Leif

I'd sooner go for Rugani or Romagnoli. I think the latter especially under Conte could become a top 5 defender. Failing that, Sven van Beek is like Bonucci on drugs. Now I'm wondering how much Marquinhos would cost, he'd fit in well here too. We should be chasing players who fit our ideal style, not players who're simply available. Kalidou here is a lump who lumps the ball. Or like others have said, just bring back Christensen.

If he doesn't already have that risk, Leicester aren't investing enough in competition for places, which is just another reason to leave on a high instead of watching his team crumble.

Higuain already has his house in Turin, he'll be announced as Juve's player before Wednesday apparently. Again apparently, the Higuain signing is simply a sign to the rest of the footballing world from Juve that they're a top 5 financial powerhouse to be reckoned with. Considering they're paying the fee over 2 seasons, it's totally doable for them. They may try and keep Pogba now. I hope so. It'd show they're bigger than United in this era of football. On the other hand, we'll hear all about United being oh so great and their revival should Pogba return there. On that note, Juve are having by far the best summer. Who else would go out and get Dani Alves, Pjanic & Higuain? It makes our moves look laughable.

This is an emotional gush-fest, i just watched his header vs. Munich again. Better ability in the air, higher work rate, more strength, more accurate & powerful long-shots & better leadership qualities than all the following players who truly seem to be deemed better than him - Henry, C. Ronaldo, M. van Basten, Eto'o, Suarez, Batistuta, Inzaghi, Bergkamp, Ibrahimovic, Shearer, Del Piero, Baggio, Messi, Maradona, Pele, Romario, Raul, Cantona. None of them exceeded beyond Drogba's talents in any of those categories. Imagine any of those players being your captain too. The team wouldn't fulfill its potential, because they're weak in the lungs, brain and heart by comparison. Most of the players I mentioned had better finishing qualities & 'technique', I'll concede that, but they did not score more crucial goals, or assist big moments. Not at all. None of those players pushed their starting 11 to be a starting 22 like Drogba did. The only other thing they have on him is more rabonas. Oh, then consider the fact that beside Eto'o up there, the national teams these guys were playing with & improving with were France, Portugal, Holland, Uruguay, Argentina, Italy, Sweden, England, Spain, Brazil. The drop of quality when you turn up to the Ivory Coast training centers would be so evident. It makes him even greater.

I wish I realised how great he was before he left. I only know now he's my favourite striker of all time. He has it all. No other striker has had it 'all' like Drogba. He can do everything from playing as centre back, to touching the ball soft like Zola, to hammering in screamers from 40 yards & to launching bullet-headers that go through the net. Nobody else.

Well it really should be as simple as, Napoli stating their price, us either matching that, negotiating once, or walking away. Negotiating over and over again is futile, offering a lower fee than the one stated is futile, and standing twiddling our thumbs waiting for movement on their end before continuing movement on our end is futile. I think we've just done all of the last 3. Why?

I'm bitter that we're not good enough for you. Try the forum section of the official Chelsea website, that's where you'll find the locals. If you expect politeness from them though, heh.

You can find a lot of really good niche forums on here that only focus specifically on the topic you search for, such as Chelsea or whatever. It's my alternative - http://nobrain.dk. / mylazysundays.com

With Boga at Granada and Charly at Real Betis (in Seville), I might spend 3 months on the Costa del Sol pinging back and forth between games of theirs. The 2 cities has only Malaga between them. It'd be a good memory, especially if one or both actually go on to make it as household names.

OR we could be that fucking daring and sign Vidal & Dybala, or some other players that were actually just as integral to Juve's success over the past few years but didn't have the top notch marketing & abs of Pogba

Pogba would be a better player under Conte than under Mourinho, making him potentially even more valuable to us compared to them, since we'd get more juice out of him. The fact it'd make Conte's own time here easier would just be another bonus. I don't support the fee at all but we have so much money sitting here, and plenty other clubs have gone out their way to buy players they don't essentially need simply to nab them from a rival, it weakens them, it sends them into a frenzy. In this case there'd be more benefits than the usual too.

If we were serious about being the best team again, not just one of the best teams who gets top 4 every season, we'd try and bring Conte's previous identity to this team as much as possible, and go all out for both Pogba & Morata after freeing up funds from sales of some players. Selling Costa & Remy would give us enough to sign Morata. So that'd essentially be a trade with 0 pennies lost, for a player who'd demand less wages. (Costa 50m to Atletico, Remy 15m-19m to the Bundesliga.) As for Pogba, we'd free up a standard 50m transfer budget that'd otherwise be spent on the likes of that Swedish defender from Benfica or the guy from Napoli, and find the other 50m from selling Matic & Courtois (there are so many other goalkeepers near enough to his level.) Looking at the current market, Matic gets you 35m, Courtois around 35m-50m. There you go. Costa, Remy, Matic & Courtois out. Pogba & Morata in. It truly can be that simple. A team with Pogba & Morata who're familiar with Conte is a lot more powerful than Courtois and scrapping the latter. Begovic is good enough to start, and I believe once this season is up we could offer a 1-year contract to Buffon who'd want to play under Conte, and have him compete with Begovic. If we wanted to start taking the piss, Cuadrado, Pasalic (even though I'm a fan) & Marin being sold would be another 40-50m to put towards someone like Pogba. We're honestly run by monkeys, because we have *assets worth a lot of money* that we are not using. It's like owning 20 mansions and not understanding you could sell a few to bloat your bank balance giving you the place you *really* want. I'd reinforce our defence the following season, or pick someone up cheap this season. I believe with the amount of control we'd have in midfield with both Pogba & Kante giving the ball to Oscar, we'd rarely have to call our defence into action. In my alternate universe, we end up indeed selling Matic to United after they miss out on Pogba due to Abramovich stunting on Mourinho. I would also put Azpi back in position because i'm crazy.

I'd take Nocchi too. Like a lot of Italian defenders, he's going to be a late bloomer.

#SaveUsVucinic

Is this the guy that loved the club so much he, erm, wouldn't fight for his place? Very confusing guy.

We don't actually have 1 clinical player, so that needs sorted out. Hazard is too selfless, Oscar hardly scores, Willian too if you exclude his free-kick spurt, and Costa himself, he isn't clinical at all. That's not good enough. There's currently no players on the pitch with killer instinct and that's what's lacking still, that's what will kill us. City and United have players with killer instinct in abundance.

Excited for him to turn out a very good but not great player. So much hype going into him being the next great icon of football. I'm smirking. I'm doubtful he'll make the waves Yaya Toure made for City.

Jason Cundy should keep to TV instead of commentary

I doubt a manager can take over a new team without being informed on the previous season's best and worst performers. So he should know how shit Ivanovic was, there's even a chance some Italian friend of his follows us and chimed in. It will be known though. So who knows what happens now.

Shall we swoop for Iniesta too while we're at it?

But he doesn't even have 20 appearances in the only decent league he's been tested in. Where is the 'good prospect' talk from? Did he have a good game for Sweden? We need experience. Zouma is our prospect. Christensen is our prospect. Any more prospects instead of final products and we're just not going to get a league title again for a while.

Verratti is a good example. He isn't attainable, but if he was, he wouldn't be leaving for over 50m, nevermind figures nearing 100m. Verratti is better than Pogba, i'll have that conversation if anyone wants it. So why are you paying double for Pogba when players as good as do not command such fees? Because you buy hype, not quality these days.

You have to wonder how he's been rated among the top 10 wingers on all Fifa games for 5+ years now. He does nothing of note. He is a goat.

Players in Pogba's age bracket that are on his level - Take half his fee if even that, sign Calhanoglu, and you've got one of the best players on the planet. He's younger than Pogba & contributes more to overall team success. Going forward he's like Zidane. Then there's Saul at Atletico Madrid. He defends better than Pogba by far, while Calhan up there is by far better in attacking positions. Sane lacks the marketing and agent that Pogba has (do you think Pogba would be worth this amount with a different agent?) but Sane is also on Pogba's level. You could argue for Coman at Bayern too. There's more. I'll update at some point. Edit: Hojbjerg who Southampton signed. He'll be sold on for 3-4x his current worth in a year or 2 and for good reason. Tielemans will win as many games for you as Pogba with a moment of brilliance, yet he's 19, and 5x cheaper. Verratti; not a lot cheaper, but cheaper still, and at least on Pogba's level if not beyond it.

This entire Pogba saga has shown the power of marketing, in terms of his rumoured fee, and it's exposed how little people know about marketing & its powers which is a shame. Psychology works in strange ways for most people. You think something's better because it's more expensive. That's why people buy £100 white t-shirts instead of £10 t-shirts, because of the thrill. They both do the same thing. One is simply marketed to simple people who believe simple things. That is Pogba. There are many players on his level, at his age. Watch this -