TorontoChelsea

Very interesting list. Have any of these players been worth what they've been sold for? Maybe Falcao if he keeps doing what he does or gets sold for more. Porto has a great system where they take young talent, they dominate the Portuguese league and then they get sold for ridiculous amounts of money which and end up being mediocre at their new clubs. Very smart club.

Ramires represents an interesting problem. He is terrific on the counter-attack and has incredible speed and stamina. However, in the traditional passing or long-ball game, he was pretty mediocre because he's not much of a passer and is not strong in the air. His perfect position is that AM in the 4-2-3-1 formation. If we do play that formation, I like Ramires to play in the 3 with Mata and Hazard as Ramires doesn't need to touch the ball that often and he creates space for other players. (With Mikel and Lampard in the 2). In a 4-3-3, he doesn't really fit as well although it's not like I'd sit him all the time or anything. (Oddly, Mata is basically the opposite. He excelled under AVB in the 4-3-3 and his worst games were in the defensive, counter-attack systems that Ramires excelled in. Sturridge was great in the 4-3-3 and useless in the 4-2-3-1. Lampard was better once he was move back a bit...Whoever the next Chelsea manager is going to have to get the best out of all the players, but it's difficult when they thrive in different systems.)

Chelsea don't have ideas and can't pass? Tell me how many teams have a more creative player than Mata? Do Chelsea play all-out attacking football? No, they don't but almost no clubs do. In fact, AVB played a very attacking system and Torres was historically awful (not scoring for what, 26 games?). I'm not saying to get rid of him, but there is absolutely no way that Chelsea should go into next season with Torres as their only real striker.

This creative team stuff is just nonsense. What the hell does "creative team" mean? Is Chelsea Spain or Barcelona? No, but if you can only succeed playing on a team of that quality, you're not very good. Chelsea scored the fifth most goals in the premiership. Newcastle is much less creative team than Chelsea and Cisse and Ba still managed to score with regularity. Norwich has almost no creativity and Holt scored 15 goals. That's what strikers do. They score goals. They don't need to be surrounded by world class talent in order to have any success.

Still with the Torres excuses? The team doesn't move the ball quickly enough, the formation is wrong, the style of play is wrong,he's too worried about having another striker around... etc.... He cost £50 million pounds. He should be able to score in any single formation or style. Chelsea had two main weaknesses last season. The first was a lack of a second creative midfielder/winger to allow Mata to stay in one place and to get some rest now and then. We bought Hazard to fix that. The second was a complete lack of success from our strikers. Not buying a new striker is crazy. Torres has now played 67 games at Chelsea and has been awful. I don't think people appreciate just how awful he's been. He's played 67 games with Chelsea and has scored 12 goals. That's bad enough but it's even worse than that. Of those 12 goals, 9 of them were in games where we beat up very poor sides. (Leicester, QPR, West Ham, Villa Genk, Birmingham). Against decent and good teams (say, top 10 in the premiership, Valencia, Napoli, Barcelona, Benfica, and Leverkusen) Torres has played 36 games with Chelsea and has scored 2 goals. In his 67 games at Chelsea, Torres has not scored a single goal to win us a game or to draw us even. We won the CL with Drogba. We won the FA Cup with Drogba. You look at a player like Drogba or Van Persie or Cisse or any good striker and they are able to create their own chances. They are able to turn nothing into goals. If Torres needs a team to be built to his own specifications to succeed, he's just isn't that good. None of this is to say that Torres can't be a world-class striker. He was excellent at Liverpool and a return to that form is certainly possible, but to rely on a striker who has been so awful for a year and a half is insane. Especially if Chelsea are going to spend big this off-season.

Oh come on. There was nothing particularly dirty about it. There were a few tough tackles, a couple of yellow cards. Basically, a standard game in any competition.

Brazil's keeper has been incredible. Neymar looks like he's going to be special. Hulk was very quiet but impossible to judge a player on one game.

This ref is just awful.

And Benni McCarthy 45 goals in 85 games in Portugal and Oscar Cardoza has scored 87 goals in 133 games in Portugal. Lima had 20 goals and 7 assists this season.The Portuguese league has two or three good teams but if you play on Porto or Benfica, the vast majority of your competition is against sides that would be in the Championship or League 1 in England. I mean, Porto has only lost 1 game in the last 2 years. This is why it's very difficult to take statistics from lesser leagues and apply them to the Premiership. This is why I don't understand how anybody can claim that Hulk is anything approaching a world class player. Hulk has never had any success in Europe or in international tournaments so this "he's a world-class player" is gleaned entirely from him dominating poor competition. Look at the Portuguese league player of the year before Hulk. David Luiz, Bruno Alvez, Lisandro Lopez, Simao Sabrosa, and Ricardo Quiersma. That's the best of the Portuguese league. Luiz was a dominant defender in Portugual. He's struggled a fair bit at Chelsea. None of this is to say that Hulk won't be terrific. It's absolutely possible, but it's a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a player we don't need who has never accomplished anything at a high level. It's possible, he'll be terrific, but it's also possible that he's not good enough to succeed in England. Sergio Aguero cost in this range and he was 23, had 4 excellent years in Spain and had success in Europe and had played regularly with some success for Argentina.

Financial fair play might come in so overspending on someone by £15 million could be huge. Also, some of use like to see Chelsea build smartly. Chelsea has obvious needs. They needed a creative midfielder, a RB, and a striker to replace Drogba. This is exactly the kind of move that's messed Chelsea up previously. Roman desperately wants a player, doesn't care whether they fit into the system or not, massively overpays for them, and then they flop. Is Hulk going to succeed in the Premiership? Maybe, but maybe not. Paying £30-40 million for someone who has had two excellent years playing almost exclusively against poor competition is insane. Not to mention that Chelsea don't need another shoot-first forward. Here's are a couple of interesting stats: 1- Hulk has played 10 games in his career against English clubs. He has 0 goals. 2- Sturridge played 21 Premiership games under AVB last season as our RW and scored 9 goals. Hulk played 23 games at Porto in the same system and scored 9 non-penalty goals. Yes, that's right. Sturridge had a better scoring rate in England than Hulk did in Portugal (and is 4 years younger and costs nothing to buy).