TorontoChelsea

That's not the way it works. Keepers are just not expensive. Hugo Lloris was 8M pounds and a top keeper and (I think) 25 years old. Mignolet was 25 years old and was 9M pounds last year. Van Der Steegen was one of the most sought after young keepers in the world, and cost under 10M pounds. There have been, I think, maybe 2 keepers who cost more than 20M pounds and they were Neur and Buffon when they were young. Cech is 32 years old. Why would any team pay 20M for him? It's insane. If we aren't going to use him, we should sell him because 1) I am sure he wants to play and we don't want to be dicks about it 2) There is very little value in the #2 keeper and Cech earns very good wages so we would save a lot of money by selling him.

Willian's extra chances created are because he takes corners. Oscar is definitely more creative (not enough for me to be a top #10 but better than Willian)

I think I saw him and another Steau player a few weeks ago when I was in Bucharest (at least that's what my GF told me. Was in one of the fancy restaurants off of herastrau). Anyway, 5.5M is not insane money for anyone so even if he's overrated, it's still not a massive expense. I do really feel sorry for Southampton fans. They sold Chambers, Shaw, Lallana, and Lovern for almost 100M pounds and have brought in very little talent in return.

There are sort of two different economies now for transfers. One with PSG, Madrid, etc... and then the real one. In the real one, even a world class goalie like Cech with some years left in him should go for maybe 6, 7M pounds and even that is expensive. In the high economy one, I really don't know because it's so divorced from everything else.

Neymar, Busquets, and Suarez on the same team? Barcelona is going to be diving all over the place this year. I have found the El Classicos recently both amazing and awful because the football is incredible but the games are always ruined by awful diving, dirty play, and atrocious refereeing. You take all this talent and you want to see a good match-the best against the best, not acrobatics and horrible penalty calls.

I would definitely take Oscar over Willian. Oscar is only 22 and while he is extremely streaky, he has shown bits of brilliance. There were periods where Oscar was our best player. I think it unlikely he will become a top player, but it is possible and I expect improvement and consistency.. Willian is 26, in the prime of his career and is always going to be the same sort of player. He was never our best player for any extended period. Willian has value for us because of the system we play. In another system, he's sort of a fringe player on a top club. There is not a huge market for attacking players who aren't particularly good at attacking.

Starts in March but there is training camp and everything so yes, he'll leave in February at the latest.

It wouldn't leave us thin at all. We have Matic, Fabergas, Ramires, Mikel and even Ake for 2 positions. We only used more players last year because we lacked quality. Matic and Fabergas weren't with us at the start of last year and will be our regulars there. You don't need 5 or 6 players for 2 positions. 4 is plenty. I do agree with you that I find the Drogba signing puzzling if Torres is staying. Neither is good enough to be or #2 striker and having 2 #3 strikers is odd for a team with the resources and ambitions we have.

I agree with that. Is Drogba going to be any better than Ba was last year? Personally, I would take Ba. The real improvement is the most important one and that's getting a legit #1 striker for the first time in about 5 years.

BTW, I love how everyone always becomes an expert on players in other leagues. If you are not Italian and you are watching 10 Roma games a year, you are probably spending 87% of your waking hours on football. I figured that someone watching all of Chelsea, following the Premier League and CL closely (3 games a week in total) and watching a few other big games in football would watch something like 30,000+ hours on football a year which is about 3 weeks of the year. If you wanted to drop down a level and watch more, who else are you watching? Roma games? Inter games? Athletico games? Bayern games? Juventus games? Porto? Benfica? Ajax? How many games can you watch? It's not possible! It's not just about not being able that much football (unless you are taping games and have zero life at all). I am always very skeptical when people say they watch other leagues in depth. (Unless they are from that country or have a particular tie to it).

Besides being insanely expensive, CB is simply not a need right now. Last year, our 4th choice CB was Ivanovic. How many games did he play in that position all year? I can't remember exactly, but it wasn't many. Can Zouma handle those few games? Certainly. Yes, if Terry and Cahill both get hurt we're screwed, but every team is screwed if they lose multiple players at the same position. (and most are if they lose one player) We will need to replace Terry but in Mourinho's system, that won't be this year. If we got a player who was a great deal, I'd be for it, but spending massively on a hot defender we can do a year or two from now. There will always be players like this available. Spending big on someone like Verane I could understand as you would likely never be able to get him again.

I don't waste a lot of time hating other clubs. The team I dislike the most is Liverpool but that's because their supporters have an unbearable sense of entitlement based on the past. I actually really enjoyed watching them last year though as they played the most entertaining football in the Premier League. I also really dislike teams like PSG, City, Real Madrid, Monaco, etc...who have ruined football with their money. I know Chelsea falls into this group and if I weren't a Chelsea supporter, I'd probably hate us too but I am a Chelsea supporter so I love us

30M would be a ludicrous price as it would make Benatia the 6th or 7th most expensive defender in history for a 27 YO with almost no experience at the top stage ( Italy used to be a fantastic league but is now a massive step down from the Premier League and has Benatia ever played in the CL?) People look at the insane signings of the top spending teams like PSG and Real Madrid and if you look at it that way, everything is reasonable, Sure, if Luiz is 50M pounds, then Benatia at 30M is fine, Those are outlying transfers and you can't judge how reasonable a price based on those few ludicrous moves.. Benatia was 11M pounds last season. He had, by all accounts an excellent season, but that doesn't triple his price.

And look at Liverpool last year. No way they finish near the top if they had to play a bunch of CL games. I don't care about other clubs losing, I care about us winning and it's better for Chelsea if other Premier League sides don't get knocked out early.

Doubt it. He's 26 and has never been a scorer. That's just not his thing. 21 Goals in 151 games in the Ukranian and Russian leagues. He's not suddenly going to turn into a goal-scoring machine. He is what he is.

Cech is definitely having some issues with crosses but, and this is a big but, dealing with crosses in the Premier League is much much harder than in Spain. The Premier League is much more physical and has much stronger and taller players. I could go either way on this. I think whoever plays better should end up starting and I don't mind if takes a little while to figure that out.

I would say he has a couple more things going for him which are important. Like Ramires, Willian is an effective player off the ball. He doesn't take a lot of shots and creates room for other players. There are only so many shots to go around and it is important that you can have players who don't need to take them. If we are playing, say Oscar, Hazard, and Schurrle with Costa, that is a lot of guys who want to shoot and they, to some extent, cannibalize each other's shots. He also, while not being all that aware offensively, doesn't try to force that many passes which is why he keeps the highest passing rate of any of our attacking players. Certainly not close to a 32M pound player but he's useful especially given the style Chelsea play.

Best place for any defender. Barcelona is a team where every defender looks amazing because you don't really have to defend. 15M for a decent defender seems bit expensive but in the right range. Wonder if Arsenal will buy a replacement or go with what they have.

Best we could hope for if it's true. A PL team who plays against the best teams giving Chalobah much-needed experience against top opposition yet a poor enough team where he should carve out a regular place.

It's a modern football problem with some teams having too much money and talent. We just buy up any player that interests us. Maybe Moses could develop into a great player. Unlikely, but he could become a very good player and he's talented enough to play regularly on a mid-table side instead of rotting on our bench.

Chelsea, City, and maybe Arsenal for the league with Liverpool and United for 4th spot and Everton and Spurs below that.

Preseason never matters but every year people get insanely worked up over it. Tune back in August 18th when things start to mean something.

Jesus Christ, stop it with this melodramatic horseshit already. Ashley Cole left his team in the middle of his career, forced his way away from the team he came up with to go to a city rival simply because we offered him more money. WE decided to not sign Lampard when he was 36. What Cole did is much worse but since he came to Chelsea, you don't care. Loyalty is not only to Chelsea. This is football. Jimmy Greaves played with fucking Spurs after Chelsea. Dennis Wise went to Millwall as did Kerry Dixon (and Millwall and Chelsea have real history) Peter Osgood went to Southampton, Pat Nevin went to Everton, Bobby Tambling went to Palace, These are professional athletes who want to play at the top level, they are not your sentimental playthings.. The attitude you and too many people have about this is like a high school kid who breaks up with his GF. He doesn't want to be with her anymore, he just doesn't want her to ever sleep with anyone else. Sorry buddy, you can't have it both ways. We let Lampard go, he can now go wherever he damn well pleases.

It's not like Steve Jobs going to Microsoft. He was a founder of the company and the CEO. Lampard was an employee. Yes, he is the best player we've ever had, but WE, not him, decided to let him go. You don't have the right either legally or morally to expect loyalty when you don't give that same loyalty. Lampard was given the chance to play for the Premier League champions. What should he do? Say "no" because some Chelsea fans don't want him to go there?

So why do we have the right not to re-sign him but he doesn't have the right to go where he wants? It's like saying to a worker "you were a model employee for 20 years but we are firing you but you can't go to any rival companies".