Jase

http://www.football-italia.net/61668/roma-salah-or-luiz-adriano According to reports in Italy, Roma are in no hurry to get Salah yet. They want to see if they can get Luiz Adriano from Shakhtar.

Funny you say that and then turn around to tell me like you know what the club's intentions are. If we really have a need for Cuadrado to improve our RW, we would have expressed our interest long time ago. We would have tried to get him earlier. Why did news about our supposed interest only came out after Wolfsburg and Roma claimed to want Schurrle and Salah respectively? All the signs are pointing to we are getting Cuadrado because Schurrle/Salah is leaving. Even Mourinho himself said that yesterday in the press conference. It's a reactive signing. Mourinho may be thinking of upgrading our RW anyway but I'm sure he would prefer to do the business in the summer when more options are available. That position doesn't need to be urgently filled now, does it? But because the situation has been forced upon him, he's probably have had to look for second/third choice target when others aren't available to replace Schurrle/Salah. Wait. You said you don't know much about him as a player and yet claimed he's high quality? I'm just genuinely curious in general about those who supposedly wants Cuadrado - how many have actually watched him play regularly to say he's good? OR have these people judged he's good only because of our players' form right now? Not making Schurrle a world beater. Just stating the truth - he is highly rated in Germany and not to mention, proven in the Bundesliga. Teams like Wolfsburg, Dortmund etc know what they'll get with Schurrle, as opposed to spending big elsewhere and run the risk of the other player being a flop in their team. World class, high quality...what's the difference? You are practically asking us to have a squad full of great players, which is nigh on impossible.

Name: ZaynCFC Reason: Aggressive/provocative behaviour Punishment: Content moderated permanentlyAbility to create content removed permanently.Suspended permanently Also move to Banned

Apparently, 'Chadwick 1 Gerrard 0' chants going on in the Cambridge v Man United game.

Would be fun having 2 Costas and 2 Hazards on the pitch...

Elsewhere... Adrian Chiles replaced as ITV’s main football presenter by Mark Pougatch

Think Ramires isn't entirely fit yet, hence why Mourinho prefers to go for the safe option of using someone fit and healthy like Mikel. Ramires should start against Bradford.

It was the same situation with the Watford game and we couldn't even find one live TV stream. Think all of us had to listen to a radio stream. May have to listen to Jason Cundy and Ben Andres again tomorrow.

Imagine the furore here...

Mourinho is never going to break up the partnership of Fabregas and Matic unless he has to while the option is playing him on the RW, which I doubt we would enjoy very much. Playing him as one of the 3 midfielders in a 4-3-3 is another possibility but Mourinho has hardly played that these days.

Only televised live in China again apparently - http://www.livesoccertv.com/match/1437116/chelsea-vs-bradford-city/

If we sack Mourinho, he could well end up in Manchester.

Seems like to some people, giving constructive criticism equals to hating the player. Nice logic.

Well, in my current FM save, Hazard is playing for Real Madrid..

I stopped reading the post after you said "He defends well..."..

Funny that. Mourinho may have been thinking about upgrading our RW but in this window and situation, the impression seems to be that we are only buying Cuadrado to replace Schurrle/Salah as opposed to replace either one of them with Cuadrado to strengthen our RW. After all, there were no signs of us doing anything until suddenly Wolfsburg and Roma expressed their interest in Schurrle and Salah respectively. We are trying to improve yes, but is Cuadrado really the answer? Is he really THAT good and better than Salah, Schurrle or Willian? Not convinced. May end up being a 27m bench warmer. Considering how highly rated Schurrle is in Germany, I don't see our bargain would weaken a lot, even if there'll be more options for clubs to choose. He's one of the better players around and if teams like Wolfsburg, Dortmund etc want to get even better, then Schurrle would be pretty high on that list. We may aspire to be one of the best teams around but the idea of having world class players in the starting XI and on the bench is totally nonsense. We live in reality, not in the world of Football Manager or FIFA. It's nearly impossible to be having that. Barcelona under Guardiola did not have high quality players on the bench but what they did have was good and reliable players to come in and do the job. It was the same thing with Ferguson's United as well.

Never said anything about Schurrle being a first choice all of a sudden, but a useful option to have at least until the summer. You never know when we need his qualities, especially in European matches, where we tend to play a little bit more on the break. Even if we do get Cuadrado in this window, there's no guarantee he'll be instant hit and fit in seamlessly. He could take time to adapt and if that proves to be the case, then we're pretty back to square one again. Schurrle is highly rated in Germany and clubs would offer a good amount of money for him. The situation would hardly regardless of how many many minutes he gets between now and the end of the season. And you're assuming that he (and Salah) won't play a lot even though Mourinho has showed almost the opposite previously. Those 2 clubs are in a different world when it comes to squad depth but on the other hand, it's impossible to have that kind of squad and expect players to be happy. Khedira and Illaramendi are looking to leave Real Madrid and not to mention, Shaqiri just left Bayern. Not team is perfect with the squad depth.

TBF, he may have wanted them to stay but when you get offers like 50m, 38m etc, then you gotta think again especially when those offers are more than their actual worth. If we are going to sell Schurrle, I think it's best to do so in the summer. He's out of form at the moment but we have seen what he can do for us last season and only a few months ago, before he suffered the mystery illness, we were praising him for his off the ball movement (which is no else but Costa and probably Oscar have that) and as an option to play on the break. Of course this is no guarantee, but those qualities along with his pace and clinical finishing could be useful (even Mourinho himself has mentioned that a few times) when playing in Europe especially and help us go far in the competition. On the other hand, I'm kinda questioning the logic of signing Cuadrado/Costa here. Are we only buying one of them because we are selling Schurrle/Salah or are we replace Schurrle/Salah to actually improve our RW? Right now, the impression seems to be the former and if that's the case, then it's basically only a stop-gap signing, which is bad business. If Mourinho is going to use Cuadrado effectively and equally with Willian, then fine. If not, then we'll practically have a 27 million squad player sitting on the bench every time (or 30m if suddenly Willian gets thrown out of the starting XI). Would rather wait till the summer when more options are available and we go from there.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing in the bigger scheme of things...

'Selected.....to be on the bench'

In the midst of getting all caught up with Mourinho's comments about transfers, it doesn't seem like he will play any of the youth players against Bradford, which is rather disappointing (to put it kindly).

An attempt to force Fiorentina's hands?

That may be true but if Costa and Cuadrado take time to adapt (to the league, Mourinho's demands etc), which might happen, then we would still be forced to start with Hazard, Oscar and Willian in almost every game.

Not sure about curtailing because Willian can go forward but doesn't produce anything meaningful in the final third. On the other hand, it's nonsense that sometimes, he has to do all the defensive work for 2 players with Ivanovic going AWOL.