TorontoChelsea

You're making it sound as if there is ever a point to lineup predictions.

You can watch what you want, but there is no combination that would make me watch a friendly over a game that matters. (Not just England, any qualifying game)

The problems in football are mirroring the problems in society. A handful of clubs do 95% of all the spending and get all the talent and even that is not enough because they also have to compete for all the young players. We are as guilty as any other club in the world for both of these. I think one of biggest problems with developing talent is the loan policy which allows top clubs to buy and keep infinite young talent without ever committing to them and maybe never really giving them a chance. I've never understood why you couldn't make a maximum number of loans per team which would be vastly better for football overall. It would allow young talent to end up on Premier League teams that actually play and develop them.

A lot of us don't like the transfer and it has nothing to do with Willian's talent. We didn't need another attacking midfielder and 32M is a massive fee for something we didn't really need.

I think it's somewhat of an age thing which I think does split the forum. I don't know the numbers (it would be interesting to see) but I would say 90% of posters seem to be teenagers or in their early 20's. The same things that bring in younger posters (think things like gifs, memes, name-calling, overreactions to single games, twitter,) are the very things that keep me (and I would assume most posters over 25 years old) away and make some threads unreadable.

My feelings as well. I don't care all that much about it, but I prefer either these two options.

Yeah, it's kind of silly most of the time. There are usually a number of members who post interesting things, start new topics, etc...every month and those people tend to change (some people have less time during work/exams/etc...) There are people I disagree with often but still bring a lot to the forum and I will happily vote for them. On the other hand, there are those people who are nominated where I literally have not seen a single post of any interest all month and sometimes I can't remember even reading a single post they made. It doesn't really matter though. Most people who win are good posters. We all have different tastes I, like you I think, enjoy discussing tactics, strategy statistics,you know... football, etc... and I abhor the gifs/memes things which make pages take forever to load and never say anything that can't be said better in one sentence of your own.

It's because there is no transfer involved. (First off, I don't buy these numbers anyway). Because the transfer fees are counted in step with the length of the contract, having no transfer fee means you can afford much higher wages. For example, Terry at 175K a week would actually be significantly cheaper per year than Willian at 85K because Willian's transfer costs 123K a week or so whereas Terry costs 0 additional money (Willian is actually probably our 2nd or 3rd most expensive player overall). By keeping existing players, you save a lot of money, even paying higher contracts. Even a small transfer (for Chelsea) of 10M pounds on a maximum 5 year deal, is still an additional 38K+ a week. You could pay an existing player 100K/week as opposed to 65K for the new player and you'd still save money.

Exactly, even though I've shown that no team ever uses 9 attacking players or 6 regular attacking midfielders, Chelsea NEEDS them. You are using Bayern specifically because they play the fewest games (and yes, they have too many players too) but no team, not in England, not in Spain, anywhere needs a backup at every single position. Teams will use 3 backups for 4 positions and similar. Teams have players that are flexible to cover multiple positions and Chelsea are no different. You have can have 5 attacking midfielders and you'd be fine every single time. I'll do this another way. Team's attacking midfielders starts in the league (Arsenal,Spurs, City, and United) #1 attacking midfielder-30.75 #2 attacking midfielder-27 #3 attacking midfielder-21.25 #4 attacking midfielder-15.75 #5 attacking midfielder-11.75 #6 attacking midfielder-3.75 This is the basic Premier League distribution for attacking midfielders. 4 players who play regularly, 1 who starts once a month, and 1 who starts every 10 games. You can't say "in case of injuries" because every team has injuries so these numbers are including injuries and the #6 attacking midfielder still never plays. That position could easily have been covered by say Ramires or even a reserve player. (4 starts a season?)

There are a few problems 1) Younger players, more likely to be benched, will have their development stalled or even derailed. 2) Unhappy players make for an unhappy locker room. If you have 4 or 5 players who aren't playing at all, it's an easy way to create factions in the dressing room. ("Why is he playing instead of my friend?" etc...). This is usually not a problem when winning, but when not, it can tear a team apart. 3) Not enough time to prove yourself. Some players take time to get going. Maybe a 3-5 game run to get in to a groove. Maybe they are a fit against certain teams or with certain players.With a rotation this large, there's no time for that. 4) Familiarity- Just as important for top teams as depth is familiarity. Players know where their teammates will likely be, what move they'll likely make, etc... If you're Mata and one game you're playing in the centre surrounded by Willian, Eto'o and Hazard and the next your're on the left with Oscar in the middle, Schurrle on the other side and Torres in the middle, these players make different decisions and have different movements and speeds. The familiarity just isn't there no matter how well you train. Rotation is incredibly important, but so is finding your best regular 12-15 players. That's why teams have a regular 15 or so outfield players and don't try to rotate 20 players. 5) Bad for football in general. I realize most people on a Chelsea board won't care about this, but as much as I love Chelsea, I also like football and I hate to see talented players wasting away. Kaka's signing ended up being awful for Real Madrid but even worse for football because one of the best players in the world was stuck on the bench. You want to see top teams have depth, they need it, but the amount of depth the rich teams have now is insane where players that would be starting for 15 teams in their league get into a a few games a year and it's just awful for the quality of football.

Except it hasn't. 2 players for each position is way, way too much. Barcelona had 6 players start a game in the league at attacking midfield/striker. Real Madrid had 8. Bayern had 7. ManU had 7. City had 7. Anyway, here are the avg stats for Bayern, Barcelona, Real Madrid, City, and ManU (top teams in top leagues with the best depth) Average # of starts in league for teams' #5 attacking player-15.4 #6 attacking player-11.4 #7 attacking player-8 #8 attacking player-1 The #7 attacking player on super-deep squads barely plays (starts about,once a month) but Chelsea are going to somehow work in 8 or 9 players regularly? Two or three Chelsea attackers are barely going to play. (And people need to stop with the Oscar or De Bruyne in the centre stuff unless it actually happens. Oscar has played about 60 games under 3 managers with Chelsea and about 59 of them he's been an attacking player. De Bruyne is a defensive liability and and only works as an attacking player).

This is exactly it. It's OK if Bertrand and Essien have minor roles. Even Demba Ba has scored 31 goals in the last 2 seasons in the Premier League and if he's the #3 striker, won't play much which is a waste but because he's not elite or our future, we can live with it. But every single one of our attacking midfielders should be starting at least 30 games this season and 2 or 3 of them won't start close to that number.

I think Essien is probably out, Ba won't play much but there's almost certainly an attacking midfielder who won't play much as well.

It's not about Real Madrid. Every team is about the same. For example, in 38 Premier League games last season, 16 outfield players started at least 10 games for Man City and that's with a bunch of injuries. They had a total of 5 players start more than 10 games at the 4 most attacking positions they only had 2 more who started a single game (including Scott Sinclair's 2 starts). We have NINE players for those spots that other teams use 5, 6 players for ad that's not including Ramires who is capable of playing there. That's way beyond the depth we need..

The teams with the most money always come near the top of the league. ManU last year actually didn't have much depth last year. They had fantastic depth at striker and attacking midfield but everyone else they were bare. We had our best season overall under Ancelotti where were we had pretty poor depth.

Bayern does have way too many players especially because they play fewer games in Germany. They still only had 13 outfield players who started 20 games and another 4 who started at least 10. You can have 15 backups at each position, but it's utterly pointless because no matter what, you're only going to play around 15-18 players with any regularity. Anyone who is outside that 15-18 will almost never play so you can have 10 of those players like Bayern or you can have 4 and it really doesn't make much of a difference. Depth is fine when that someone like Ferriera or Essien who can fill in and be happy with that or a young player getting a few cup games for experience, but for Chelsea, it's going to be also someone like De Bruyne or Mata who barely plays and that just doesn't make sense. Weiruch didn't play a single game, Pizzaro started 11 games, Gomez started 13, Rafinha started 8, TCan started 24 games, Tymeshook started 8, etc... That amount of depth becomes completely pointless 5 players starting 10 games at the same position could easily be covered by 2 or 3 players. Bayern won because of Robery, Kroos, Mueller, Robben, etc..., not because of Contento and Rafinha. They could have had a much smaller squad and still won. What if Hazard is out? We can have Schurrle, De Bruyne, Mata, or Willian cover for him. That'd still leave De Bruyne, Mata, Oscar, Willian, Ramires for the other 2 positions., We have so much depth that even with a major injury, we still have too many players.

Jesus...there's a difference between having a little depth and tons of depth. Arsenal has very little depth and we have more than we need. There is a place in between. We have 9 players for 4 positions. Ideally, you'd have 7 or so. Right now, we have players who can play Striker: Eto'o Torres, Ba, Schurrle Attacking midfield:. Oscar, Mata, Hazard, Schurrle, De Bruyne, Willian, Ramires (and all the strikers can be used in 2 striker sets) Central Midfield-Lampard, Ramires, MVG, Mikel, Essien, (And in a 4-3-3 Oscar, De Bruyne) That's not just depth, that's players who won't get to play.

Madrid played 60 games last season. That's about what we'll play this year. Also, Barcelona played 9 players last season for midfield and attack. 9-11 players for 6 positions. We have 14 for those positions. Essien and Ba will probably not play much, but there is also a log-jam at attacking midfield and we simply aren't going to get 6 players into 3 spots. We aren't 1 or 2 players over a normal rotation, we are about 3-4 players over a normal rotation in midfield and attack.

There is a thin line between having depth and being overloaded with talented players, some of who will rarely play and Chelsea have crossed that line so who will be the players left out? Last season, Real Madrid regularly used 5 attacking players for the 3 attacking midfielder/striker roles with 2 other players getting semi-regular time. That's 7 players for 4 spots. Chelsea have 9 players for those 4 spots which means that 2 or 3 our attacking players are likely to rarely play. Madrid used 3 regular players for the central midfield with a 4th occasionally playing. Chelsea have 5 players there. I think at defence, we have the right balance of depth with Luiz, Terry, Ivanovic, Cahill, and Azpilicueta covering 3 spots and Cole playing almost all the time. It will be interesting to see. Who would you leave out?

I agree. Especially with Mata not in game shape. The worry for me though is that because of Willian's arrival, someone is not going to get into games. You don't rotate 6 attacking midfielders and 3 strikers for 4 spots. Real Madrid last season under Mourinho played generally the same 4-2-3-1 system and played around 60 games. For those 4 most attacking positions,only Ronaldo, Ozil, Di Maria, Benzema, Higuain played at least 30 games. Callejon and Kaka played secondary roles but saw fairly regular playing time. That's 5 regulars and 2 semi-regulars for 4 positions. Chelsea have 9 players for those 4 positions. Some players just aren't going to get playing time. There's no way around it.

Not what they needed, but he is a massive upgrade (and in that way, much different than the Willian signing). Not sure Arsenal have the central defenders and keeper to contend but they are a tough team.

Yeah, but preseason is meaningless. Lampard and Ramires is our starting pair, Mikel is our only natural DM, and Van Ginkel is a player we want to develop so will need game time. Mourinho likes Essien so will probably work him in to the league games, but I don't see a place for him on the team really.

You have only 17 roster spots for international players with U21 players not counting in the Champions League. Essien was the obvious choice to not make the cut TBH. He's probably fifth choice at CM right now.

I wouldn't say he's the best finisher (Lampard and Mata are able to score great goals with fairly high shooting percentages. Ramires is more limited in his range.) but I think that he has a generally underrated skill. He doesn't take a lot of bad shots. The vast majority of the shots he takes are from areas where he should be shooting so he is an efficient shooter who doesn't waste a lot of shots. That's Ramires' positive qualities for me-the ability to contribute massively without being the focal point of anything and without trying to extend himself too much beyond his skill set.

The overall result was not poor, you're right. We definitely improved, but poor considering the amount of money we spent.