Belgiannutt

Disagree. Like i said before there's no doubt Costa was great for us but he was poor at linking up and regularly lost the ball too easily. He also only performed for about half a season. Neymar is generating all the fuzz because he's leaving one of the biggest clubs in the world for money + also that it's happening in a really shady way (Sovereign state paying Neymar instead of the club)

No he's not. Costa was great for us but people should stop overrating him. He had significant flaws and only performed for half a season. You're all pathetic for turning on Morata so quickly. Atleast give the guy some time to settle before you turn on him.

I do feel our board is working with a more restricted budget. Abramovich is no longer giving us a blank cheque to just do whatever we want. The reason i think this is because well why else would we be penny pinching and being such hard negotiators ? While we have made bids for top players i'd say the fact we didn't get them and weren't willing to go the extra mile is more evidence to my claim that the board is working with a more limited budget. Also when's the last time we made a high profile expensive signing ? Apart from Morata this season you'd have to go back to Torres's transfer. Shirt sales and merchandising : large majority of the money goes to the manufacturer not the club. I still feel a signing should be primarily looked at to provide the goods on the pitch, not off it. I'm probably not the best person to answer that considering i already had a strong dislike for Neymar before. (I don't like his taunting, diving and rolling around. Too much of a prima donna for my liking) But no i wouldn't have wanted us to that. We'd not only have to pay his transfer fee. Due to it being a buy out clause PSG had to also pay taxes (70 million) then add in Neymar's wages which are astronomical. ( £520 000 a week after tax) So no i wouldn't because he's not even remotely worth that much money imo. My biggest issue with Bale is his injury record in combination with his extremely inconsistent form over the last 2 seasons. If we were talking about the Bale that left the PL then sure but the present day one is just too big a risk, for me at least.

Matic only had 2 years on his contract left. Reports saying he didn't want to sign a new contract. You people are really making some rash assumptions about Conte's "you'll have to ask the club about this" The emphasis of the journalist's question was on the fact we sold him to Man United. Conte's answer makes sense considering he doesn't decide who we sell to or for how much money.

Neymar surrendered possession a staggering 46 times against Juventus... that's more than any player in the Champions League this season In this year's tournament, of the top five players to give the ball away the most, Neymar is in three of those five spots. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4426952/Barcelona-striker-Neymar-gave-ball-away-46-times.html#ixzz4ojL8OwWa

No offense Oldportblue but i find this "it's not your money" argument to be incredibly foolish. Sure it's not my money but it's the club's money and the club's money isn't unlimited. We're working with a budget and pissing away 90M on a "broken" player isn't smart business. That's 90M we wouldn't be able to spend in the future.

Basically what Muffasir said. We'd have to pay a lot of money to get him (+ high wages). I highly doubt he'll ever get to his former level. Too big a risk soooo, no thanks.

Wouldn't the games he plays for the second team count as official games though ?

No thanks.

He should try growing up first.

While i understand people being unimpressed with this keep in mind that we're looking for a fourth choice CM. It's difficult finding a top midfielder who'd be willing to sit on the bench for the majority of the season. Like some people have said, he'd be Chalobah's replacement not Matic's.

I'm not saying we don't need a 4th senior midfielder but it won't be easy getting a top quality one. Honestly which top midfielder would want to come to a club where he'd have to hope someone gets injured before he gets to start ? Pretty sure the 3-4-3 will be our main formation. Conte might change it up from time to time but i doubt he'd completely move away from the 3-4-3.

This. We have Kante and Bakayoko who are going to be first choice. Fabregas will also want regular minutes to keep him happy that doesn't leave a whole lot of minutes left for our 4th choice midfielder.

Don't forget Morata's only been here for a week wile Batshuayi has been here from the start. I'm sure Batshuayi is further along fitness wise.

Yeah everything should be healed by now but i've just been thinking. At the end of this month he'll have had a week of light training. Now our first game against Burnley will come too early (12 august) but the tottenham game (20 august) he could (maybe?) make that if everything goes well. He'd have had almost a month of light training before that game.

Yeah it's worrying how predictable we are without him. We just pass it around until it gets to Moses or Alonso and then they just cross the ball aimlessly into the box. End of August ? i dunno i feel like that's so long. I don't have any experience with a broken ankle but does it really take a month for a person to strenghten their ankle ?

When do you guys reckon he'll be back to full fitness ? (not necesarilly full 90 minutes match fit but fit enough to be part of the game squad.) Initially they said 3 months starting from around the 5th of June but given that he's already doing light training for a coule of days now, i find it hard to believe he'd have to spend another 5 weeks doing light training.

With his weaker foot aswell.

I think most people know he's not a defensive juggernaut. That's not why we want him. We will likely we playing a Bakayoko- Kante midfield. That's a very defensive midfield. Our front 3 will need a bit of help breaking teams down and that's where Sandro would come in.

You could argue how much of an upgrade he is defensively but the fact that Sandro has a lot more pace then Alonso already makes him better equiped to deal with pacey wingers. We saw last game that Alonso's lack of pace is a weakness that top teams will gladly exploit.

http://www.totalsportek.com/chelsea-live-stream/

Anyone else notice Pedro had blood on his ear, not sure if it came from his ear or if it was just a cut but the collision looked really nasty. Hope it's nothing serious.

http://www.totalsportek.com/chelsea-live-stream/ ITV stream working fine for me

He was never a fan mate. Just a city fan being a little bitch.