Jase

From his perspective, he would want some sort of reassurances from the manager and not Marina or whoever from the board. They aren't the ones who's gonna pick him. And given we only appointed Lampard last Thursday, the slow progress is understandable. Recent reports suggest it's heading in a positive direction.

https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2019/07/08/chelsea-s-pre-season-squad-boosted-with-additional-players Jorginho, Kante, Kovacic, Alonso, Kepa, Barkley, Giroud, Christensen, Luiz, Emerson, Abraham, Mount, Izzy Brown all joined up with the squad today. That leaves only Pulisic and Willian who aren't with the squad yet.

First team players joining up with the squad...

CHO liked this tweet/story on Twitter. Make of that what you will...

Not sure if he will take a short break or be given one but he did take 2-3 weeks off after ending his season with Dortmund and before joining up with USA for the Gold Cup last month.

A quick search on Twitter suggests that he played well in the final. Probably doesn't mean much given the level of competition but he won the Gold Cup's Young Player of the Year.

What constant delays? There was the uncertainty under Sarri last season over his playing time and it was only last week that we finally got Lampard in. If the discussion is to make any progress, it would likely happen over the coming days/weeks. I doubt the board would have remained defiant against Bayern's interest if there was no chance of convincing CHO to stay. Otherwise, they would look like an absolute fool by the end of it.

If this is about playing time, then I really don't see why CHO wouldn't agree to a new contract here. With Hazard gone and that transfer ban, his playing time will only increase and there is a good opportunity for him to prove himself and stake a claim in the first XI. Bayern have many options out wide and there's no guarantee CHO will start there. Plus, feels like Bayern want CHO because they want to have their own Sancho after seeing Dortmund getting all the spotlight for him. If he wants to go to Bayern because of money, well, then there is nothing we can do and that would rather be disappointing from CHO. If the club didn't think there would be an opportunity to retain CHO, they certainly wouldn't denied him in the face of all the Bayern bids and risk losing for peanuts in January or worst, for free next summer! If the recent reports are to be believed, then CHO will sign a new contract and it will be announced in the coming weeks.

Lampard's really getting involved in training!

Torres Costa Morata Thanks, Atleti!

I know we always talk about backing the manager but Candreva feels like the typical Conte's system, workaholic player as opposed to someone who's actually quality in general. If we had him, he would be just another deadwood in the squad right now with Conte gone. Giroud isn't great but he's done far more than Llorente in the past 1 1/2 years, notably helping us with the goals in last season's Europa League run. Llorente has been absolutely useless at Spurs.

Lampard on the football style in one of the articles on the app... "What I tried to last year at Derby, and what we will try to do this season, is have an aggressive team with energy, bravery on the ball and an ability to move the ball quickly. I have huge respect for the teams at the top of the league at this moment in time. I look at Manchester City and Liverpool to see the speed of their game and that is the speed I want to see from my team. Work-rate is really important for me and that starts on the training pitch. I realized that even more last season being on this side of the fence. I always focused on myself as a player but now I can watch players more closely and see the real correlation between how you push yourself in training and how you perform at the weekend. That's a big thing for me."

In terms of personality and character, we have done a good job in buying the "good apples" but with Neymar, Pogba, think they're just disruptive figures in general and our culture won't change them. Both just doesn't seem to have any mental discipline and in Pogba's case, he has one of the worst/disruptive agents - or rather, the worst agent in the world - in Mino Raiola.

https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2019/07/06/ruben-loftus-cheek-signs-new-long-term-chelsea-contract?cardIndex=0-0 NEW FIVE-YEAR CONTRACT!

1. Mourinho, Sarri etc all had the idea of the kind of players they want in their team and don't want in their team. So, I'm not sure why you're making it out as if Conte was the only one who wanted to get rid bad players. 2. And speaking of Conte and bad players, let's not pretend as if he only wanted to get good players. He wanted some average/bad ones as well. In fact, there's one of his players that we want to get rid now...Bakayoko! We were also linked to some other dross like Candreva, Llorente etc...

Did we really scare Atletico into buying him permanently?

Given our lack of options upfront, I can understand wanting to keep Batshuayi for this season. But Drinkwater? Yeah...we need to bin him FAST!

Nah, it'll just trigger some people here.

Ironically, he could have been our problem considering Mourinho wanted him in 2015, IIRC.