capriccioso

Schweinsteiger and Lahm should get a look in.

5 million, eh? I think if we double that they'll find it hard to resist. The problem I have with right back is that we essentially need to sign a backup, someone who'll be happy with 20 starts and a handful of appearances off the bench. Ivanovic should still be our first choice, IMO. I don't think Debuchy fits that bill. Also it would be nice to have a more attacking right back to serve as a contrast to Ivanovic, someone we can bring on to add some extra attacking movement in our play.

It's amusing, though. That you cannot deny (unless I'm just very easily amused, which I normally am ). We had better stop derailing the thread.

It's twitter, therefore it's rubbish.

Hideous. Post a picture?

Thanks for the translation If there really is no interest, we should be dictating the terms. He isn't that committed to Porto anymore, he does want out, and if no one else is in the running, it seems poor business from Porto to hold out for an inflated fee. Under the circumstances if I was the boss at Porto I'd take 30 million and laugh to the bank knowing I still got the best of the bargain.

I don't think the quality was there for him to get a good job done. By mid April we were too far gone, it would have been monumental to get back in the top 4; and unfortunately the nucleus of the squad that won the two finals were filled with players who sadly have lost the consistency from their game.

It'll be quite an achievement, 200 goals from midfield. He's already got 186, I think he can get there perhaps at the end of the upcoming season or early on in the season following.

Sat Apr 13 Tottenham Hotspur H- could be tough Sat Apr 20 Liverpool A- Easy Sat Apr 27 Swansea City H- Easy Sat May 4 Manchester United A- tough Sun May 12 Aston Villa A- Easy Sun May 19 Everton H- could be tough That's my appraisal of it. Of course, who knows, Spurs could be rubbish by then and Villa could have recovered from 2011/12 to turn out to be a decent team.

30 million? Really? Sell sell sell!

Google translate is rubbish, though. There's a site called badtranslator that puts through English text through 35 google translate languages and gives you a final result; I put in "Salomon Kalou is a cracking footballer" and got back: "Eden Hazard has signed for Chelsea Football Club":

Hi! I can speak a bit of German, what do you think? Tag, ich heisse Eric, ich bin achtzehn jahre alt und ich komme aus Australien. Sein Englisch is sehr gut, wilkommen!

Can't be worse than Sergio Ramos letting the Copa del Rey get squashed by the team bus.

That photo of him smoking is epic.

Check my post in The Pub A mouse, in a home located in the 2nd highest developed country in the world!

Check my post in The Pub A mouse, in a home located in the 2nd highest developed country in the world!

I too, would like some pictures

I don't like that. It makes me look at my life and go "These guys are at the top at the same age as me, what have I done?" . God forbid when I'm 28 and there are kids 10, 15 years younger than me that will achieve far more in a few years than I will all life.

Oops

Pirlo also has a monster free kick on him.

Y u no quote Yes, I am a RAWKite secret agent. I supply quotes to ChelseaMeltdown and I am a mole!

Some of that is hilarious The bit about Ribéry

They've had an awful defence for about 15 years now. Willems is interesting, but from what I saw he appears to be a pace merchant. Arnesen was an absolute disgrace of a Technical Director/Director of Football. Emenalo has no experience in such a position and yet he's already miles better.

He's quite a good long passer. Or perhaps that's been masked because Drogba wins virtually every high ball hit in his general direction

AC Milan won Serie A 12 months ago, so they had a good team quite recently. Also, I never said they were small, per se, I said they were small when compared with the others. He won't be first choice here, either, he wasn't first choice at two other clubs and he hardly set the world alight. Just last year, he struggled at Schalke. One good season doesn't undo the 2 and a half seasons of not-so-good performances preceding it. Finally, he's a poacher, and we do not have a good record of late with such players. I'm the wrong person to accuse of hypocrisy, you know very well that as an ardent Kalou supporter it gets on my nerves the adulation Torres gets for doing things Salomon does magnitudes better; and I do my best to transfer that attitude to other players. I oppose the transfer primarily because I am not convinced of his ability, we have other strikers that need game time and it would represent a waste of money to splash out a largish fee for him to sit on the bench. He nearly got 50 goals last season, contrary to reports Schalke won't let him go on the cheap. I've also heard that he's an old school poacher that doesn't track back, and that that's one of the main reasons he isn't often included in Dutch squads. 17 million is a lot of money for a backup striker; when we've got two good strikers ready to come off the bench.