TorontoChelsea

I'm not saying that all of our transfers are bad, we just make too many bad ones of the same type (we seem to be focussed on one player and then overspend to get them ). Marin is an example of what a solid transfer looks like. A young player who has had some success in a top league for 7M pounds. It may not work out, but it was a good buy for value at the time. And trying to get the next world-class player is like playing the lottery-it's just awful transfer policy for a big club because it means while your competitors are going out and spending money for top players, you're paying the same money for players who could be top-level players but probably won't be. How many 20 year old live up to the expectations? Very very few. This is an instructive link from 2007 on who this website thinks the best teenagers in football are -http://soccerlens.com/top-50-most-exciting-teen-footballers-2007/4258/. And these are players, many of whom have already had success. If you buy these types of players, yes, you might get a Sergio Aguero or a Kroos, but you also might get a Kerlon or a Franco Di Santo (Or even a Breno!). I guarantee that the same people who are drooling over 17 year olds with potential now would have been doing the same then. The best of the best of young players still fail a large percentage of the time.(And yes, I am aware that Oscar is not a teenager, but falls into the same "unproven, but has great potential" bracket). In fact, I have to quote a few

I've already said that letting Borini go, doesn't bother me. You can't keep every young player and one of every 50 that you let go will come good, but that wasn't my point (and how it was "very stupid" to mention him, is beyond me). I am mentioning Borini and others to show how cheap young players can be. If Chelsea wanted Borini again, we could get him for 10-12M. And why are comparisons to other teams stupid (a word you seem to like)? Don't we have to compete with other teams to win? What bothers me the most is how every single young player with any talent is automatically going to be some superstar.What bothers me is how people vastly overrate players they don't watch regularly and vastly overrate potential. If you see a player play regularly, even a very good player, you see their flaws. So, small leagues are filled with incredible talent that we need to buy while the Premier League is crap. Walcott is garbage, Nani is crap, Nasri is useless, Sturridge is not good enough, but that 17 year old who had a good season in the Mexican league? He's amazing. Just look at his youtube compilation video! We paid 70M pounds for him? So what? Who cares about money?

Jesus...where did I ever say that "they won't be world- class in the future"? I said they aren't right now and nobody can seriously argue that. In the future, they could all develop splendidly . The problem is, the less proven players are, the more likely they are to flop. You talk about Kagawa as not proven in the PL. It's true, but of the 4 Chelsea players, how many had good seasons in the PL last year? One. And what does "most competitive attack" mean? You think Chelsea have the best attack? I don't get this obsession with youth. Youth, in itself, is not a virtue. Clubs don't win because they're young. Players that are young don't necessarily become great. In fact, the vast majority of them won't. People have this absurd notion that if you buy all young players, they will all become amazing. I'm not worried about Oscar's size. I don't think players need to be big to succeed. I think he's a fine prospect and could very well have a great career (and I certainly hope he does). It's just that we are constantly overpaying for players. There are lots of promising young players. But you know what? Other teams buy these types of players for much much less. Seriously, go and look at any South American player and how much they were bought for to come to Europe, very few of them will be over 6-7M Euros. Hell, even players from other European leagues are cheaper. Liverpool are going after Borini who is a striker in Itali for around 8M pounds. City bought Balotelli, who was a regular striker for the top team in Italy at 19, for 22M Euros. Oscar is very different than Hazard. Hazard was the French player of the year in back to back years. The French League is not the greatest, but it's competitive and winning player of the year at 20 and 21 is incredibly impressive. You have to pay big for someone like Hazard because he is one of the brightest stars in world football. (Also, for those of you who want to replace Milner with Balotelli, the total for Man City goes gets cheaper and gets much more talented.)

First of all, the problem is that we spent 125M and it isn't a world-class forward line. Still, here goes... Chelsea-Torres, Hazard, Oscar, Mata-120-125M Bayern- Robben, Ribery, Gomez, Mueller-80-85M City- Silva, Nasri, Milner, Aguero-110M ManU- Rooney, Nani, Kagawa, Valencia-90M Juventus-Vidal, Pirlo, Marchisio, Pepe, Vucinic, Matri-40-45M (I made it the front 6) Real Madrid-Ronaldo, Ozil, Di Maria, Benzema-130-135M

Ozil was not nothing. He was a terrific player in Germany when Real Madrid bought him. Not only that, but he had a fantastic performance at the World Cup. He was the opposite of a prospect type of player. And even then, Real Madrid spent much less on him than we spent on Oscar.

Because that front four would have cost about 125 million pounds and for that price you should be getting world-class players not just excellent potential. I have no problem with signing young talent, but other teams seem to be able to do that for significantly less money.

I was counting Oscar as well which would bring the total to around 60M. (Hazard 32, Marin 8, Oscar 20) Liverpool got Caroll a year and a half ago, not last year. And Hazard and Marin cost 40M between them, not 48 and only 5 teams spent that much last year..

Because Chelsea are already at around 60M pounds spent this transfer period and are certainly going to go for a RB as well. Right now, we've already spent more than any club last season except City and us. And you can't compare Oscar to Modric. Modric is a top player in the Premier League and has been for years. He is an established top-notch player at the top level. His chances of being an excellent player at any club are about 97%. He'd immediately become one of our best players (40M is still too steep though)l. Oscar is still mostly potential. Is he ready to come in and play immediately? I don't know. The record for Brazilians in the Premier League is pretty spotty and while he has excellent upside, there is also a lot of downside.

What do you think you're doing using facts and statistics when analysing a player? Madness!!!

Winning a corner doesn't give you credit for the goal that comes from that corner any more than making a pass that leads to someone winning the corner that leads to a goal does. It's not like winning a penalty or something. And the goal against Barca was great, but there was a 1:15 left in extra time when he scored it. Had he just run around in circles with the ball, Chelsea would have gone through. Even if he had missed the net, Chelsea would have 99% gone through. Agree with the Skipper, if you want to discuss this, best to do it on the Sturridge thread.

Exactly...and even more than that, wait until he plays 5-10 games or so to judge him. I hate the "he had a bad first game, so he's crap" or "he had a great first game, so he's a world-class player".

If your'e going to score 30 goals, you're going to have a lot of easy ones in there, but most teams aren't as creative as Arsenal and their strikers still manage to score. Peter Crouch got 10 goals last season for Stoke. Demba Ba scored 16 for Newcastle. etc...I'm not upset that none of our strikers scored 30 goals, on the team we had, that would have been impossible, it's that they scored 11 combined. You have to create your own chances to score and our strikers almost never did. If you are going to rely entirely on fabulous service, you're just not good enough for the top level. Plenty of players can score if they are given great service, what makes a top striker great is the ability to create their own chances and take them. It looks like the fee will be 25M Euros which is a lot better than 25M pounds. Still very expensive, but more in the realm of reasonable.

They don't score easy tap-ins every week and even when they do, a lot of that is down to excellent positioning. When their teams are attacking, top strikers find themselves space and react quickly. Our strikers didn't. Positioning is a skill as well. Obviously, we needed to get more creative and Hazard helped, but strikers have to score goals. 11 goals in a season is just pathetic.

The Olympics can really bring a young player out into the spotlight if they were unknown before (even that is rare), but someone like Hulk? Even if he dominates, it won't make a difference. Brazil is playing Egypt, Belarus, and New Zealand in the opening round. Doing well against the under-23s of these countries is to be expected for a pretty stacked Brazilian side.

Why? I know this is a popular opinion, but I thought Mata was actually better out wide than he was under RDM. He was definitely not as effective in the second half although some of that may have been being tired. The real problem under AVB is that he had to be on the ball too much which was incredibly demanding. Adding Hazard changes that. I'm not pushing for Mata to be moved back outside, I just don't think it's a big deal if a system makes him as he can be effective there as well. (Also, as we saw last year, he is hardly a static player, sticking to his lanes. I would give Hazard and Mata a lot of freedom to cut across the field no matter where they start off playing.)

Our main problem last year is that our strikers scored a combined 11 goals in the league. It's about a third of what they should be scoring. Some of that was due to having only two creative midfielders in Lampard and Mata but most of it was due to the poor form of our strikers. We got Hazard to fill the creative role, but losing Drogba makes our strikers even worse. Going into the transfer period, we needed a creative midfielder, a striker who can score regularly, and a backup RB. The Oscar signing, if it happens, really makes little sense. That's probably the position where we have the most depth as well as our best youth players and the price seems insane for a player who hasn't played in Europe yet.

You're joking, right? Sturridge was our second best player in the first half of the season. He scored 9 goals in 19 starts as a RW in the league. He came up big in big games against City and Spurs and others... Torres did nothing at all of any importance.. This stuff drives me crazy. Yes, I know, Torres ran around a lot and wore a headband and did all sorts of secret stuff to help Chelsea and that is much more important than actually producing yada yada yada.

But it's a horrible way to run a transfer policy. Paying huge money because the player might be amazing in two years and cost more? You don't need to buy every single player. You fill needs and if you have needs next year, you fill them. You are always going to miss out on star players because there are hundreds of teams out there. There are dozens of great young players and some of them will become stars and some will be massive disappointments. (Remember Freddy Adu? Javier Saviola? etc???) You can't buy them all. I think what happened here is that Spurs made an offer and Internacional told Chelsea about it and Chelsea just overpaid for him to keep him away from Spurs. Looks like a great young talent but the price is ridiculous. (if true)

Daily Mail has it as 25M pounds which would be an astounding fee. Again, nothing confirmed, so we'll have to see.

Wow...I like this kid, he's got great potential, but 25M for an unproven midfielder with 1 season under his belt in Brazil? That's more than Mata or David Silva or Ya Ya Toure if the number is true which is just crazy. That means Chelsea had better believe that he's ready to play a starring role immediately.

Damn, that would have saved me some time! Obviously, the definitions are somewhat loose but no matter what the conclusions will be the pretty much the same. (Frank Lampard is always a legend!!)

Well, then there comes a dispute about what a game winning goal is. It can either be defined as the goal that puts the team in front for good (which Torres' goal did in this case) or the goal that would have been the difference in the final score (which was Ramires in this case.) To me, the stat in this sort of case is basically semantics. Who cares who scored the first or second goal in a 4-1 win? A real game winning goal is scoring the decisive goal in a close match. Scoring the only goal in a 1-0 game, scoring a late goal to put you ahead 2-1, that sort of thing. Also, tying goals are incredibly important, a late goal to give you a point is vital. And no, Torres hasn't scored a real winning or tying goal with Chelsea. I'll have a look at the goals I consider important winning and tying goals. In the league: Winning goals (goals that put Chelsea from level to winning for good in close games so going up 2-1 late, but not going up 2-0 and then conceding a goal.) Malouda (Late winner against WBA), Lampard (Scored winner in 82nd minute against Norwich), Lampard (only goal against Blackburn), Lampard (89th minute winner against Wolves) ,Lampard (only goal against Sunderland), Lampard (Winner on penalty against City), Drogba (only goal against Stoke), Ivanovic (83rd minute winner against Villa), Mata (only goal against QPR), Mata (90th minute winner against Wigan), Drogba (1-0 goal against Newcastle which stayed that way until 89th minute) Tying goals (goals that put Chelsea from down to level for good) Sturridge (tying goal against Spurs), Neil Taylor (OG off of, what I think was a Bosingwa cross, Swansea 1-1) In other comps (Considering the CL knockouts over 2 legs): Winners: Luiz (Leverkusen won 2-0 but were up 1-0 until the 90th), Mata (1-0, QPR-FA Cup), Sturridge (extra time winner against Everton in CC), Ivanovic (Napoli aggregate win), Kalou (1-0 Benfica), Drogba, (Barcelona), Ramires (Barcelona, put us ahead on aggregate and gave us away goal) Tying goals: Sturridge (1-1 Birmingham FA Cup), Drogba (Bayern) It's possible I missed a game or two and it's possible to disagree with my definition of winning goal, but I do think it's interesting...(Frank Lampard=Legend! Five winning goals in the league and even if you take away the two that were penalties, he still had more than any other player.) And no...Torres didn't score a single one of these goals.

The answer is 1 against Swansea (where he later got sent off). As for games we wouldn't have won without Torres? I think probably the Benfica game where he assisted Kalou and generally played very well. The Barcelona goal sealed it and was Torres' best moment with Chelsea, but he could have walked to the corner with the ball and stood there and we still would have gone through. Other than that, his goals were in games where we either lost (ManU) or easily beat a poor opposition.

Van Persie, Rooney, and Aguero scored, respectively, 30, 27, and 23 goals in the league. That's what you need from your striker.

That's not true. Cavani had been a very good striker with Palermo the previous two seasons. You have to remember that Seria A scores are much lower. The best teams are scoring 65-70 goals a season. In England, the top teams are scoring 90 or so. That means that there are many fewer goals in Italy so getting 13-15 goals even as a striker is pretty good. Cavani was 3rd in the Seria A in goals last season, 2nd the year before, 10th the year before, and tied for 7th, four seasons ago. That's 4 straight seasons of being a top-10 scorer in Seria A since he was 21. I very highly doubt Chelsea are going to buy Cavani because Napoli don't want to sell him, but he's a fantastic striker with an excellent record. (And calling his last two years "decent" is patently absurd. He's scored 49 goals over that period, the only player in Seria A to score more has been Di Nitale. He's also been excellent n the UCL, he scored 5 goals in 8 games and not against Genk either, he scored 4 goals in 4 matches against Man City and Chelsea. He hasn't been decent, he's been fabulous.)