee injuries Essien, and post decline Lampard. McEachran's out on loan and Romeu can't buy himself a starting spot at the moment, so don't throw those names at me.

Whats the salary offered?

Twattenham No way should Malouda start. It may not be a bad idea to start Kalou on the wing to allow Mata to play in a more central role. Or we can try Torres on the left wing.

Oops

Perhaps the fans are more proletarian than Real's, but I'm not so sure about the club in general. Franco, for example, was an Atletico supporter. If they had the cash they would probably do something similar.

Cynical communist again; that symbolises the decadence of the capitalists. That was paid for with the hard earned cash of the working classes who fill out the Bernabeu who definitely would not have given up their time and money if it was going to be 'invested' on that monstrosity. Back on topic with football; this is senseless. How the hell do they have a billion dollars to spare with FFP coming in? I don't think this comes under the accepted expenditure category (I think thats restricted to youth investment and stadium upgrades only)

Thats exactly what an anchor man style defensive midfielder is supposed to do. Win the ball and then lay it off to a better player. Were people expecting him to be some kind of freak like Pirlo? IMO he's probably the closest any player can get to Makelele. I would rather Mikel make 100 out of 100 3 metre long, safe, sidewards passes in a game rather than buy a more aggressive passer who'll only complete 70/100 and in the process leave us open to counter attacks.

I never got the Mikel hate. He's always been a solid, reliable DM, its not very often he has a poor game defensively and plays poorly in terms keeping the ball, which is all DM's are supposed to do. What did people expect him to do? Score a goal or get an assist every match?

Mikel is excellent in crunch games.

Diarra was pretty good for us, considering we kept playing him at right back.

Of course you can. It has given us the likes of Drogba and Essien!

I still think the Magpies will be the team to beat.

Come on SHM...

Given the amount of Aussies on this forum, and the amount of Victorians in particular, I'm surprised there isn't a thread on our national game! I don't particularly follow a team, I suppose the teams I most like are Sydney and St.Kilda. For the Saints, in terms of Premiership prospects, things don't look great, while the Swans are getting better by the year but are still a far cry from the 2005 and 2006 teams. What about you?

We've been getting ripped off since Roman first bought us. Clubs think ''Oh they can afford it, we'll jack up the price for them but keep it low for other interested clubs''.

City also have millions the likes of which even Roman can't compete with. People like Kompany and Dzeko had already won a couple of trophies in their careers and were probably looking for a fat paycheck. You may be onto something with Silva though.

Brain fart on my part, should have specified that Drogba is a stubborn git who won't accept the 1 year deal so we'll have to free transfer him.

That's because they were all Italian and loved Juventus. The likes of Ibrahimovic and Vieira left straightaway because they had no connection with the club and therefore no reason to stay, and Juventus were only able to sign wank like Amauri for years after. A South American, German or Spanish talent isn't going to sign for Chelsea unless we can at the least offer them way more money than the two Spanish clubs. Even that may not be enough if we can't give them UCL football. And as for the Germans, forget it. They love their country and see every other league as inherently weaker, and I have to agree with them, for me, the Bundesliga is the best league in the world.

Drogba is worth retaining, Ashley Cole isn't. We need to get rid of the one time best left back in the world while we still can, his name still resonates in certain quarters and we could well make 10-15m pounds off him. If we keep him until next year we might only get a fraction of that. This has to be the foundation of our squad; Cech, Thibaut, Luiz, ,Cahill, Terry, Ivanovic,van Aanholt, Bertrand, Mikel, Romeu, McEachran, Ramires, Mata, De Bruyne, Sturridge, Torres and Lukaku. The rest of the non-old guard players can either be used as peripherals or be sold. We need to sell about 12 players in the summer, if we can earn on average around the 8 million mark we can have 100 million pounds waiting to be reinvested plus the usual 30-40 million Roman gives us every season. With that 140 million we can buy 5 or 6 quality youngsters, promote some reserves and start building for the future. It's going to get worse before it gets better, I think it'll be after the Brazil World Cup that we see Chelsea reemerge as one of the great powerhouses of European football. We should be looking to sell Bosingwa, Malouda, Essien, Lampard, Kalou, Cole, Benayoun, Bruma, Meireles, Turnbull, Ferreira, Kakuta, and Drogba or Sturridge.

Surely not.

He only had 15 minutes to prove himself and City were attacking for most of that.