Jase

Who could we get that is similar to Schurrle for half the price? I agree with the spending 60m on one player part. Don't mind Cavani here but the price is just ridiculous. That's one sticking point but another one is we don't really have other quality options available out there that will suit us. I desperately want to see us buy Lewandowski (for only 30m Euros FFS!) but he seems certain to join Bayern and there's hardly anyone else. (don't come saying Ba-Torres-Lukaku as STs is enough please!) That is unless we get desperate and go for Rooney, Gomez....

Guess if we want to spend big, now it's the time to do it when the FFP has not necessarily kicked in to full effect yet. We have already got a young and talented squad that will develop and drive the club forward to more success in many years ahead. Unless we have 1-2 players leaving then, then we don't really have to spend big in any way then. It's just that at this moment, we still need some quality reinforcements, which invariably will cost a bit. Also, it does look like we are in better place than the Manchester clubs and others in the league in terms of having young talented players that will become better and dominate the league in the future. Both look like they will have to continue buying players while we don't.

Hence why Gourlay has been busy getting us partnering with other business companies AND having more (draining) pre and post season friendlies!

Funny to see so many want Marin out and don't want to give him a chance but then want Kakuta to be given that privelege when their situation is almost identical at the club.

Can't help but to think that many have been spoilt watching too much of Mata, Hazard etc. Only 2-3 seasons ago, we were desperately craving for such quality players and now when we got a few of them, people have been dismissive and selective with those players.

Ha! Yet more stereotypical views on Luiz.

Madness! Naismith's goal for Everton in the last PL game last season?

What did he say now?

That may be true or may be not. Football agents these days are manipulative and will do whatever it's needed to get what they want, even if they make their client look bad. Would take it with a pinch of salt and don't forget that agents get paid as well. He could already know that he will be paid a lot if he gets Lewandowski to Bayern.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/jun/16/psg-tottenham-hotspur-andre-villas-boas AVB getting linked with PSG. Has been going on a bit for the past few days.

That was quick of the media to already target Cole... Already want to blow this out of proportion.

We should also then praise Benayoun for giving the No.10 shirt to Mata as he wanted it.

Not that I wanna doubt what Mourinho said but it's easy for him now to say that the job here has been the only one he wanted in England after all that has happened.

Looking at what Luiz has been saying regarding all this rumours/stories, it sounds as if he's trying to keep his options open. Has given diplomatic responses and not attempting to quash those rumours like Mata did recently.

Clearly a BS story when there is this in it. Anyone could easily write that up. Pathetic journalism!

Jose Mourinho says he'll axe any misbehaving Chelsea players in bid to protect the club's image And they still think Hazard kicked the ball boy at Swansea.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/jose-mourinho-labels-fernando-torres-1954863

You are criticizing him on his ability but yet most of your posts in here for the past few days as I quoted above have been generic and repetitive. Dubious claim?! What?! How was I making dubious claim when I backed up what I said with news articles on the team news for those matches around that period? If anything, you are the one making dubious claims based on assumptions or rather 1 news that says Mikel is available for the Villa when other sources including the club's website itself said he isn't AND has been suffering from a hip injury. Moreover, how can a hip injury be considered as a minor knock? He had already missed the 4-5 games prior to that due to injury. Mikel only trained for 1 day or just 2 days for the Villa and he can't even be fit for that game when before the Spurs game, Benitez ruled Mikel out because he still has some pain with injury. Even if Mikel was available for the last 2 games, you don't even know if he had any injury setback or deemed not fit enough to play just yet etc. Benitez saying Lampard can't play 3 games a week is an exaggeration. He's still fit and strong enough to be playing 3 games a week but just not constantly every week because the consistency of the quality performance is not there anymore. He wanted to make it clear that Lampard can't expect to in every game anymore. And Lampard and Ake were played in that Everton game because Benitez didn't have much of choice. Luiz was moved back to CB and Ivanovic to RB for that game because he wanted aerial strength and physical presence to cope with Everton's own dominant figure. Moreover, Ramires was suspended for the game. Hence, even more lack of options which forced Benitez to go with Lampard and Ake in the pivot.

He scored this just awhile ago in the European U21 Championship.

Just saw this on Twitter...

From what we have been hearing so far, it seems as though Mourinho will be giving everybody a chance to impress him. A fair approach I suppose but one would imagine he already got his team in mind in terms of who he wants and who he doesn't want. And to think last time we nearly got a lengthy transfer ban because of this purchase 3 years ago.

Proved me completely wrong about Benitez dropping Mikel? You are talking about the one where you pointed he was supposedly available but not picked for the Villa game?! Well, it's either you completely missed my response OR you chose to be selective and ignore it. http://forum.talkchelsea.net/topic/29-12-john-obi-mikel/?p=698454 I don't think everyone is making assumptions here at all. It's just that those who don't rate Mikel are already celebrating as if assuming he has already been sold or WILL be sold when there's hardly anything concrete to it yet. Err, excuse me?! Since when I have talked up Mikel in this thread or even in recent times?! All I've been doing is basically refuting other members' point about using unfair judgment/views/statistics to judge Mikel. Have you seen me talking up Mikel's strengths and what he gives to the team etc? No. I have my views about Mikel and I can see where both sides' argument are coming from but what I dislike is when people start to criticize Mikel or any other player for that matter unfairly without any context whatsoever. Also, when I said your posts previously had assumptions on Mikel, I meant you talking as if Mourinho will toss him out because he's supposedly a great manager when no one, at this point, would know how he'll evaluate Mikel yet.

Does that include Jose? If not, you should include him too..

It's extremely obvious that you don't like Mikel and want him gone but seriously, you have basically been just spouting the same nonsense and generic comments with plenty of assumptions in it about Mikel over and over and over again. Some of these things you have said in recent days are getting tiresome!

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/4969323/Andre-Schurrle-I-had-to-join-Jose-Mourinho-I-heard-he-was-best.html