Jase

Oh gawd. Why are people associating Mata with homesickness all of a sudden? If La Liga continue to be dominated by Real Madrid and Barcelona, then I don't see why Mata would want to go back there. Yes, trophies may come easy domestically in Spain but IIRC, he mentioned somewhere before that the competition isn't exactly strong and you don't get to test yourself at the highest level week in week out when there is a huge gap in quality between the top 2 teams and the rest. Seriously, are you really reading so much into that quote and thinks he's homesick? It's normal for a player or heck, even just an ordinary human being to miss or thinking of home if he or she is working in another country etc but does that mean they are homesick? No.

Last time I checked, Bale is a Spurs player or rather, not a Chelsea player and this thread shouldn't be in this section. Moving to the Football Banter place...

There was but only saw the Mirror reported it back then. Both parties probably thought there isn't a need to rush it yet since Mata still has 3 1/2 years left in his contract back then. Looks like it'll be pushed through this summer.

As some have mentioned, Schurrle is bought to add more depth to the squad. He can play anywhere behind the ST, though primarily on the LW.

Klopp, Guardiola, Martinez etc in a few years time, who knows? And Roman won't care where Mourinho goes after this. He will sack him if he feels like it really. Hope so. He seem willingly committed to AVB previously but had to sack him because of the circumstances back then.

Well, Mourinho may want to stay for a long time but Roman could easily pull the trigger anytime he desires.

It's not about who should be captain, who's got the character etc as you made in the post after that. It's about having a captain that plays week in week out in our starting XI and not constantly change the captaincy for every game.

Not sure how true is this but there have been some noise made about it already...

We have been hearing that for yonks now. Has been going back and forth this transfer - on, off, on, off, on... Just get this transfer done ASAP if Schurrle is really wanted here by Mourinho.

But the issue here is then we would constantly be changing captains on the pitch.

It was mentioned in the Guardian article though. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/jun/05/chelsea-eden-hazard-jose-mourinho The fella who tweeted that had probably ran out of characters to include that in.

Refresh my memory please.

Definitely not going near the new white away kit. Hate that blue/white/red stripes across the front. Spoils the kit!

Mourinho hints at Terry omission If Mourinho intends to make Terry a squad player now, then surely we would have to consider appointing a new captain, no?

By original article you mean in the Belgian papers/media? The Guardian wouldn't have included that part into the news article if he didn't say it (unless they mistranslated it). Otherwise they could get themselves into trouble for fabrication.

The one funny thing about this whole 'Mourinho-Mata' argument is that people think Mata cannot improve on his defensive abilities. People talk as if he has a poor attitude and can no longer be helped on improving his weaknesses etc. And then suddenly you have people thinking we should sell him because of that when his strengths outnumber the weaknesses and those weaknesses can be worked on and turn it into a strength.

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11668/8759277/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

Depends on how you define 'long time'.

Good to know Hazard thinks he can and should be scoring more. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/jun/05/chelsea-eden-hazard-jose-mourinho

And he also said this in there... "I have a big emotional connection with the club, I have got a very young team in my hands with a lot of very young talented players, it's time to develop the players." Unless something nonsense really happens, I really hope he stays for a long time and develop the team into how we all would like it to be. Also, Hazard said this...

Probably being silly and clutching at straws here but I'll still maintain that small hope we can get him till it's officially confirmed he's going elsewhere.

Disagree. The point with people wanting the likes of Di Maria, Sanchez etc is because we want our RW position problem to be solved (first and foremost). At the moment, we have no top class player to fill that position and by getting a proper RW, it will make the team much more balance by playing the right players in the right position and not trying to fill square pegs in round holes. Schurrle's main position is on the LW. We already got Hazard there and he won't be dropped for a player with lesser quality than him. Not denying Schurrle will add depth to the team, even though I'm not 100% convinced by him, but buying someone like Di Maria, Sanchez etc, a top quality RW and solving that area would be much better first.

Since he didn't name the club, can always hope it's 'Chelsea'.