TorontoChelsea

Sorry, 3 years younger than Hulk who will be 26 next month. I never said that Chelsea were going after Hulk for marketing reasons, just that the reaction to Hulk is as a product. (And yes, marketing does figure into team's buys). And you're telling me you've watched most of Hulk's games? If you're Portuguese, I understand, if you're not, I just don't buy it. Most of us watch Chelsea, watch some other big Premier League matches, we watch our local leagues if we live abroad, and we watch other big matches (CL, El Classico, Milan Derby, etc...) Just that is an an insane amount of time spent on watching football. The amount of time you have to spend on football in order to regularly watch other leagues is ridiculous. You would have to have absolutely no life at all. It takes a lot of work and re-doing your life's schedule to watch just Chelsea play every game. Add to that the fact that Chelsea play their games at the same time as a lot of other teams (including Porto), it means you'd have to find a taped copy of all the other leagues's games.

No. I don't think anybody would say that Hulk is not good, but I have seen Hulk play about 20 games and I have an informed opinion that 38M is a ridiculous fee for him. That's the type of price you pay for an international star and Hulk is nowhere near that level.

My Pros and cons for Hulk: 1) Would give Chelsea a natural RW who wants to play there. 2) Hulk is very skilled player with a fabulous left foot. 3) Hulk can be very creative both with passing and with skill moves. 4) Hulk is not a good CF, but can cover there if needed. Cons: 1) 38 M is ridiculous for a player with Hulk's pedigree.This would be one of the most expensive players ever. We just paid 32M in a bidding war for Hazard who was far more sought after than Hulk.We paid 23.5M for Mata who was 5 years younger and had a better pedigree than Hulk. 2) The signing doesn't address Chelsea's major need of a striker to replace Drogba. 3) Hulk, like every player, has major flaws in his game. He doesn't always track back defensively and he takes a lot of optimistic shots. 4) The fan's reaction to Hulk A). Already, I see so much of "Hulk is a fabulous player"...based on what? How many people on here have watched Hulk for more than a few meaningless games?You're telling me that we have tons of fans of the Portuguese league on here? While there are some who may have watched Hulk plenty, I am positive that the vast majority of people saying "he's world class" are doing so primarily from youtube videos and playing with him in FIFA. This not a Hulk thing specifically. It's people pretending they watch 50 football matches a week or something and are able to have informed opinions of players playing in Portugal, France, Holland, Belgium, Spain,Scottish second division, etc...or that they can make informed decisions on players after watching a couple of matches. You've seen it already-the "Hulk smash" and "The Avengers" memes. I don't want a Chelsea marketing product, I want Chelsea players. I already look on Chelsea boards and see Torres as the most common avatar (maybe second after Drogba) and it's shocking. David Luiz's popularity has also greatly outstripped his actual contribution to the club. The same thing will happen with Hulk.I want Chelsea players to be popular because of what they do for Chelsea, not because of their image.

IThe idea that you need a world class player at every position to win is just false. City last year had ridiculous talent and still started players like Richards, Milner, and Barry regularly. United tied them on points, and their team was filled with mediocre players. How many "world class" players do they have? Chelsea can do fine without a 35-40M pound RW. They need to upgrade at striker and need a backup RB and then long-term, need a replacement for Lampard (maybe not until next year though). And you know what, every single buy is a wild card. Marin has no guarantee of success, but neither do Hazard or Hulk. Chelsea spent more than 25M pounds on a player only twice before. Both players were established central strikers playing in top leagues, both were better bets to succeed than either Hazard or Hulk and yet both were horrible flops. You can't have a transfer policy based on being obsessed over one player. Hulk is not worth anything close to 38M. David Silva who was a much more established player who was bought as a RW, cost 24M pounds. Mata cost 23.5M pounds. I am finding this obsession over Hulk incredibly annoying. Chelsea should offer 25-30M max and if Porto won't take it, just go and get someone else.

Well, it could always be worse. You could have been born a Liverpool supporter.

I'm not condemning giving money, but there are limited resources available for charity. Giving to this does actually mean that you are not giving to something more worthwhile. While bullying is a serious issue, this is not money that is geared for anti-bullying groups. This is a fund set up to give a woman a vacation. There are literally millions of more important causes in the world. There are What positive difference in the world is going to come about because this woman is going on an awesome vacation? I don't blame the fund itself which was likely only expecting a few thousand dollars, I blame the ridiculous coverage of this. It's like the Kony video where one issue just goes viral and gets an incredible amount of intention.

Look, what the kids did was absolutely awful, but let's have some perspective. We live in a world where people don't have enough food to eat, where babies are born with AIDS and then just die, where millions don't have access to fresh water, where little girls are married off as slaves, etc...Giving money for someone to take a vacation seems like a ridiculous use of resources no matter how terrible the bullying was.

This is the absurdity of judging a player on a handful of games. He looked really good all tournament had a solid first half and then in the second half, he was just awful,.I obviously haven't seen him enough to judge, but he might make decent cover for Ivanovic. Chelsea are not going to spend 20M pounds on cover at RB. Anyone they get will be an incomplete and flawed player.

4 times? That's only once every 43.75 pages of the Hulk transfer discussions! It should be pinned on top of every page instead of the constant "news" from "www.stuffimadeupabouthulk.com". or wherever else.

Interesting thread. I'm a new member here, but it's pretty obvious to me that this is one of the best Chelea sites around. It's a difficult problem though because the balance between being welcoming and keeping things on a certain subject, is a tough one. I have been on sites where there were a few very dominant posters and everyone else just agreed with everything they said. (because if you didn't, you get harassed and called an idiot and so on until you leave...) I think it's definitely better to err on the side of openness. As others have pointed out, there is nothing happening right now and if people want to discuss Chelsea, it's difficult to be topical. I think it will chance once the season starts. There are some very good posters on here and I would love to see even more of them. (And would really love to see some older posters on here for some balance in perspective and in knowing history.)

Because Spain have ridiculous depth at midfield.I love Mata, but the last two matches, Spain have started with Xavi, Inesta, and Silva in the midfield with Fabergas and Navas off the bench. That's insane depth at midfield. Even making the squad at that position is a sign that you are a special player.

He seems like he's a bit of a dick, but lots of players are and it also doesn't mean they can't mature. Look at someone like Anelka who kept making a nuisance of himself everywhere he went.He was sold 8 times in 11 years. Even when he came to Chelsea, when he missed the penalty in the CL final, he classlessly blamed Grant somehow. Then, at the World Cup, he attacked the coach and led a mutiny and was subsequently banned from the National Team. In Shanghai, Anelka complained about Tigana's coaching method and was instrumental in driving him out. Now, he's complaining publicly that they hired Batista to coach. In other words, Anelka is hardly a mature, likeable human being, but he still had a very good Chelsea career.

I think it's pretty normal as players get older and have families, to want to go "home". It's not something I'd worry about with Mata though. For one, you have a player now and for the foreseeable future. Why fret over what may be?. Also, I believe his sister lives in England so he has a tie there (and he might just prefer living in London). Thirdly, Spanish football is serious long-term trouble. La Liga teams are in something like 3B pounds of debt.with six teams in bankruptcy. With the current economic troubles in Europe, especially in Spain, who knows what the future holds.

If he wants to play for Spain, then it's up to him. The Olympics will be a maximum of 6 matches and probably fewer (Even if Spain win it all, they might rest players if they clinch the division and of course, they might not go to the finals.) Looking at the schedule, the only way this becomes an issue is if Spain go to the semi-finals in which case, Mata would only have a week or so to rest for Chelsea's first game. Worst-case scenario, Spain wins it all and Chelsea sit him for one game against Wigan and Mata gets a 13 day rest.

I believe we should use youngsters more as well, but this is way way too much. We need to work guys who are ready into positions where they are depth and get into 15-20 games. I'd be OK with McEachran being the 6th or 7th midfielder (would rather he went on loan though) because even if something were to happen with injuries, McEachran would still not need to be a starter. It's comfortable depth. But Todd Kane? He hasn't played a single professional game in his life. He needs to go on loan for at least 2-3 years and play well regularly before he should even be considered to be a backup for Chelsea. I don't think we need an elite RB, Ivanovic should be our starter, but we need someone who is capable of stepping in and playing at a high level immediately.

You're not listening to anything I'm saying. Of course, I'd rather have Hazard and Hulk over Podolski and Giroud. but it's about value. I'd rather have Torres than Chamakh, but Torres was 50M and Chamak was free. Hulk and Hazard would be about 70M and Podolski and Giroud would be about 23M.You can't just discard the transfer fee. And Chelsea are not being run well. We had the second highest debt in the Premier League last season. Chelsea's in the transfer market in the last 2 years has maybe been the worst any club has been in transfer history. We spent about 117M pounds on 5 players and only one is an elite player and seems like a definite starter for Chelsea for the next few years (Mata). For that kind of expenditure, Chelsea should have been able to buy 3 or 4 excellent players. As for only RVP making our starting XI, that's just nonsense. Arsenal finished above us in the league and beat us head to head. They have a lot of talent. Song is a fantastic defensive midfielder and he is actually very creative as well. He would certainly start for us. So would Walcott (who gets a lot of stick from fans who don't see Arsenal play much. He might be the fastest player in the Premiership, and he creates a tremendous number of chances..8 goals and 11 assists in the Premier league last season.) A few other players would have a regular rotation spot and would challenge for playing time (Wilshire, Vermaelan, Oxlade-Chamberlain, and others). Even if we were infinitely better than Arsenal talent-wise, why would that be a source of pride? Our starting XI cost about 4 times more than theirs. It damn well should be better. I know I am in the minority among Chelsea fans, but I want to see reigning in of spending. What has happened in the last decade in football-led by Chelsea, Man City, and the Spanish clubs, has been an absolute disaster for football. It really does need to be addressed.

Yes, it's the downside of the internet. Along with easily accessible information has come easily accessible nonsense that just enforces some ridiculous confirmation bias. I have always found occam's razor to be a sound principle. There are lots of books on why people believe in conspiracy theories (much more prevalent and understandable in closed societies where real information and lies are easily confused and where the governments really are spying on you all the time.) There are so many ridiculous elements in conspiracy theories (the basic lack of understanding of chance or randomness, false attributions, post facto logic, the complete lack of any convincing motivation for the conspiracy, of how difficult it really is to keep secrets even between 1 or 2 people never mind tens of thousands, etc..) To me, the most ridiculous thing about this mentality though is the complete lack of understanding of how plans will always go awry. The more complicated the plan, the more that will go wrong.Something as simple as meeting a friend for a coffee will go wrong a bunch of the time (bad traffic, someone jumped in front of a train, one of you gets sick, etc...) As the plan gets more complicated, what can go wrong grows exponentially. If you've ever undertaken a big task (say, starting your own business or project) you know that a whole bunch of things will go differently than you had planned. And that's one person doing a few things. The idea that thousands of people can secretly do these things for vague reasons and never once get caught is just beyond ridiculous.

For me, it's less about faith in youth than it is about consistently good signings. This is one of the big benefits of having a long-term manager who has influence over signings. They sign players they believe will fit into the system. This is why Chelsea need that long-term manager who can start to do that. You get better value on your buys and you can avoid huge mistakes.

Of course. That was obviously tremendous, but I also care about building a sustainable model. If Chelsea went through that same route again 100 times, they'd probably would only win the CL a handful of times. I think the ideal set-up is like Arsenal except being able to spend 20-30M on an individual player if they really fit a need.

Still a great buy for the price of £11M. He's not a star, but he could be a good player for Arsenal (and I think he'll fit into their system well). Obviously not an Arsenal supporter, but you can't help but admire the way they do their transfers. You look at their starting XI from last season and they were almost all ridiculous value (RVP- £2.75, Song £1M, Walcott £5-12M depending on performance, etc....) Even someone like Gervinho who was a bust last season cost millions less than Lukaku did for us. It's just so simple. They look around for players who are good value and make an offer for them if what the club wants is more than they value the player, they move on to someone else. It shows that you don't have to splash massive amounts of cash around to compete. I suppose we looked for value with Marin, but generally our transfer policy is backwards. It's just identifying the player RA is obsessed with regardless of how they'll fit into the team and then just spending how ever much it takes to get them. It's not about being cheap, it's about value.

There are good pastries and food is more universal than it used to be. 30 years ago, and in many places, you'd only get the local food. Now, you can eat food from all over the world in virtually any major city. Central Europe is not typically known for their cuisine though. There is this interesting Austrian dish that you might want to try called Schnitzel .

Maybe he can just tell them that supporting Chelsea has miraculous health benefits! . You're child isn't growing fast enough? Here's a Peter Cech doll. You're impotent? Well, a John Terry shirt will clear that right up , etc...

I would say Italy if you had longer, but 10 days isn't enough. You'd be running around like a mad-man and wouldn't get to see 2/3 of what you should see. Vienna, Prague, and Budapest for 11 days is a lot more relaxed and reasonable. .

Money, opportunity, distance...Australia has something like 22 million people. California alone has about 37 million.

I don't understand how anybody could blame Frank for anything here. It was fairly obvious that AVB had a big problem communicating with the players. It wasn't just Frank, it was Alex, Anelka, Cole, Mikel, Kalou, and probably others. It wasn't about AVB sitting Lampard, RDM sat Lampard a fair bit, it's about communicating with your players. I also think beyond the sitting players without explaining why, players were unsure of what their exact roles were. If you are going to come in and massively overhaul a system, you need to be to explain player roles very clearly.