Chelsea Legend 11

How does signing a replacement for our 37 yr old third choice striker signify settling? And no Costa is not any worse than Benzema, Ibrahimovic or Lewandowski! The mere suggestion is ludicrous... Really? Wow. So your idea of strengthening for a title push next season is buying a striker who is 2-3 yrs away from pushing Costa as our number 1? interesting...

LOL.... Are you for real?

So for our third choice striker who would you have? Which would you deem to be an imaginative selection? LOL... This isn't a rebuild, we're champions! This is a retooling!

And why are people comparing Shevy and Torres to Falcao? Who cares if Falcao doesn't return to his former self? Do we need him to? Shevy and Torres were bought to be our first choice striker and they failed. Falcao is third choice on loan... That is a SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE and not the standard we should be comparing him too.

What is all this talk about Falcao pushing Remy out? You have to fight for your shirt! Maybe Remy doesn't want to do that because he wants to play for France at home in the Euros(likely his last one). Honestly I love Remy, he came to us for cheap, put his head down and played relatively well. He wasn't the perfect foil to Costa because he too got injured but for a guy who was on the pitch a total of 728 minutes scoring 9 goals is extremely impressive. If he goes we will have to replace him with class and I don't mean Falcao... He's Drogba's replacement. Now, lets try something here. Lets look at some stats to see the differences between that piss poor Utd squad and the Champions. If a striker is to score he will without question need servicing, at Utd the people who made the most passes per game were Daley Blind - 63.3 passes per game Michael Carrick(though injured for most) - 60.5 Marcos Rojo - 60.1 Jonny Evans - 59.8 Ander Herrera - 59.8 Phil Jones - 52.7 Valencia - 52.3 Wayne Rooney - 50.3 Those are the guys who were seeing the ball most at Utd. As far as who was making the incisive pass it looks like this. DiMaria - 1.9 key passes per game 10 assists Mata - 1.5 / 4 Rooney 1.4 / 5 Young 1.3 / 5 Herrera 1 / 4 DiMaria made 31 passes a game, Mata made 44 meanwhile Blind (who created 0.7 key passes) is on the ball much more than anyone. For those that actually watched Utd play these numbers don't lie, they played a slow, laborious build up that rarely looked incisive or cutting edge. Teams could just sit back and allow their CB's to pass it back and forth to each other. With Chelsea this is the total opposite our best chance creators were on the ball constantly. Cesc averaged 80.6 passes per game, 2.8 key passes and 18 assists. Hazard - 58.4 / 2.7 / 9. Oscar 46.1 / 1.3 / 8 This is part of the reason I am quietly optimistic, I know we have a better set up and will generate more chances for him to capitalize on. Now on the whole 2nd/3rd striker nonsense I think the language is misleading, for Jose and most smart managers it will be 1st choice(Costa) and situational backups(Remy/Drogba). If Remy decides he wants more than a situational role then he has every right to leave, what I'm most concerned with is who will come in to replace him and what are his attributes? Both Remy and Falcao strike me as guys that lay dormant in until they are in the box(fox in the box strikers or poachers). When we had Drogba we had a guy capable of holding up the play and winning a large amount of aerial duels, Falcao or Remy can't do that... Neither can Costa really. So for me if Remy were to go I'd love to see someone like Benteke or Austin come into the fold to give us the versatility we need in our three strikers. Austin is very good in the air, he wins 2.6 duels a game( by comparison Drogba won 1.6 and Costa 1.3) Benteke, who obviously will cost more won 6.5!!! That is another level all together... It will be interesting to see what happens but either way we need to trust the manager, staff and board... they get it right more often than not and in Jose's case he's earned the right to work with whoever he deems fit. Remember part of his genius is working with people who allow him to get into his head, perhaps he sees Falcao in a similar light and will work his dog whisperer magic on him?

If Remy goes I'm not sure that this is a good situation, however, if the competition for 2nd striker is between Falcao and say... Austin it will give them both incentive to go hard seeing as both have something to prove to the manager.

Was always intrigued by him, if the work permit is sorted its great news for us. Its hard to say whether he can make the jump to the Prem and be our right sided goal scorer but I like the thought of having him in our ranks and developing with us.

a goal is a goal could be from 3 cm's out, he had to be there to score it right? So he showed he is still capable to find space in the box. When a striker scores a goal that performance is elevated from shit/average to good. All you want him to do is take advantage of the chances he has and clearly he did that. Having not watched either game I don't really have too much to say about his overall game but so long as in the stat sheet it says Falcao goal... not much to really nitpick about.

Hold on, didn't he score in the friendly for them? he's 1 in 2 since being with the international squad, not exactly a bad ratio.

Utd had a squad of misfits. The worst time for Falcao to come to the Prem was after an injury on a team with no identity. He claims he struggled because Van Gaal played him out of position.

I'm not too concerned. The whole reason why I was even remotely interested was a) because it's our third striker slot we're talking about(on loan at that) and b ) because I am intrigued at what our medical staff and Jose can do with him. Long way to go before I lose faith.

If it ends up being a cash plus Oscar deal it will be the perfect scenario. In that particular case it's harder to discern the true valuation. If we end up paying 35m and Oscar for pogba, the book value on such a deal is ridiculously less than buying him outright. Even if he gets a similar amount to what we paid hazard (rumoured to be about 175k/week) that number is minuscule to the big picture. The fact that Juve are interested in Oscar makes this an all the more likely scenario. We would be idiots not to look at adding him in a player swap.

Juve manager Allegri on whether he likes Oscar: "Very much. He is one of those players who can make a difference in Europe" Hmmmm....

and pogba can definitely play as a 10 like yaya was used at city under Mancini.

Marina Granovskaia is that you? Where has Pogba let his wage demands be known? furthermore where has he said he wants to leave Juventus?

If they really want Oscar the only thing I can envision us selling him for is either a ridiculous overpayment(40m or higher) or a deal that involves "you know who" and cash. Granted with the amount of money Juve made this year they could just buy him outright and sell Pogba to the highest bidder but I doubt Jose or our board will let Oscar go unless we get what many think we want.... Paul.

I'd be interested to see some of the comments from supporters who were against Neymar's signing. Barca had no trouble breaking the rules to get him signed and nobody is looking at the overall outlay for him being ridiculous. This was a guy who never played in any big tourney's(maybe a Copa America) or in Europe in general. Meanwhile Pogba has played a huge part in Juve's resurgence and also in France's most recent world cup bid (Jose named him young player of the tournament) I tend to watch Juve a lot mainly because I like watching him play and while it seems like a lot of money if Luke Shaw is 30m then surely Pogba is in and around 60m. Market dictates price.

Hmmm....

You got to see it to believe it. Makes the wrong read way too many times

You really gotta wonder if he wasn't at Chelsea would he be an English international.

http://www.101greatgoals.com/blog/transfers/jose-mourinho-is-about-to-sign-ex-man-united-man-falcao-a-new-4-year-chelsea-contract-sunday-times/

was just gonna post that. http://www.101greatgoals.com/blog/transfers/jose-mourinho-is-about-to-sign-ex-man-united-man-falcao-a-new-4-year-chelsea-contract-sunday-times/

okay clearly what you consider injury prone and what I do is in stark contrast. Diego Costa is DEF injury prone, I get nervous just watching him run at full speed.

exactly

Try without punishable errors! He made a fair few mistakes especially against Liverpool that Cech bailed him out of. Again I'm not belittling him as a player, he was good last year just not good enough to make him the clear no.2 after John and with Cahill still more than capable of playing next to Terry its best to loan out Zouma and maybe bring in Varane to deputize for Cahill or Terry should something go wrong. Zouma has proven he is a decent prospect but he's still very raw, loads to learn and its best for him not to do his learning at the home of the champions.