TorontoChelsea

I agree but we actually did a decent job of that last year working both Romeu and Bertrand into the rotation. We should be trying to do the same sort of thing every year if possible (getting youngsters 15-20 games a year) .

Yes, but we have literally dozens of these players coming and going. Everyone wants to harp on the one or two players we let go that make something of themselves, but they are a small, small percentage of the youth players we have. Remember Ben Sahar, Jimmy Smith, Frank Nouble, Morton Nielson, Lee Sawyer, Shaun Cummings, and Tom Taiwo? Well, they were all youth players Chelsea sold or released just in 2009/2010. Every season is like that. You don't know which players are going to develop before-hand. A very very small percentage of youth players will make an impact and you have to move on from most of them. Obviously, they should not be selling Josh or anything and we should be trying to get more out of our young players, but they are a crap-shoot and I can't fault Chelsea for letting unproven younger players go.

Watched it again, you're right, it just took him a while to get there.

That's what I thought to and this always annoys me. His reaction should have been to go over to him and celebrate together or at least point at him to acknowledge Walcott's work. When you've scored a goal that is all you, you can run around like an idiot, but when your team-mate puts the goal on a platter for you, you have to show some gratitude.

No, because it's a combination of quality and quantity. Cole is world-class and Mcreadie was not even close. I think that Carvalho was probably better than Terry when he played, but just and it is certainly not clear cut. There is something in the moneyball world of statistics that applies across every sport that can help explain player value. It's called WAR or Wins Above Replacement. In others words, if you replaced a certain player with a league average player, how many wins would that cost you or give you. So, lets's say that Terry was worth 3 wins/per 38 games over a replacement player. That would mean that he'd have given Chelsea about 30 wins over the course of his career. In order for Carvalho to have the same value as Terry for their career's, he would have had be worth around 8.5 wins/38games for Chelsea. You can argue that Carvalho was better than Terry, but you can't argue he was 3 times better. Being an average player for a long time is of little value to a club, but Terry has been one of the best defenders in the world for a decade.

Agree that Moses isn't mediocre, but the 4 in, 4 out theory, doesn't quite work. Malouda, Kalou, and Anelka combined for 43 starts in all competitions last season so Hazard will basically be taking the place of all three of those players (if Malouda leaves) and Chelsea have also added Marin on top of that. That really just leaves a replacement for Drogba.

We're talking about overall career, so you absolutely have to talk about total games. Carvalho was fantastic, but he played the equivalent of only 3.5 seasons in the Premier League. Terry has played almost 10. Longevity matters a great deal.

Walcott has never hit double digits in goals? So what? How does that speak volumes? Are you saying that any winger who does not hit double digits in goals by 23 is shit? You know how many wingers get double digits in goals a season? A couple maybe? Last season, only Sturridge did and he got 11. Double digit goals is not the threshold of a shit winger, it's the threshold of the best scoring wingers in the Premier League. None of Cole, Robben, or Duff ever hit double digits in goals. None of Bale, Nani, or Ashley Young have hit double digits, etc...It's like saying some 23-year old is a crap striker because they've never had 25 goals in a season. You said "Walcott can't score" which is categorically wrong and unlike a debate about who the best defensive midfielder or keeper is or who the best tackler is, you can decide scoring ability very easily and objectively. It's simple. Walcott has 17 goals in the last 2 seasons in the Premier League and is tied for the highest scoring winger in the Premier League in that period. In other words, no winger in English football has scored more than Walcott over the past two seasons. How can you say "he can't score" when he has been THE BEST scorer at his position? And yes, he scored against Blackpool, but he also scored against Chelsea (4 goals in 6 starts against us in his career), ManU, Spurs, Newcastle, etc... (not to mention scoring and playing brilliantly against Barcelona- Messi said that he was one of the most dangerous players he'd ever played against) so it's not like his goals have all been bottom-feeding. Walcott is a weird case because when he came into the league he was so over-hyped and overrated, he has since become underrated. People thought he was going to be a superstar but when they saw him play thought "really fast, has some good games but is too inconsistent and doesn't get results" and have never changed that opinion despite Walcott evolving and improving his game (improvement was not surprising given his age) (And Anelka was not a full-time winger until recently. He was starting as the central striker in 08/09 (at least until Hiddink came) and then he moved mostly to the wing in 09/10 but still started plenty of games at striker because Drogba went away to the African Cup. So, yes, he scored 19 goals in 08/09 but he was our primary striker, and he scored 11 goals in 09/10 but he scored 5 of them when he was playing striker. He scored 6 goals last season as a full-time winger.)

You're counting stats from years ago. No, Walcott couldn't score when he was 18 or 19, but he has 17 (non-penalty) goals in the last two seasons in the Premier League. That's fabulous for a winger. You know how many Chelsea players have done that? Just Sturridge. Walcott has scored more goals than Drogba, Torres, or anyone else in the same time frame and he's a winger and not the target man, the penalty taker, or the guy who takes free kicks for Arsenal. He's scored more goals than Garreth Bale or David Silva over the past two years. The only winger that has as many goals as Walcott over the past two seasons is Nani. You can't say "he can't score" when he objectively can. (And the reason I use Premier League stats when possible is that it's a level playing field of comparison. Everyone plays against the same teams. The "all competitions" can be fine, but it can also be misleading. You look at say Torres and compare him to Walcott and say, well, they both had 11 goals in all competitions even though Walcott had 9-6 lead in the Premier League so they had similar scoring seasons. Well, Arsenal, like most teams, sit their starters against poor squads so Walcott started exactly 1 FA cup match and no Carling Cup matches all season and Torres started 5 FA Cup games and a Carling Cup match. Arsenal didn't quite have a Genk in their group, but the worst team they faced was Olympiakos and Walcott didn't play against them at all. So, Walcott's "all competitions" were much much tougher than Torres' who was scoring the bulk of his goals in the types of games that Walcott was rested in while Torres was sitting in the tough games. So, you're comparing one player playing Genk and Leicester and Birmingham to the other playing AC Milan, Marseilles, and Dortmund. It's not remotely comparable whereas if you're playing 30 games in the Premier League, you're going to be playing most of the same teams.

Can't score? He has more non-penalty goals than anyone on our squad except Sturridge last season. And James McCarthy? He's a central midfielder and not near the difference-maker Walcott is. I like Moses and Hoilett but Walcott is only a year and a year and a half older than they are and has accomplished much more. I'm not saying that we should go out and sign Walcott, just that he's terrific player.

One call per half would slow the game down enormously. The referee has to go over to the bench, find out exactly what the play in question was, go to a monitor and review it or call someone in a booth and have them review it, wait around as they watch about 50 replays to get it right and then explain the decision to both managers and then re-start the game. It would take at least a minute of standing around and looking at replays every half. Nobody wants that. The goal-line thing will be very quick and very rare. Also, for many situations where you'd want to challenge, you can reverse it only one way which is unfair. For example, if offside is not called and a goal is disputed and they can go back and overturn the goal but what about when offside is called incorrectly. You can't say "OK, so you go back to be running behind the defender with the ball, and this defender has to be 15 feet to the left with his body turned". Once the whistle goes, the play is over. You can't use replays to take away goals but not to give them.Also, what id someone challenges a play that led to a goal being scored 7 minutes later. The NFL is a series of individual plays so you can challenge them. Football is different, one play flows into another.

Walcott is a very good player and is underrated by those who think he's the same player he was a few years ago. He has developed his overall game well and his passing game has improved enormously. He had 8 goals an 11 assists last season in the Premier League and 9 goals and 7 assists the previous season. The only Chelsea player to be involved in 19 goals was Mata. PPI had him ranked as the 8th best player in the Premier League for last season. He is still not as consistent as you'd like, but you also have to remember that he's still only 23. .

It's not the NFL. The NFL has lots of stops and starts, so it's fine. Football doesn't so it doesn't work at all. I am fine with this as long as they don't extend it. Bad offside decisions effect goals much more frequently than bad goal-line calls, but I just don't want to see every single off-side call reviewed. It would be so dull.

Torres' failure shows how risky it is to spend enormously on any one player even if they are proven. The difference between Hazard and Hulk is in their ages. Hazard is 4.5 years younger which is an enormous difference. If Hazard were 26, nobody would have paid anything close to what we paid for him.

Carvalho was fantastic but I think people forget how often he was hurt. He only played more than 40 games once in 6 seasons. By comparison, Terry has played more than 40 games 9 times. If you're talking about the best of the best, you have to not only look at quality but at quantity and Carvalho only played 135 games in the Premier League. Terry has played 373,

I thought we actually did need the signing but then he got hurt and missed the year and then AVB wanted Meireles instead so we got Meireles and then we didn't need Benayoun. He's an absolutely fine squad player-can come off the bench and make an impact and start occasionally but we are kind of full at midfield at the moment so unless Chelsea sell someone else, don't see any room for Benayoun.

Not sure...who is Spurs' striker? Arsenal still have Song, Arteta, Wilshire, Walcott,Giroud, Podolski, Oxlade-Chamberlin, Gervinho, etc...for midfield and attack. I'd prefer RVP gets sold to Italy because it's better for Chelsea if he's not in the Premier League. The worst thing would be a sale to City-it's that's the kind of ridiculous overspending that drives me crazy. They have Balotelli and Aguero up front (with Dzeko and Tevez still under contract) They don't need another world-class striker. But they'll probably be willing to pay some ridiculous fee and get him.

I think you are exaggerating the youth of the team. Witsel is 23, Fellaini is 24, Dembele is 24. Kompany is 26, Vermaelen is 26. Lukaku is very young and Hazard is only 21 but that's it for extremely young players. 23-24 is an age where many top players have already started to establish themselves. Look at Spain. Alba is 23, Mata is 24, Sergio is 23, Pedro is 24, Fabergas is 25, Pique is 25. (Yes, I know they have older, superstar players, but I am simply saying that 23 or 24 is old enough where you should be producing results. Anyway, this has gotten off topic.I just think that the talent of a player like Witsel is being massively overstated.

Don't think RVP is a perfect fit at Chelsea because he'll be 29 in August, but for those saying "we don't need him", he is pretty much exactly what we need. Chelsea's biggest problem last season was that our strikers scored 11 goals in the league. Van Persie scored 30. Torres has scored 21 goals in 93 games in the last two seasons with Chelsea and Liverpool Van Persie has scored 59 in 81. Before that, he scored less because was playing as a number 10 behind Adabayor and Henry. RVP has been one of the best strikers in the world since he's moved into that role.

Spain played the Euro without a striker and won! I generally agree with you that Belgian players were younger then and so on, but even so, I have a very difficult time believing that this group of Belgian players are all stars. This is nothing against Belgians, they have a young and exciting squad, it's just the fact that people almost always overrated players that they hardly ever see.

Spain was very different. Everyone knew Spain was incredibly talented and their national team players were excellent and pretty much all playing at a high level. The problem was that they were always falling apart and under-performing. These were teams filled with fabulous players. Raul, Hierrro, Zubbizaratta, Guardiola etc..They were also making tournaments and doing OK in them but just not winning. They got to the quarter-finals in the World Cup in 86, 94, and 02. They got to the quarter finals in the Euro in 96 and 00. Belgium has not even qualified for their last 5 attempts at the Euro and World Cup. Belgium is currently the 53rd ranked team in the world. It's like comparing England (disappointing, often advance past the group stage, but never win) to Scotland (almost never get in.) Also,this generation of players generally first started playing regularly for Spain around 2004 and really became the core of the squad in 2006 when they made it to the round of 16 in the World Cup. The disappointments belonged to a different generation. On the other hand, it was this generation of Belgian players that finished third in qualifying. It was Fellaini, Hazard, Dembele, Witsel, etc... My point is that if these Belgian players were all as good as people said they were, they would be cruising through the group stages of the Euro tournament. England won their group and the team was quite poor. I bet if you asked people here who had a more talented squad, many, if not most people would say Belgium but it's not true. I think a lot of this is the tendency to overrate players that we don't see as much which is something that happens constantly when assessing transfers. Now, I think Belgium is likely to make the World Cup. Their qualifying group is very easy and they should be improving, but this past qualifying for the Euro has all of these supposed excellent players and they finished with something like the 22nd best record in qualifying. This is not slight on Witsel or on any particular player for Belgium, just that I can't believe that all these players are great.

Haven't seen much of him but I'm starting to get pretty sceptical that all these Belgians are as good as advertised.

How has this not been dragging on too long already? We were first linked with him when AVB came and it hasn't stopped since. If Porto want more money than Chelsea feel he's worth, then just move on. (and 38M is ridiculously overpriced.)

The two Manchester Clubs for sure are the best bets, but if Arsenal manage to keep Van Persie and sign a defender, they could be difficult to beat. They were absolutely decimated by injuries last season (so were United, but City has no serious injuries) but have enormous talent in midfield and attack. Spurs are not a pushover either, but their lack of a CL spot will really hurt them. I wouldn't take any of those teams for granted. Newcastle got a little lucky last season (goal differential of +5 was actually worse than Liverpool's) and should be bunched with Liverpool and Everton behind the top-5.

Absolutely agree but then again I think that pretty much no young players are going to make it. Chelsea have probably had at least 50 highly-touted young players in the last 20 years and only one has become a world-class player, good enough to start for Chelsea (Terry) and only a few have ever contributed at all at a top level. (Huth, Carlton Cole, Jody Morris). Predicting success from academy players is a fool's game.