TorontoChelsea

Not necessarily true. We'll obviously see if/when the deal goes down, but some of these deals involve a fee that rises with performance and some don't .

A little odd considering Chelsea have two pretty good LB prospects in Bertrand and Van Aanholt, but I suppose you can never have enough depth and potential. Agree with Joker that 4m seems steep for an unproven teenage LB. Jordi Alba just went for 11M and he's one of the best LBs in the world. I guess Chelsea must think very highly of him.

Neither did Lampard.

I wish AVB luck with Spurs (of course, we will still finish above them). He is likely a fine coach, but he was not the right coach for Chelsea and deserved to be sacked. My guess is that he learned a lot from his time at Chelsea and won't repeat the same mistakes.

You're right. There is nothing he could have done at the Euros to make me think that he's suddenly become a great player for Chelsea. I don't care about Spain, I care about Chelsea and he's been bad for a year and a half with us. Playing well in a couple of games for Spain is not going to change that. Playing brilliantly for an entire tournament wouldn't change that. Reading some of these posts it's as if people think that getting 3 goals for Spain suddenly wipes out being bad for a season and a half or that it is is a better indicator of future performance that what he's done so far. Torres needs to be scoring 25-35 goals a season (in all competitions) in order to deserve to be the starting striker for a top club. The bottom line is that the only thing that will prove that Torres deserves to be a regular striker for Chelsea is him scoring regularly for Chelsea. So far, he has only proven the opposite. It looks like he'll get another chance again this year and we all hope he does well, but my doubts are not based on some irrational hatred, it's based purely on his play with us so far.

Maybe not more, but definitely as much and with less cause. When Lampard had a bad patch this season, half the fans wanted him gone and nobody was saying "oh, he's secretly playing great, you just can't tell" or "It's everyone else on the team's fault".. I love Lampard, but he had a very poor stretch. It happens. When Cole and Cech had a few screw-ups early in the year, nobody denied that they made some horrible plays. Do you think that there would be a single other player at Chelsea who could be useless for a year and a half and still get his name sung?

It shouldn't be "Torres is shit" based on a bad game or two either. The difference though is that Torres actually has been shit for us so a bad game just seems like a continuation of that whereas a good game seems meaningless. What so many of us find frustrating is that Torres has been one of Chelsea's worst players and still gets more love than anyone. Take someone like Malouda- He averaged 9 goals and 9 assists over 5 years with Chelsea. He led us in goals a season ago, he has contributed so much more to Chelsea than Torres has but fans loathe him. Kalou has been involved with 100 Chelsea goals in his career despite playing largely on the bench, had excellent work-rate and was great defensively and fans loved seeing him go. Sturridge led us in goals last season despite playing out of position. Fans hate him. But Torres? Torres gets more love than Lampard, Terry, Cole or Cech all of whom are Chelsea legends. Torres has done virtually nothing but is still adored. It's just mind-boggling.

1) The shit players around Torres managed to win the Champions League last season. It's amazing how players can be shit and yet still be the champions of Europe? Drogba, despite having malaria, going off to the African Cup for a month, and being 33 and 34, had a far better strike rate than Torres in the last year and a half. 2) Scoring goals is about 90% of a striker's job. If you don't score, you aren't doing your job. Striker is unique like that. It's much harder to say how good a defensive midfielder or a keeper has been, but strikers are paid to score. Work rate is meaningless without production. On top of that, even Torres' production has been almost exclusively in one-sided games against poor squads. He's scored 12 goals in 67 games with Chelsea and 9 of them were against Championship quality sides and 11 of them were in games decided by more than goal. It's an absolutely abysmal record. This thread is ridiculous because every time Torres does anything, it explodes into "Torres is amazing!!". It was a nice goal, well taken, good for him, but it does not erase a year and a half of horrible play with Chelsea. Even if he scored five goals, perhaps it would help his confidence, but it would never change the past. I don't understand this desire to try to pretend that Torres has been anything but terrible for us. Torres has objectively been one of the worst strikers in the Premier league in the past year and a half with Chelsea.

Agree. It's possible that Sturridge will never be a top-class player and he does need to mature mentally, but if Chelsea let him go, without giving him a shot at playing striker, it's something I am certain we will regret. He has talent and that's something you can't teach.

What's the point? According to your own logic, you didn't live through the Soviet Era and you're from Australia, so you can't possibly know anything about it and since I was alive when the Soviet Union was around, I will always know more than you about it than you. To take your absurd assertion to even a further degree, if I say "The Soviet Union had 7 people in it, was the size of a small car, and everyone only ate chocolate" you can't disagree with me because in your version of history, fact and reality has been replaced entirely by happening to live in the general region and/or time of an event. So, let me get get this straight. You're defending Chulou because you think his hatred of Jews is rational? If someone told you: " I hate blacks but I have a good reason" would you say "well, he knows why he hates black people more than anyone else, so I am going to defend him"? It's just madness. Bigotry must be fought everywhere not justified. Racism is not rational. Racism is learned behaviour based on ignorance. Leaving aside the historical problems with your justification (the current land of Israel was never part of Lebanon, the hypocrisy of the horrible treatment of Palestinians by Lebanon itself, the fact that the creation of countries with one group moving in and displacing another is pretty much how every single country in the world was created-hell you're Australian, did your ancestors get the Aboriginal invitation that said "hey Europeans, please, come steal our land"? , the list is almost endless..), the moral factor is astonishing. You are justifying anti-Semitism because Chulou is an Arab. You are saying, in fact, that all Arabs have the right to hate Jews because Israel exists. If you are going to justify bigotry based on historical events, then you are justifying infinite levels of it. Africans can loathe Europeans forever, Americans can hate Arabs, English people can hate Arabs, The Spanish can hate Arabs. Arabs can hate the Americans and English, Aboriginal peoples can preach hate and violence against Australians, Canadians, Americans, Mexicans...hell, the entire world can just be one big cauldron of justifiable bigotry. The world is rife with historical injustices, we need to move on to practical solutions instead of constant fighting because something happened 100 years ago that you don't like. You're not old enough to remember The Troubles (and I wasn't alive for the worst of it), but this is a perfect example of the choices you make between justifying hatred and moving towards the future. The problems have generally ceased because both sides have made the right choice. The Queen shook hands with a former IRA commander, Martin McGuinnis this week. The IRA murdered her cousin who was also her son's mentor. It was a horrible thing for England and for the Queen personally. The British government jailed and killed IRA members including friends of McGuinnis. The Troubles killed thousands of civilians in Northern Ireland and in England. Both sides are "justified" hating each other for ever but what good does that do?

Good post...It's a very tough balance because you need to have international quality players on your bench at this level but you also need to give younger players a shot. There is room for younger players but it needs to be at the end of the bench so to speak. Ideally for me, is we'd replace Malouda with a younger player. We have the depth at midfield/winger where the player wouldn't be relied on and wouldn't need to start even with an injury, but Malouda still started 11 games and came on as a sub in 15 and that would be pretty decent development. It's also tough, because you can't predict injuries. Lukaku was our third striker and third strikers can get in a lot of game time if there's an injury. Look how depleted our central defence was at the end of last season. We were using our 4th and 5th choice central defenders at one point. Had Torres been hurt when Drogba was in Africa or late in the season when Drogba needed to be rested, Lukaku would have had a ton of game time. As it is, he only started one game in the Premier League which was awful for his development. It's a tricky balance.

I'm uncertain and generally I think that short of incitement to violence, racism shouldn't be in the purview of the courts, but it will be surprising if Terry isn't suspended. The worst part of this is how its being dragged out. The incident took place (or didn't) October 23rd. We're 8 months later and there's been no resolution. The Suarez incident was resolved after 2 months. I think it's extremely unlikely we're going to get Modric as Spurs want to sell him outside of England. He's an excellent player and would be a great fit on any team, but it's not going to happen for Chelsea unless they make some insane bid. (Most likely now seems Modric to Real Madrid and then Spurs buy Moutinho or Spurs getting Sahin back as a makeweight or...even both.)

In fact, I want to go further on this because this has become about the Palestinian/Israel conflict but that's not what bothered me about the original post. Choulou's original offensive post was about Jewish control over governments, finance, and media. If you believe that only people living in the area under discussion can know about certain topics, what the hell can a Lebanese person know about Jews? There are literally no Jews in Lebanon. There is no Jewish control over anything in Lebanon. By your own logic, Choulo knows nothing about this and has no right to write about it. Also, about the absurdity of needing to live in a place and time to understand it. The Independent newspaper in England did a feature on their 10 best history books. You know how many were written by people who lived in the period and country of which they were writing? None. Not one. The best book on the American Civil War is generally thought to be "The Battle Cry of Freedom" written over 100 years after the war ended. The most important book of Roman history "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" was written by Edward Gibbon in the18th century in England. Darwin's Origin of the Species is a scientific history of the world, but since he wasn't alive thousands of years ago in the primordial ooze, his work should be dismissed. Etc...There are history books written by people living through period and some of them amazing (Churchill's Second World War books being prime examples but then again Churchill was privy to rather a great deal of inside information) but history is generally retrospective. Also, I don't understand how you can go on and on about Jewish/Zionist conspiracies and also support a team owned by a Jewish Zionist. I am an atheist. Not sure how anybody could really be anything else but I think it's due to my atheism that bigotry drives me so crazy. Religion causes people to think they are special and different and it's only through understanding that we're all the same that we can overcome such bullshit.

You are not a historian or you would not say such utter nonsense.Well, not any historian worth a shit anyway. No historian in the world thinks that living in close proximity to the event makes you an expert in it. In fact, it does exactly the opposite as it blinds people from analysing historical events with the proper perspective. At best, you are in first year in Uni and have been introduced to Edward Said and think that Orienatlism is the be all and and all of histories although I doubt you're even at that level. The best historians on subjects rarely even lived in the eras they write about. You think every single Lebanese person knows more about Israel/Palestine than any single westerner Not even that but more than single Israeli? That's just moronic. And even as for living through events, do you really think for a second that Chulou is 100 years old and has seen all aspects of the conflict? And living in Lebanon is removed from the Palestinian//Israeli conflict. I have actually lived in Israel and the West Bank. I have Israeli and Palestinian friends.I guarantee I know more about the conflict both from historical perspective and from personal stories there than either you or him. Why not ask one of the Israelis that post here if they are the lying scum that Chulou says they are or that you say they are but you already believe they are or you wouldn't be backing what Choulu said.The quality of education in a country have a tremendous amount to do with the education and knowledge of a people in a country. Conspiracy theories abound in countries that are closed off from knowledge and are less rampant in countries with free presses. And you know that comparing Canada and AUstrali's education systems to that of Lebanon is ridiculous. People in Lebanon has extremely limited access to real news or real history when it comes to the Middle East. The fact that you are supporting a man who claims that Jews control the media and politics says enough about where your opinion lies. Your outrage is not directed at the obvious (not even hidden in the least) virulent anti-Semitism but rather some ignorant rant about how living in an area automatically makes you an expert on everything that happens within thousands of miles. Unfortunately, this goes to show how prevalent and accepted anti-Semitism is.

Laughable rankings? You mean the Democracy Index? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#2011_rankings Yeah, laughable. I mean who's to say that Yemen doesn't have a stronger Democracy than Sweden, right? Press freedom index? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index. That's not important at all! Government controlled media versus free media? What's the difference? These are real numbers taken from legitimate sources not that you care about such things. Your backing of Cholou's anti-Semitic screed is hardly surprising and neither is your mock outrage.

You simply do not get it and likely are not interested in ever getting it. Using the Rothschilds as an example, not only an example, your only example of control of the media or governments is inherently anti-Semitic. It is the same thing, literally the exact same thing, that has been used for the last 200 years of anti-Semitism. So what if millions of Jews have been persecuted and murdered based on the idea of Jewish control of governments? So what if what you were saying is the exact same thing Nazis used in propaganda posters and movies to justify genocide? That's not offensive. What's offensive is being called out on it. It's like saying "some people spread diseases, like Africans" and then saying "oh, I didn't say only Africans and you are the one bringing race into it" and you saying I'm a racist is far more offensive. No, it isn't. You said something that was anti-Semitic and you want to get angry at me for calling you out on it. Unfortunately, this type of anti-Semitism always rears its head when there are depressions in the world because countries don't want to accept that they are at fault for their own fiscal mess. It isn't us, it has to be some secret cabal of Jewish bankers. This is conspiracy theories at their core. They choose fantasy over fact, prejudice over truth.

I'm fine with letting it go, but I am not for a second going to create a false equivalence. This is what drives me so crazy about the internet. I actually know what I am talking about. I understand basic linguistics and semiotics. You clearly have no idea of the function of language. (almost every single world is historical in originality and then changes to mean something else. What a word means is what a word means and can be completely independent of its original meaning) I went to one of the best universities in the world and took history there. I spent a couple of years travelling around the Middle East I have written professionally about Middle Eastern politics. What is your knowledge based on? A web video called "how the Jews control the world?" And the funniest thing about us Westerners being "brainwashed". I grew up and live in the country with the 6th best education system, 10th best press freedom, and the 8th ranked Democracy. Lebanon is 95th in Education, 93rd in press freedom, and 94th in Democracy, but it's not Lebanon who doesn't get it, it's us Westerners. Are our education systems too good? Is press freedom brainwashing us? Conspiracy theories are inevitably more prevalent in closed societies because you don't have access to real information. The worst part of this is that I spent a year in Israel and the West Bank working with Israeli and Palestinian kids, trying to build bridges for coexistence. It's hard but crucial work if there is to be any future for either peoples, but then some fucker like you comes along with their "Jews don't belong, they deserve to be hated, they control the world", and all that bigotry and you can undo years of hope and progress with your pointless virulent loathing. There are two choices: Either moving on from the past and trying to build a better future or,do what you want and have endless war and misery because you feel there was an injustice done 100 years ago.

Yes, I you are pretty clearly an anti-Semite and to me, it's utterly disgusting. And the "Semitic" argument is the logical argument of someone who doesn't understand how language works at a basic level. Language is fluid and its meaning is derived solely from what society deems its meaning to be. Anti-Semitic MEANS anti-Jewish and has meant that for about 150 years.. The word "Girl" used to mean "a young person of either sex". As we all know "gay" used to mean "happy. If someone comes up to you and says "you are a gay girl". Do you say "Oh yes, thank you, I am a happy young person?" If someone says "that was wicked" or "awesome" do you think that something was wretched and evil or full of fear? Of course not, because language means what it is accepted to mean in society and in English "anti-Semitism" means, without any dispute, being anti-Jewish. The number of words in any language that hold their original meaning is infinitesimally small. Language is a living organism that is constantly evolving. You're just re-hashing the same anti-Semitic bullshit that has been going on for centuries about Jews secretly pulling the strings of world government and putting in the word "Zionist" instead being more honest about it. Henry Kissinger is a perfect example of this. Kissinger was secretary of State for the US from 1973-1977. He was a very influential person in American politics during this period and for a few years before when he was National Security Advisor. Some of it good (he was influential in opening up talks with China) and some of it bad (bombing of Cambodia stands out in particular) But you know what? He is just one of many Secretary of States. Does anyone talk about the evil of Dean Rusk ? How John Foster Dulles secretly pulled the strings of the American government? Nobody has ever even heard of these people and they were just as influential as Kissinger. Secretary of State is an important position, but it doesn't control government policy anyway. No Secretary of State can declare war or raise taxes or do anything like that on their own. (Also, if you read a real history about Kissinger, you would see that his policies in the Middle East were complex.For example, Kissinger opposed helping Israel during the war of 1973 and didn't want the US to get involved and Nixon went against his advice... but why let facts get in the way of conspiracies). Unfortunately, due to ignorance (bigotry is just ignorance) and the teaching of hatred, anti-Semitism is still common in much of the world and this is unfortunately especially common in the Arab world. http://www.pewglobal...nsions-persist/ (fourth graph down). Unfortunately, in my travels in the middle east, It is very common to come across blatant and sickening anti-Semitism whether it be the street vendor in Cairo selling copies of anti-Semitic books and DVDs or the cab driver in Amman who told me that all the world's problems were caused by Jews.

Yes, it does. The Rothschilds are not even remotely close to being one of the richest families in the world.The richest Rothschild in the world is the 1153rd richest person in the world according to Forbes with a worth of 1.1 billion. The Koch brothers (who do directly influence politics) are worth $50B. The Waltons are worth $75B, etc...

You didn't say that people with money have disproportionate power .That's undeniable and uncontroversial. . If you meant "investment group", you should have said "investment group". The Rothschild's have a big investment group with almost $2 billion in assets, but it's not as big as say, Barclays ($1.5 trillion or so) or Morgan Stanley ($807 billion) or Citigroup ($1.8 trillion) or Deutche Bank (2.2 trillion Euro) or many many others. Why not say them?. Why choose a relatively small investment house as your example for how investment bankers control politics? Instead, you said "The Rothchilds" whose name is synonymous with anti-Semitic caricatures of Jewish bankers controlling the world. The Russians used the Rothschilds for anti-Semitic propaganda. So did the Nazis who, while they were massacring Jews, made a movie called "The Rothschilds Shares in Waterloo" which aimed to show how Jews, led by the Rothschilds, had taken over England. Read a serious historian on the subject, someone like Niall Ferguson who wrote a two-volume book about the family who has said of these conspiracy theories "none of this is based on any historical evidence, in fact, its conspicuous by its absence. It's just a series of repetitions about the Rothschilds that goes right back to the early 19th century. People have been making theses claims; sometimes explicitly anti-Semitic, sometimes implicitly anti-Semitic, for very nearly two centuries." Also, bigotry does not require being explicit. An example: I was taking a taxi a couple of weeks ago and the driver started saying things like "this neighbourhood used to be good, it had the right sort of people, now it's the wrong kind of people". He didn't have to say " black people" because it was obvious what he meant. In fact, modern bigotry is very rarely explicit. And I am sensitive to this stuff because I loathe bigotry above everything else, grew up in a very multicultural world, have studied bigotry extensively, and know how seemingly innocuous comments can actually be very hurtful.

Wait, are you saying that the Rothschilds have control over anything? At one point, they were an influential banking family (one of many), but even then, they were used for anti-Semitic propaganda. Pretending that the Rothschilds have international banking control just goes back to the same anti-Semitic nonsense of 200 years ago where Jewish bankers control the world or something. In fact, South Park also always makes fun of these ridiculous anti-Semitic conspiracies.

He would not be a go to guy like he was at Porto. Mata and Hazard would be the main ball handlers for Chelsea and while Hulk would get plenty of touches, there's a big difference in taking 2-3 shots a game and taking 6 or 7 which nobody on Chelsea would be able to do. Also, you say that if someone had Hulk's scoring rate, he should shoot? Well, Sturridge actually had a better scoring rate last season despite playing out of position. (7 of Hulks goals came via penalties). Sturridge had 11 goals in 28 games, many of them as a midfielder. Hulk had 9 non-penalty goals in 26 games.

I never said that Jovetic would be great at Chelsea. There are definitely questions. I said simply that comparing Hulk and Jovetic based on stats is ridiculous. The Premier League is overall a better league than Seria A, but Seria A is much closer to the Premier League in skill than to the Portuguese league. This is a league with Inter, Juventus, Milan, Napoil, Udinese, Roma, Lazio, etc.. Also, you're worried about Jovetic being a big fish in a small pond at Fiorentina but not for Hulk coming from Porto? No matter who Chelsea buys, it will be someone coming from a team where they will have to learn to play a smaller role. For example, in six UCL games last season, Hulk took an incredible 42 shots, or 7 shots a game. Sturridge who many hate for being selfish took 7 shots just twice in 47 matches. How is Hulk going to respond when he is only able to take 2 or 3 shots a game, when he is no longer the go-to guy on the club?

Jovetic plays in Seria A where he has to face fantastic teams (Juventus, Milan, Lazio, Napoli, etc...), Hulk plays in Portugal with the only excellent team that dominates everyone else. Fiorentina as a team scored 37 goals. Porto scored 69. Jovetic scored about 1/3 of all of Fiorentina's goals. Jovetic was Fiorentina's leading scorer. with 13 goals-2nd best on his team was 4. Jovetic is 3 1/2 years younger than Hulk. He's cheaper than Hulk. Unlike Hulk, Jovetic has scored against top clubs. He scored goals against Milan, Roma, Juventus, etc... None of this is to say that he'll be better or worse or even worth buying, just that comparing statistics from very different quality leagues to players in different situations is ridiculous. Oscar Cardoza and Lima were the leading goal scorers in Portugal with 26 goals in 44 games and 28 in 45 respectively. You really think that these players are in the same class as Aguero, Cavani, Di Nitale, Higuain, Benzema, and all these players with similar strike rates in the top leagues?

It does matter to some extent. You have to treat legends with some respect. That said, you can't play someone simply because they are a legend. Certainly, long-term, Chelsea need to replace Lampard long-term, but long-term doesn't mean now. Next season perhaps maybe even 2 seasons down the road. Ideally, they'd have an understudy ready to be able to play 20 games this season and gradually learn to take over, but unfortunately, that's not generally Chelsea's way. And the "Lampard was useless" under AVB is just nonsense. He certainly wasn't as good, but he had 12 goals and 5 assists and generally still set up a large number of Chelsea's chances when AVB was coach. He had a couple of bad stretched and the media got on him as being "done" which they like to do. Also, all the AVB fanboys who thought he was some kind of Messiah, blamed Lampard for everything and started seeing every mistake he made while being willfully blind to the class he brought. Yes, he was better playing deeper and a lot of that has to do with having to run less. Overall, according to PPI, Lampard was the 12th best midfielder in the Premier League last season and the 22nd best overall player behind only Mata and Terry at Chelsea. He still has more to give.