TorontoChelsea

Not to start anyway.

Sutton....well, he did score in that fabulous massacre of ManU. The rest I have repressed. There are almost no Chelsea players I have hated but Sutton is one of them...(Bosnich and Bogarde as well perhaps)

They won't fall apart. They'll still finish top-5. Even without Van Persie, who is going to finish above them? City, us, ManU and maybe Spurs and Newcastle although maybe not the last two. They still have a lot of talent.

I'd understand it pre-Oscar, but now? We only need a striker and a RB.

Stein was a striker. I never saw him play, but he was great for Chelsea. I know he had the record for consecutive games with a goal for a long time. I also know that his father was an anti-Apartheid activist in South Africa. http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/worldcup/mark-steins-so-proud-his-father-helped-south-africa-win-its-biggest-battle-6481608.html Good idea for a thread. Would like to hear more about Chelsea legends from those who saw them. Chelsea do have a rich history and I think a lot of us would like to hear more about it.

Hulk can play striker, but he's a much better player as a RW. Cavani is a much better striker who has proven himself at the highest levels. As for your complaining about Sturridge, yeah, he's so selfish to want to play striker. When Chelsea moved him from RW to LAM ro RAM last season, he flatly refused...right? The anti-Sturridge stuff on this board is ridiculous.

Hulk is a midfielder if we are playing a 4-2-3-1 the same way Mata and Hazard will be. You're right that labels like that are kind of silly, but it's just a short-hand. Either way, we have enough attacking, creative players as is. You're right that Torres wasn't the only poor performer last season but Drogba was better despite being 33-34 years old. We definitely needed to upgrade our ball movement and we did that but we also need a striker who can score regularly. Torres might do that, but it's a massive risk and when you're trying to build a winning team, you can't take a risk like that.

First of all, Torres did not start to get better and better towards the end of the year. He had 4 good games under RDM out of 18.. Second of all, Torres hasn't really been considered one of the best strikers in the world for about 3-4 years. In the last year and a half, he's been one of the worst strikers in the Premier League. Third of all, we have enough midfielders. We actually have too many. We don't need another creative passing player. We dWe have Hazard, Mata, Lampard, and Oscar for that. As of right now, we probably have Ramires, Meireles, and Marin on the bench to start. We're going to play in a system that doesn't have a real RW position. We are almost certainly going to play 3 midfielders behind the striker. We don't need Hulk at all any more. We've spent 65M on creative midfielders. Buying Hulk would mean Chelsea will have spent 100M pounds or so on 4 attacking midfielders. It just makes no sense. What if Torres continues to be useless? It's a real possibility and then what? Relying on players playing out of position? It's an insane risk for us. We need a striker who can score. We had 11 goals in total from our strikers last year. It's just not good enough to compete at this level.

Don't see any way Kakuta gets playing time. If he refuses to go on loan, some mid-table team will buy him which is fine. Our midfield will be ridiculously over-crowded once Oscar comes. We need to be getting rid of two of Malouda, Essien, and Benayoun and sending all of our younger players out on loan.

Hulk is not a striker. He's a right winger. If you need a striker, you go and get one, you don't get someone who can play striker in a pinch just like you would buy Cavani because he's an elite striker not because he can also play on the right. And as for needing a winger, it really depends on the system Chelsea will play.. If they want to play a 4-3-3, then they need a classic right winger. However, I think they'll go with the 4-1-1-3-1 they played last year in which case, Chelsea don't need a pure winger. In fact, after Oscar, we definitely don't need any more midfielders.

I actually prefer Cavani to Falaco because of his longer track record at the top level, but only barely. I'd rate both well ahead of of Hulk. Agree that while our playmaking has been addressed, our lack of goal-scoring has not. I thought going into the transfer period that we needed a creative midfielder to replace Kalou/Malouda and allow Mata more freedom and rest, a striker to replace Drogba who can score regularly, and a backup RB who would be an improvement on Bosingwa. I haven't changed my mind.

There are probably 4-5 players who have to be on every list another 15 that are possibilities. It also depends on what player of the year means. Drogba really didn't have a very good year overall, but was massive in a few big games. Pirlo was a fantastic player all season, but Juventus didn't play in Europe at all. Personally, I tend to go for overall performance. Ronaldo, Messi, Pirlo, Aguero, Van Persie, Iniesta, Pirlo, Kagawa, Mata, Xavi. (So many other players are at the same sort of level-Ozil, Kompany, Lewandowski, Silva,, Ya Ya Toure, etc...it makes it so difficult to make a list you're happy with...) As for chelsea 1-Mata 2-Cole 3-Cech 4-Lampard 5-Drogba 6-Terry 7-Sturridge 8-Ramires 9-Ivanovic 10- Mikel

It would finish Torres as Chelsea's number 1 striker. No way around that really. Cavani is better, younger, more confident, and in better form. (And the Torres improved his form under RDM is just nonsense. He had 4 good games under RDM, Benfica, Leicester, QPR, and Villa. The rest of his games where the same lack of production and quality as usual.)

My thoughts as well. This is indicative of a big problem in news in general now. There is so much emphasis on being first that people always jump the gun on stories. Wait 5 minutes and get the story right.

It would be a pretty blatant lie then to call it "the biggest deal". Hazard was better known, more sought after, and more expensive.

It's also the league. The Premier League is the best league in the world and some players have difficulty adjusting. But mostly, it's because players are declining or just not good enough. We just bought Shevchenko when he was declining. He went back to Milan and was ever worse for them . Hard to say Berbatov struggled too much. He's been a disappointment, but he did lead the Premier League in goals a season ago. Crespo did not struggle with us. He scored 20 goals in 49 league games. He just was not comfortable with us. Kezman was a great striker in Holland but was just not good enough to succeed elsewhere and he had a drug problem to boot. etc... Some players succeed in certain systems and not others of course, but if you are a top striker, you should be able to score regardless of the situation. You have to create your own space, your own chances, and your own goals no matter what.

Why? A good striker will play well in a number of different systems. No, Torres is never going to fit into a physical long-ball attack, but we didn't play that last year. We have played 3 different styles in the year and a half that Torres has been at Chelsea and he's been bad at all of them. (And no, he wasn't great under RDM. he played 18 matches under him and had 4 good games). You don't build a team system just to ensure that it fits your striker, you build a team system that fits all your players. If Cavanii costs 60M, he's not worth it, but if Chelsea can get him for 35-40M and can off-load Torres for 20-25M or so, Chelsea would be a much better team for it.

There's no way Cavani would be a second choice striker. He's an elite player and if he's bought by anyone, it will be to lead their attack.

Think it will probably be Ronaldo but I would love it if Leslie Davies won. This list is ridiculous so might as well have fun with it. I was going to start listing problems with the list (Torres is on it, Raul is on it, Lewandowski is not, etc...) but there are way too many to list.

Don't see why. Torres earns, I think, around 175K a week so it's not like 150K is breaking some new barrier. If Chelsea were to get Cavani, it would make sense to sell Torres anyway.

It would be 35M for Cavani which is expensive but reasonable for one of the best strikers in the world.Last year-Aguero went for 28M and Falcao for 40.7M.

If Chelsea get Cavani (a very big if at this point) I think they'd probably sell Torres. Cavani is the type of player who would start 45 games and keeping Torres around to start 15 games would be distracting and expensive (Remember, he also has the highest wages on the club). I'd much rather see what Sturridge can do in a backup roll.

Give me a break. Kaka cost 8.5M Euros and Messi cost nothing. If Chelsea were to spend those amounts on anybody, I wouldn't care. And the difference between Kaka and Oscar? Kaka was named the best player in Brazil before Milan bought him. Oscar's nowhere near that level. He wasn't a candidate for player of the year and he didn't even make team of the year. He was not deemed to be one of the best players in Brazil by people who watch that league and you're trying to argue that he's one of the best players in the world. You're also arguing something entirely different that makes no sense. Your basic argument is "some South Americans can be great, so therefore paying anything can be justified for a South American who might be great". It's nonsense both in fact and in logic. If we went and bought some crappy Northern Irish player for 50M pounds, I could say, "well, how well did George Best turn out"? Just because Kaka turned out to be a fantastic player, doesn't mean that every Brazilian with potential will. Just because a player might have incredible potential, doesn't mean that he's worth 25M. Your example of Villa shows exactly the opposite of what you were trying to say. Real Madrid didn't go after him because they thought he was overpriced, not because he was discounted as you said. Mata was not some cheap find, he was a top young player bought for a good fee of 23.5M. Some people here live in a bubble where spending 20M pounds is nothing. The average Premier League team spent 25M pounds in total last season. There were 3 players in the entire league that were bought for more than 20M pounds. (Aguero, Mata, Nasri). Other clubs are able to get talent, even young talent, even exception young talent for less than 25M pounds.

This is just nonsense. Valencia were in debt and had to sell their players, but you don't think other clubs were willing to pay for Villa, Silva and Mata? You think they gave them away at a discount? That's not the way the transfer market works. They weren't forced to get rid of their entire team in a one week period or something, they were selling one top player a season and lots of teams had tremendous interest in their players. There was no discount. That was just their value and it was fair value. And as I said earlier, having only a year left on your contract, makes your transfer cheaper, but it doesn't cut it in half. You look at someone like Cahill who only had a few months left on his contract and we paid 8M. Does that mean we really paid like 24M pounds for him? Of course not. And Oscar better than Reus? This is the insanity of overrating players based on potential. Reus has been a fantastic player in the Bundesliga for 2 seasons. 29 goals and 17 assists over the past 2 years in one of the best leagues in the world. Most people had him as one of the top 5 players in Germany last season. Oscar wasn't on the team of the season in Brazil. Reus put up better numbers in Germany than Oscar did in Brazil. He was excellent when he played in the Euro with much stiffer competition. (Fighting for spots with guys like Goetze, Podolski, and Mueller.) It doesn't boil down to how much potential you think Oscar has, it boils down to whether you think you should be spending 25M pounds on established excellent young players or on players with a lot of potential. It boils down to whether you think buying youth is more important than buying talent.

So, it looks like a better bargain that the worst transfer spending in history? If you judge anything by what Liverpool did in the last couple of years, it will look great. This is just not true. I have already shown what the cost of players are today. In the last 2 seasons, Mata signed last year for 23.5M. Silva signed or 24M. Kagawa was 17.5M (with only a year left ton contract), Ozil signed for 15M Euros (same contract situation) Ya Ya Toure was 24M. Reus was 17.5M Euros, Ramires for 22M Euros, Etc..All of these players were more established than Oscar and Oscar is going for more than all of them. 25M for a midfielder should get you someone like Mueller or Modric (not for Chelsea because of the bad blood there) not just a promising young player. And "the cost of players today" is pretty much because of us and a few other teams driving up costs in moves like this one. (And Drogba was 26 and a striker and coming off a fantastic season in League 1 and in Europe. Strikers always cost more money.)