TorontoChelsea

Sturridge had a fantastic December but you're right, he started playing worse before AVB got the sack (as you mentioned-after the Spurs game around Christmas). Still, he did play much better under AVB than under RDM (which makes sense because he was moved from RW to RM which was always going to be a horrible fit for him.). Mata is the more interesting case because he was brilliant under AVB but I thought his game took a big dive under RDM. Some of that was probably being tired, but some of it was also the system which relies more on defensive play and counter-attack which is not Mata's strength. This is one of the difficulties the new/old coach will have. How to integrate a system that brings the best out of most of our players when our players are not all meant for the same system. This is why we all want a long-term coach who can be in charge of buying instead of the nonsense we've had over the past few years. .

Lampard was not awful under AVB despite your historical revisionism. He had a poor run of games but then again, so do most players every season. He played 23 games in the PL under AVB and had 9 goals. And come off it. I never said that Lampard isn't going to age, but the idea that he's going to go from being a very good player for us, key to us winning our trophies, to a squad player one in one season, is ridiculous. . I gave the example of Paul Scholes who is 38 and still a good player. Lampard played 49 matches last season. Maybe he can't do that again, but he can be very effective for 35-40 matches which is enough to be our primary creative, deep midfielder.

Exactly, let's take out maybe our best player ever who tied us for first in goals and was third in assists in the league last season and who played better as the season went on and just put make him a squad player. Not because he's not effective but simply because he's 34. Yeah, makes lots of sense.

The entire squad didn't get better. Sturridge was much worse under RDM and Mata was better under AVB as well. Ramires, Lampard, and Mikel improved under RDM. Most of the rest of the players were about the same. Lampard was one of our best players last season. We have to transition him out, but to get a guy to play instead of him next year would be insulting and counter-productive and Ramires and Mikel as our back 2 would be giving up way too much in terms of ball movement and creativity. Lampard played 49 matches last season. Let him rest a little more this season and play in maybe 40 matches to keep him fresh. He'll still be an effective player. (Paul Scholes is 4 years older than Lampard and is still a good player). The idea that we need to replace Lampard immediately is ludicrous. He could easily have 2-3 more seasons as an excellent player. Mikel, I think it depends on the system. In the 4-3-3, he moves the ball a little too slowly. In the 4-2-3-1, he's amazing. Just hi-lights, yet again the problem with doing your transfers without a coach in place.

Weaker by the day? Lampard got better as the season went on and Mikel was excellent in the 4-2-3-1. We'll need someone to replace Lampard eventually, but I can see someone being bought next season and being worked into the lineup.

It's always all about the money. It's actually a little sad because small leagues used to be more competitive. A team like Ajax used to be able to be a dominant force in Europe. It's just not possible any more. The big leagues just swallow up all the talent from everywhere and the big teams swallow up all the talent from the little teams. It's a mixed bag because you get the most talented teams in history now but you also only have about 10-15 sides in Europe who are really good.

The only reason I am banging on about it, is that people like you keep bringing up ridiculous arguments. "Team A beat team B therefore league A is better than league B" is not a logically valid argument because it implies that the team that wins is always from the better league which is nonsense. I am not using random statistics. Go look at the players in the Premiera League. Apart from Porto and Benfica, the league is extremely weak. I am looking at talent. Here is the starting XI for Braga's last match. Quim( Portugal's 4th choice keeper), Coelho (0 caps for Portugal), Echiejele(16 caps for Nigeria) Lopes (1 cap for Portugal), Ewerton (0 caps), Viana ( emergency replacement for the Euros, was not good enough for Newcastle or Valencia who both got rid of him after a year), Custodio (1 cap for Portugal), Amorim (1 cap for Portugal) , Imorou (4 caps for Benin), Mossoro (0 caps for Portugal), and Lima (0 caps for Brazil.) That's the team that came third in the league. Where do you think this team would finish in England? These are not some trick stats, this is not some angle, this is just about talent and the talent of the third place team in Portugal might not even escape relegation in England. This is exactly why it is so hard to judge players who have only had success in Portugal. If you want to see the difference in quality simply, look at one position-keepers. There are 13 keepers who play in England at the Euro.There are 2 who play in Portugal. (And England have international keepers from Belgium, Australia, US, etc...who are not at the Euro as well)

Jesus....Did you even bother reading what I wrote? West Ham are not better than Porto or Benfica and I never said anything like that, but they'd be near the top of the Portuguese League, yes. And Porto and Benfica are absolutely not one of the top clubs in Europe. Where do you think they'd finish if they were in the Premiership? Chelsea has vastly more talent and finished 6th. Portugal doesn't even have the best Portuguese players. In the game against Germany, only 2 of the starting 11 for Portugal actually play in the Portuguese league.

It is vastly inferior to the English league. Braga was the third place team in Portugal and they might be battling for relegation in England. Do they have a single starting international player? Their squad is made up of second-rate Brazilian and Portuguese players. The best players from all over the world go to the Premier League. Even teams struggling will have some internationals. There are internationals from England, France, Spain, Holland, all over Africa and Asia,, etc...The Portuguese League doesn't even have the best Portuguese players. In fact, West Ham had more internationals playing in the Championship than Braga did as the third place team. And Braga had a +30 goal differential which tells you all you need to know about the rest of the league.

Why is everyone so insistent on Chelsea needing a RW? Has everyone become Roy Hodgson and become obsessed with formation discipline? What you need on a squad are roles. Chelsea have Hazard and Mata to create up front and Lampard to create from deeper. Teams don't have or need four players setting up the attack. In fact, that becomes a problem because when you have too many people wanting the ball, it leaves others unhappy. That is, unless you play the Barcelona ball control type of games, but Hulk is not that kind of player anyway. He loves to shoot from distance. People act as if it's a mathematical equation. "We scored 65 goals last season and Torres will be much better so he should double his tally and Hazard should score 10-15 and Hulk should score 15 etc...so we should score 120 goals!!!". Football doesn't work that way. There are a limited number of chances, a limited number of shots available and a limited number of touches. There comes a point when if you keep adding playmakers and keep adding scorers, it makes no difference because they are just taking away touches from other players. I thought Ramires was overrated by many supporters last season, but I actually really like him in this formation because he doesn't have to touch the ball to be successful. If Chelsea had Ramires, Mata, and Hazard behind the striker, Ramires' movement and speed would allow Hazard and Mata to create space and chances for themselves and the striker. And it's not like these players are forced to stick in one position. You let them have freedom with the cover of Lampard and Mikel and the back 4. Mata played all over the pitch last season and Hazard can do the same. If there is space on the right hand side, either one of them can move into that position and let Ramires make his runs up the middle. If you want to play a more attacking 4-3-3, then Sturridge can provide you with another scorer with Lampard, Mata, and Hazard all supporting him and Torres.

That's simply not true on any level. £38M would be one of the highest transfers in history for a anybody and the highest ever for a player who has never played at a top level. More importantly, you are wrong about how teams are built. You know how many teams have spent £38M+ on a single player? Seven. You know how many teams have spent £38M+ on more than one player? One. Just Real Madrid. (and if we get Hulk at that price, us as well.) And the players that Real Madrid bought at those prices? Cristiano Ronaldo, Zidane, Figo, and Kaka (and Ronaldo, just missed the list)-every single one of them had won FIFA player of the year before. Plenty of teams have success without spending ridiculous transfer fees on any one player and no teams have success splashing massive dollars out for unproven players. You look at a smartly run team like Bayern and they got Ribery and Robben for about £40M combined. They don't pay more than £25-30M for anybody ever. ManU, another well run team has only gone over £30 million once and it was a disaster. (Berbatov). Arsenal finished above us in the league and they spent £2.75M on Van Persie, £1M on Song, £10M for Vermalen, £12M for Nasri, etc...Even when they miss when they buy like that like with Arshavin, so what? It's only £15M. We paid that much for Lukaku. And £38M? Hell, we bought Mata for £23.5M last season and he was more sought after. It shouldn't be complicated. You look at a player, you see if he'll fit into the squad (hopefully by discussing it with the manager), you give him an evaluation, you negotiate up until that level. If they ask for more, you don't pay it and go and get someone else.

Not when we're willing to pay Hazard who hasn't played a match at Chelsea or in a top league ever and Torres who has been awful, £170,000+ a week. The problem with wage and transfer inflation is not just with making it impossible for other clubs to compete, it also drives up your own players demands and unhappiness. Is Sturridge worth 40% of Torres?

If you read what I wrote, I said that I have no problem with "liking" another team. In fact, I said that I get that completely. It's supporting another team that makes no sense. If someone asks me who I support, I say "Chelsea" without hesitation. If someone asks me who I prefer in a match between Lazio and Roma, I'll say "Roma" but I don't support Roma. I don't own any Roma gear. I don't go out of my way to watch their matches, in general, I don't care about Roma. I'm not saying that you can't have a rooting interest or anything, but if you are a supporter of Chelsea, then you should support Chelsea.

I have no objection to this thread, I just don't get it. How can you be a fan of another big club and be a fan of Chelsea? I understand supporting your local club if they're small and then also Chelsea. Many fans of smaller clubs also support a larger club. I mean, if you support say Wimbledon, the joy you are going to get of that, is pretty limited. Or, say, you live in Japan or Sweden or wherever and you know your local clubs will have limited success so you can choose a big international team to follow. I also get preferring certain teams in other leagues based on their style of play or if you like a player (or if they have ex-Chelsea players)...But supporting a team like Real Madrid or Bayern or Inter AND supporting Chelsea just makes no sense to me.

I don't think many football games are won by the height of a central or defensive midfielder. You do need some height in central defence and depending on the style you play, the striker, but it's a very minimal advantage if any in midfield. Makalele is 5'7" and probably the best defensive midfielder we've ever had. Didier Deschamps had an incredible career and is 5'8" Dunga might be the best defensive midfielder ever and isn't even 5'10".

Agreed. The second half of the season, he was asked to play both RM and LM which just will never suite Sturridge. He is an attacker with a natural nose for goal. If we sell him, we're idiots. This is exactly the kind of player we need to keep.

Surely, you jest. That list of "brilliant games" is laughably light. He has played 67 games with us, and he's had maybe 7 or 8 games where he has been decent and the vast majority of those were against Championship quality sides. Torres has had four games where he has been a dominant force in a year and a half and those four games were against Genk, Villa, Leicester, and QPR. We're competing with teams that have Aguero, Rooney, and Van Persie...you know strikers who can score regularly, who can create chances and score meaningful goals and we're suppose to get excited because Torres looked good against Genk? Even the list you give is giving him too much credit. Of those 9 games you mention, he didn't even score in 3 of them, had maybe the worst miss in history in another, and got sent off for a stupid tackle in yet another and those are his quality games? The bar for Torres having a "quality game" is so low, that any game where he doesn't suck, gets qualified as "brilliance". He runs around for 65 minutes and people fawn over him. How many goals did Torres get when Chelsea really needed a goal in a year and a half? How many matches did Torres win for us? How many key goals did he get? Umm...It' amazing, utterly amazing, to watch people twist and turn to try to turn an obvious year and a half of incompetence into the exact opposite.

No, the problem is that Torres has been very consistent, it's just that he's been consistently bad. And MOTM? Please...how many games was Torres really the best player on the pitch? Games against VIlla, QPR, Leicester, Genk, and Benfica...In 67 games, that's it.

No, he hasn't. This is exactly the kind of stuff that drives so many of us crazy. A striker's job is to score goals. That's why people pay big money for them. It's the most difficult and most important thing to do in all of football. I would say that scoring is about 90% of what a striker is supposed to do. So, it doesn't matter if a striker is fabulous at everything else (and Torres is not), if he's not scoring, he's not doing his job. It's this attempt to see value when there has been virtually none that drives so many of us crazy. If people said "Torres has been poor, but I think he'll turn it around" some may disagree, but it's a reasonable position but to claim that Torres has been anything but poor to atrocious is living in la la land. It's like Torres is their child and they can see only the good in him. I don't understand how anyone can claim that Torres made a fantastic contribution. I think I can count Torres' contributions to Chelsea on one hand.

Good post in general, but who thinks David Luiz is a legend? Mata has been generally great since joining us, but Luiz has been incredibly inconsistent and quite frankly, pretty mediocre. (I wouldn't call anybody who has been at Chelsea for fewer than a few years a legend anyway). His positioning has been absolutely atrocious for a lot of the time with us and he makes a ton of awful mental mistakes. I don't how many times I yelled at the TV "where is Luiz going" or "stop trying to pass the ball 70 yards every time" or something similar. He played better under RDM because he was more disciplined, so I have hope for him, but if the season were to start tomorrow, I'd go with Cahill and Terry as our top pairing. For me, the people who rate Luiz and rate Torres are fundamentally the same-it's loving someone because of their flair or their persona more than because of their production. (Although, to be fair to Luiz, he has been a lot better/more valuable than Torres.)

I never said everyone thinks like this, but a lot of people do, especially when it comes to players on other teams. Just follow any of Euro matches and you'll see after a good performance "Chelsea should buy him" or after a bad performance "He's crap". Or, look at the transfer rumours when people talk about how fabulous or awful players are. Also, when people talk about our youth team, virtually every single player there is overrated. Most of the actually Chelsea squad is rated fairly accurately by the majority of fans and I'd agree with you that Mikel and Sturridge are both underrated. Overrated and underrated are odd terms because they are based purely on perception. For example, I think Ramires is a good player but I think he's overrated by people who think he's a top-notch player and underrated by people who think he's useless.

This is exactly it. Torres has been one of the worst players at Chelsea since he's been with us. He's been one of the worst strikers in the Premiership. He has been basically useless and that is not hyperbole. Jose Bosingwa was more integral to Chelsea's success than Fernando Torres has been. Yet, all he seems to get from many supporters is excuses or discussions of how he is actually secretly playing really well. Lampard and Cole both had a poor run of games this season and people said "they're done, get rid of them". Lampard and Cole were great for us this overall year and are both Chelsea legends (Lampard has an argument for being the greatest Chelsea player ever). Mikel had a poor few games. Let's get rid of him! Yet, the same people who talk about getting rid of good or even great players for having a few bad games, want to hold on to Torres and build a squad around him despite a year and a half of uselessness. Kalou got incredible stick on Chelsea forums and he was much better than Torres. (Better scoring rate, better defensively, never complained) Hell, Malouda led us in goals two seasons ago and fans hate him. Fans hate Sturridge and he led us in goals in the Premiership. But Torres? He didn't score for 29 games in a row for crying out loud. That's epically awful. Doesn't matter. People still sing his name. They talk about him as if he's a great player. It's as if there are Torres fans and he matters more to them than Chelsea.The Lampard goal that came off the bar is a perfect example of this. These people want to set-up an entire squad just for the benefit of Torres. We have to build a system around Torres. We have to buy players that will help Torres succeed. Torres Torres Torres. It's bordering on insanity.

I'm judging him on a year and a half of being awful. Is that enough time for you?

£35m-£38m is insane. It'd make Hulk one of the highest transfers ever for a player that has never played at a high level. For that price, Hulk has to be scoring 20 goals a year for years. That's the same value as players like Aguero and David Villa who were established stars in Spain for years. As for Hulk's dominance, he actually only scored 9 goals last season during play. He had 7 penalties. Also, whoever Porto makes as their main striking option (and Hulk may have played RW, but he easily led Porto in shot attempts.) will always dominate. Hulk, Falcao, Lisandro Lopez and I guarantee whoever they replace Hulk with will be dominant as well. I have no idea why everyone so adamant that we need a RW. If we play in a 4-3-3, Sturridge is excellent in that system. He was our second best player under AVB. No, he's not a good passer, but we have Lampard, Mata and Hazard to set-up play. You don't need five creative players. If we play a 4-2-3-1, Ramires was very good on the right. Marin could act as cover for both We have Hazard and Mata as creative players. Our biggest weakness last season was our poor form from our strikers. Torres and Drogba combined for 11 goals in the league. You need a number 9 who can score regularly and we don't have that. Also, just because Valencia has/had financial problems, doesn't mean they sold their players on the cheap. Don't you think other teams were interested in Mata and Valencia? There isn't a team in the world that wouldn't love to have those guys. It's not like Chelsea came by and low-balled Valencia for Mata. he was a 23.5M buy. As for who else is available for cheap? I don't know, but there are lots of clubs in financial trouble now. If it's so easy to raid those clubs, why don't we go for that again?

Several years? Try two. three years ago, he had 5 goals. The players of the year in the Portuguese league before Hulk were David Luiz, Bruno Alves, Lisandro Lopez, Simao Sabrosa, and Quaersma and not a single one of the those players is remotely close to being a top-level talent right now so dominating the Portuguese league is hardly a sign of great things to come. It doesn't mean Hulk couldn't be a great player at Chelsea, it just means that paying huge bucks for a player with this little experience against top clubs (and being 26 and not 21) is a massive risk. It's also annoying because it's as if Chelsea don't understand how negotiations work. Chelsea need someone who can score goals. There are dozens of options for them. Instead of saying "let's find the best talent at value", they say "let's get Hulk no matter what" and so will inevitably overpay for him which means there will be extra pressure on him and virtually no chance that he will be good value. It's the same situation with Torres. Instead of saying "we need to replace Drogba so let's find a striker who can do that" Chelsea said "we want Torres" and ridiculously overpaid for him. Chelsea should have had an evaluation on Hulk of around £20-25M and maybe if they really liked him, going up to £30M. David Silva was £24M. Mata was £23.5M and both were more established, played in a better league, and were younger. If Porto wants more, then say "thanks, but no thanks" and go and buy someone who is a better value.