TorontoChelsea

What makes Hulk a "world-class" player? I hate the term because it's so subjective, but you simply can't call a player world class based on 2 very good years in the Portuguese league and nothing else. He's had minimal success in the UCL and with Brazil. Is Oscar Cardoza a world class player? He's had more success in Portugal, in Europe, and for his country than Hulk has. Now, Hulk has the skills to go to a better league and be a world class player, but he's not there yet.

Don't think we need another RW. If we play the 4-2-3-1, what's wrong with Ramires on the right with Marin as cover? If we play the 4-3-3, Sturridge excelled in that system and Marin can play there was well. We would need another striker though.

I love statistics but you're right, you can only compare like versus like. I particularly like the EA PPI as it takes into account so many different statistics, but even that is flawed. I think Hazard is a better fit for Chelsea as he can give creative width which Chelsea have been lacking and Kagawa actually makes more sense for ManU because he is a central player which is what they need. We'll check back in a couple of years to see how they've performed. (Although, I am sure there will be a game by game overreaction..."Hazard had a poor game, he sucks. Hazard scored, greatest player in the world!", and so on...)

But Meireles can play behind the striker. I agree Piazon won't be on the first team and Malouda might be sold, but it doesn't matter. Kakuta was going to have a hard time getting into games and that was before Chelsea bought Hazard and probably Hulk. If Chelsea play a 4-2-3-1, the 3 would be Hazard, Mata, and Hulk. That means, even if Malouda and Benayoun get sold, Ramires, Marin, Meireles, and Sturridge would all be ahead of Kakuta as cover. At best, that makes Kakuta 5th among backups which means he wouldn't even get time on the Chelsea bench. (Which would be, even saying Chelsea get rid of Malouda and Benayoun: 7 of Turnbull, Luiz/Cahill, new RB, Bertrand, Sturridge, Marin, Ramires, Meirieles ,Essien, Romeu, Lukaku.) If I thought that McEachran or Kakuta or Piazon would get semi-regular playing time, I'd be all for keeping them at the club, but they are so far down the pecking order, that they'd never play except as subs in the 87th minute in games that were already out of hand.

Athletico paid €40-47 million for Falcao last season (depending on what bonuses they had to pay) so they're hardly going to sell him for a loss. Would vastly prefer him over Hulk, but I think we need to be looking for better bargains in general instead of just going after big names and spending as much as the other club wants.

I hate this "mercenary" stuff. Every single player is a mercenary. Why do Hazard and Hulk want to come to Chelsea? Because of their deep love for the club? Footballers are people, and any of us would go to a job that paid us the most and gave us the best opportunity.

We have Hazard, Mata, Hulk, Sturridge, Malouda, Marin, Meireles, Benayoun, Ramires, likely De Bruyne, and maybe even Piazon all ahead of Kakuta just at these positions. We'd have to sell Malouda and Benayoun and let De Bruyne and Piazon go on loan just for Kakuta to be the 8th choice winger/attacking midfielder on the squad. He'll go out on loan or he'll sit even more than Lukaku did this season..

Kakuta? He's going on loan next season. Chelsea have Mata, Hazard, Marin, and Malouda who can play LW so even if Malouda goes (which is likely), no playing time available for Kakuta. It's one thing I would really like to see change at Chelsea, and that is letting young players have some role on the bench. I realise that you have to have experienced depth, but Chelsea play a lot of games, and I would like to see a roll like Malouda or Essien's last season going to a younger player... but it won't. As for this thread, it's crazy . Benayoun shouldn't have been loaned this season and should have just played instead of buying Meireles. Beyanoun is actually quite a decent squad player. Being on loan is difficult for a player. He has to be loyal to the club he's playing with and that's Arsenal, what's he supposed to do, not try? And as for congratulating Liverpool, he played there for 3 seasons and probably has friends there. If a player were with Chelsea for 3 seasons and then moved on elsewhere and tweeted "best of luck to Chelsea on their new manager" or whatever, we'd all treat him like he's pure class. Lay off him already, the level of vitriol is ridiculous.

Agreed. It was awful to watch every single game and have it revolve around "will Torres score"? for months. Then it's "what's wrong with Torres" and then "Torres looks like he's finally coming around" and then "what''s wrong with Torres again". Then, other players feel they need to talk Torres up and the manager has to say how much he still believes in him. Then the fans feel they need to defend him so they talk about how well he worked down the wings and how he's so close to bursting out again or how he just needs a different style of play. He obviously deserves most of the blame because he has performed poorly, but there are also such ridiculous expectations when you spend that kind of money on a player. He was never going to be worth £50M maybe only a few players in the world are, so, in a way, there was no way the signing could ever have really worked out.The whole thing is distracting and the only way it will ever stop being distracting is if Torres starts scoring 25-30 goals a year which just isn't going to happen.

I was talking about Modric who would seemingly replace Lampard. Lampard is injured for the Euros, not for next season and as I wrote in the previous post, he was effective in 49 matches last season (16 goals, 10 assists, some excellent defensive efforts). It's not like he can only play 15 matches a season or anything. We have enough depth and talent in midfield as is.

And even then, what would that do, push Lampard to the bench? Lampard was one of our best players last season and he played in 49 matches. Maybe we only play him in 40 this season or something to keep him fresh, but when he does play, he brings a real quality to the team. EA PPI had Lampard as the 21st best player in the Premiership last season. There becomes a point when buying players loses a lot of value because they are replacing players who are already good. Replacing Kalou brings a lot of value because Kalou was a middling player for Chelsea. There's very little value in spending money to replace your better players. You have to you spend £ 35M to get £2M worth of improvement. It's just not worth it.

We have enough midfielder/wingers since getting Hazard and (seemingly) Hulk. , If that's the case, for 5 spots, we have Mata, Hazard, Hulk, Lampard, Ramires, Mikel, Sturridge, Romeu, Meireles, Essien, Malouda, and Benayoun and that's without considering McEachran, De Bruyne, and Piazon. I assume the starting 5 in a 4-2-3-1 would be Mikel, Lampard, Hulk, Hazard, and Mata leaving Ramires, Sturridge, Meireles, etc...as depth. We don't need any more midfielders.

They have Jelavic who has excellent and they like Anichebe as a sub. Not saying Lukaku couldn't get playing time there or on another decent side, it's just more difficult. The worse the side, the more game time he's going to get. I'd rather him play 25 games at Reading than 15, half as a sub, at Everton.

The problem is that the better the team the less likely he is to play. Look at what happened with Josh last season. He just needs to play fairly regularly and a team in the bottom third of the league will give him the best opportunity to do so.

You do need to have some creativity from a deeper position. This was one of the big problems for Chelsea last season. You need to get the ball from the defence to the attackers by passing. If you get the ball to Mata when he's running back for it near midfield, it's hard for him to create anything. You want to be able to hit a player going forward and to be able to hit different attacking players so the opposing defence is uncertain of how you are attacking. You need to find the proper player for the role. I like Ramires for this Chelsea squad because in a squad of players that need to touch the ball a lot, it is very useful to have a player who can contribute without needing touches. His speed creates space for other players which is fabulous. However, he simply is not the type of player you want setting up your offense. He has 1 or 2 assists (Wikipedia and Soccernet disagree about the total) in 56 Premiership games at Chelsea. He just isn't a very good passer nor does he have very good vision for creating plays. (He has very good timing on when to make runs though.)

I agree although I'd also say that buying a young player for cheap and watching them develop into an excellent player or buying an unknown and watching them excel are excellent.

I doubt Bertrand plays any midfield this season. He played one game as defensive cover in an extreme defensive formation. It's just not his position. Also, we really need Lampard to be in the defensive midfield. Mikel is excellent defensively and Ramires is good, but neither is good at ball movement or is particularly creative and you need to bridge the gap between the defenders and the attackers. Otherwise, you have the attackers coming back too deep to receive the ball.

Agreed.A loan would do him a world of good. Stoke makes the most sense. (They wanted him last year)..Also, why is it that every video seems to come with the worst music? I just want to watch a player, I don't want to dance while I'm watching.

Lukaku should probably go on loan. We used only 2 strikers all of last season and we have 2 or 3 players ahead of Lukaku right now. It was actually quite wasteful of Chelsea to bring him to the Bridge last season. They should have done the De Bruyne thing (loan him back to his club so he can play.) He has some incredible physical skills but he needs to play to develop. Stoke makes sense as they wanted him last season and they play a physical style which I think would suite his development.

I just hope he plays.I have a feeling Chelsea are going to go out and buy another striker which will bury Sturridge completely. We talk about developing Josh or Piazon or whomever, but if we can't even give opportunities to our leading goal scorer, what chance does any young player have to develop?

Except Sturridge's selfishness also helped. People talk about selfishness as purely a negative trait and for a striker it absolutely is both negative and positive. There is no top striker in the world who isn't always looking to shoot. Sturridge carried us in December when neither Drogba or Torres could score and he created goals out of nothing a number of times. While I don't particularly like selfishness, I'll take selfishness and production over work-rate and a complete lack of productivity every time.The amount that fans seem to value work-rate is so disproportionate to how beneficial it actually is to the team. The truth is that Sturridge while being selfish actually did much more for the team than Torres did while being a "team player". Then, if you claim that it' all about work-rate, you can then compare Kalou to Torres it also doesn't make sense. Kalou had a fabulous work-rate and never complained even when he was benched by AVB and was very solid defensively and had a better scoring record than Torres and yet many fans just loathed him. (And yes, I do understand why people were frustrated with Sturridge, I was too, but the negativity around him is ridiculous. He's 22 and led the team in goals. That should be something as a club we try to build on.)

I find this baffling. Sturridge has never complained publicly. He has said that his preferred position was as a central striker and he'd rather be playing there. He never said "I hate playing RW" or "why do they make me play out of position"?Even when RDM came in and made put him in the midfield which was never going to work, he didn't publicly complain. What is most amazing about this to me is the insane difference between the way fans treat Sturridge and Torres. Torres has publicly complained. Within hours of winning the CL, he was whining. Early in the season, he complained that Chelsea weren't moving the ball quickly enough for him. He sulks when he's on the bench. Yet, fans don't care. Sturridge is young, led us in goals, and fans boo him and say that we should sell him. Torres is our most expensive player and has contributed virtually nothing in a year and a half yet fans sing his name. Yes, I get why Sturridge is frustrating, he is selfish and he has to learn discipline, but he's 22 and was our second best player in the first half of the season. Sturridge scored 5 match winning goals last season. Torres had none. As I said...baffling.

He won't be deployed at all. He's going to go on loan. It's best for everyone that he gets regular playing time and that won't happen at Chelsea right now.

About two months too early to even make proper predictions.

True, but for £8m, he's not a bad buy. (not going to get a great all-around young RB for anything that cheap) We need cover for Ivanovic especially with terry likely to be suspended. Our lack of depth on the defence this year was really evident. It's also quite possible that he'll improve. Defensive positioning is something players can work on.