TorontoChelsea

I have seen him a few times only, but it doesn't matter because it is impossible to compare quality when the difference in competition is so enormous. He's looked good when I've seen him, especially considering his age. However, there are dozens of players that look poised, confident, and talented in the Championship who would be devoured in the Premier League. It's the same concept (although bigger gap) with our youth teams. This is the point. You can't judge a players' ability until he plays at a high level. Teams like Chelsea can't afford to bring young players along and nourish them while they make mistakes as they adjust to the new league (which they all will). We need players who are already quality and have proven it at a top level.

It's because you're asking to prove a negative. You can't prove readiness one way or another until he plays but the same is true of a player who plays for the third division in Scotland or me. How can you prove that I'm not good enough to start for Chelsea without me playing for Chelsea? (and falling over in a heap after 3 minutes) I will say this. 1) The jump from the Championship to the Premier League is enormous. If a player looked poised in say the Polish or Slovakian league, would you say he's shown he's good enough for Chelsea? Of course not. 2) The record of players coming from the Championship to the Premier League is poor. 3) Being good even great in the Championship is no guarantee of even being decent in the Premier League. Of all the 7 players to win the Championship player of the year , not one is currently on a top-5 club and 3 aren't even in the Premier League and 1 isn't even in football. Those are the very best of the best of the Championship players. Those were players performing at a higher level than Chalobah is now and with more experience and they still have a very poor record of performance. 4) The record for teenagers having as positive impact in the Premier League is very poor and it's even poorer at top clubs. So, no, it's not possible to prove that he's not ready, just that the chances of him being good enough for Chelsea right now are slim, the likelihood of his making an impact at Chelsea if he got the chance is doubtful, and that both he and the club would be better served going on loan to a Premier League club. Why don't I want him to fight for a spot? Because it's pointless. The best player in our pre-season was probably Marin who has been maybe the worst player during our regular season. Looking good on a tour of America or Asia is meaningless because you're facing different quality and your top players are more interested in getting into game-shape than in trying to impress.

That's not even Arsenal. Of their starting XI, only Gibbs is a young, relatively unproven player and he still played about 70-75 fairly top level games going into this season. Jenkinson and Oxlade-Chamberlin are subs that play fairly regularly but after that, they have a pretty veteran lineup. That type of model is fine for us. If we want to work in 2 or 3 young players into the lineup, great, that's what most teams do, but the idea that we should have five or six or seven players like that is absurd as is the notion that we should bring players who have never played a game at a high level. Top clubs simply don't do that because you won't win. That is what development clubs like Aston Villa or Southampton might do. Here's how many of our outfield players since Mourinho came who have started more than 5 games in a season /10 or more games/20 or more games 2011-2012: 21/19/14 2010-2011: 17/17/11 2009-2010: 20/18/16 2008-2009: 18/16/14 2007-2008: 22/21/16 2006-2007: 19/18/15 2005-2006: 18/17/14 2004-2005: 20/17/13 Next season I see the likely team as: Cech, backup keeper, third keeper, Azpilicueta, Ivanovic, Terry, Cahill, Luiz, Cole, Bertrand, Mikel, Romeu, Ramires, Oscar, Mata, Hazard, Ramires, De Bruyne, Moses, Ba, Lukaku, a new central midfielder, maybe another central or attacking midfielder, and maybe a new striker as the likely team.. That's about 20-22 players for the outfield rotation which is as much as you need. I can see us maybe upgrading somewhere, buying a better LB than Bertrand or a new DM, but only if it's an improvement on what we already have This is how squads tend to break down in terms of playing time and it doesn't matter who the manager is, there is very little difference. If you want a squad with 27 outfield players, that's fine, but you have to realize that a bunch of those players will almost never play and guess which players those will be, the proven veterans who are full internationals and who have played Champions League football and won trophies or the untested youngsters? How is it more beneficial for the development of Feruz or Chalobah or Ake or whomever to get into five games for Chelsea rather than 35 for another club?

It's not obvious and it's not even correct. We didn't get beaten because of their counter-attack, we got beaten because we couldn't string passes together and we gave the ball away too easily. It's not like Bucharest dominated. Apart from the penalty, they had 1 shot on target and that was in the last minutes of extra time. Not only that. but Chipicu who the owner said would go around Lampard was Bucharest's lowest rated player on whoscored. He did absolutely nothing all game. Lampard owned him in the midfield and Chipicu had 4 turnovers and no tackles and Lampard had 4 interceptions and 4 tackles. The problem is that Lampard couldn't pass at all (and the couple of times he did, Torres unsurprisingly screwed it up.) There are games where our lack of speed is an issue either in the midfield or central defence, but it wasn't the issue this game.

Congrats Peace. I don't agree with everything you write, but you are always a top poster. Well deserved! Félicitations et bravo Peace (or should I say Paix?).

Terry was OK which sadly makes him better than everyone else. Torres keeps plunging to new depths of uselessness. Lampard's passing was atrocious. Hazard just kept running at people. Luiz was all over the place. Oscar was awful and has to learn to hold on to the ball much much better. Mata came on and was even less effective than Benayoun who was crap to begin with. The whole team was bad. It doesn't bother me to go out of this tournament, but if we're going to play with this sort of effort, let's rest everyone so they can be fresh for the league games.

Wow...Luiz...you can't let the guy go right through you.

Which is sort of how this entire season feels for me.

Tatu is on? Weren't they that Russian faux-Lesbian pop group.

This reminds me of the Brentford away game. When we are on a bad pitch, apparently, we don't know what to do.

Torres played in behind the defence...alone...he tries to switch it back to no one...jeez.

Drogba with Malaria was better at holding up the ball than Torres. Hell, Drogba could have had leprosy, be blind, and have the black plague and still been more effective than Torres.

Our problem is simple...we can't pass. We are passing an awful 61% and only Benayoun and Berrand are above 75% success rate.

What a dull first half. I'd be upset if I cared about this competition.

2 of them are leaving at the end of the year. It's the third that's going to take a miracle to get rid of.

Our passing is awful so far...

He hasn't had much of a shot but I think the fact that both Bertrand and Benayoun were played even out of position ahead of him by different managers tells me that he must look really bad in training,

See my post a couple of pages back. He has to not suck. Marin has 1 tackle in five appearances. He is useless defensively, holds on to the ball too long in attack which slows us down, and gives the ball away carelessly. The fact that this is the second manager not to trust Marin at all and to play mediocre players ahead of him (Benayoun, Bertrand) makes it pretty obvious that he's not good enough for Chelsea right now.

If one manager doesn't like a player, it could be the manager or the system, but the fact that neither RDM or Benitez have any interest in playing Marin does tell me something. RDM preferred Bertrand to Marin and we all know how weak Bertrand is on the wing yet I can understand why he did it. Benitez prefers Benayoun who is hardly a superstar but I can still see why. Benayoun and Marin have similar game-time this year and while neither have contributed much offensively (1 goal versus 1 assist) there has been a big difference defensively. Marin has 1 tackle, 2 interceptions, and 1 clearance. Benayoun has 10 tackles, 6 interceptions, and 8 clearances. Managers don't like players who can't contribute on the defensive end. It's one thing, if you're Mata and you're an offensive superstar, it's another for someone like Marin. I'd be very surprised if he's back at Chelsea next year.

I just use firstrow or oleoletv.com and eventually I always find something watchable. Luckily, this one's on TV for me.

I'm OK with this...Cole, Mata, Azpilicueta, Ramires, Moses and Ba all get a rest which is significant.

I remain doubtful they'd sell, but yeah, he'd be a great addition to any club. He's been one of the best strikers in the world over the last decade and likely still has a good 3 or 4 years left at a top level. 11 goals, 9 assists, strong in the air, great at holding up the ball, can slot into a team in a few different places. He's nobody's favourite person, but he's a top player.

Sorry to hear that. As Hutcho says, it does put things in perspective. Spring is coming and hopefully along with it, a better 2013 for you.

Why is he not ready? Because he hasn't played against top competition. You're saying all these wonderful things about him, but it's all based on playing in competition that is vastly inferior to the competition Chelsea face. Nobody is denying he's been a very good player in the Championship but that's a far cry from being good enough for Chelsea. The Championship is the equivalent of a poor European league. It has no top players, no top teams. How many players come from the Championship and then are good enough to help a top team in the Premier League the next season? It's very rare. Yes Bale went straight to Spurs...to an 11th place side...and the next year an 8th place side. If developing young talent is more important than winning, then by all means, let's recall everyone and try to develop them but that's not even being Arsenal, that's being Southampton . To compete at the level Chelsea want to, Chelsea need to have a team of players who can play at the top level. You don't win competitions because you have people that can probably handle playing against the poorer sides. ManU isn't going to win because of Nick Powell. They're going to win because of Van Persie and Rooney and Carrick and Evra, etc... You are creating a ridiculous false dichotomy which is that either Chelsea brings players straight from the Championship and gives them game time or our youth system is not worth pursuing. It's nonsense. The loan system is about getting players ready to play at Chelsea. Lukaku is succeeding in the Premier League, KDB iin the Bundesliga, and Courtois is excelling in La Liga. Those players are all ready to contribute to Chelsea if needed because they've shown the ability to compete at a top level. That is what is required in order to get into a Chelsea side and that's the way it should be. Chalobah is not yet at that level and he's young so I don't see the need to rush him either. It will be better for Chalobah's development to play regularly for a Premier League club. I'd rather he gets 35 games with a promoted Watford (or similar) including matchups against top clubs than to play 15 games with us all against poorer sides. We've been through this before with Kakuta and McEachran. Phenoms who were guaranteed to be good enough for Chelsea and neither were and their development stagnated. Anyway, it's a moot point because I very much doubt if Chalobah is at Chelsea next season.

Attention to detail and communication are two very different things. This is a direct quote from Alex "This situation was being talked about for a while, and in part that was because of Andre's behaviour. He is not the kind of person who talks a lot - he's a bit closed. That's just the way he is." We saw even this year how upset Lloris was at AVB because he didn't communicate with him. AVB had lost the dressing room, not just Lampard. Managers are much much more replaceable than players. In our last 16 games under AVB, we won 4 games. We were drawing to teams like Wigan, Birmingham, and Norwich and losing to sides like Villa and WBA. We were blown out in Napoli where AVB used a bizarre starting XI which backfired completely. AVB left Chelsea with no choice but to fire him. We were awful! Would you have preferred that Chelsea got rid of Lampard and Cole just to keep a manager? Say goodbye to our CL win and we'd likely be even worse off now. Players like managers they can respect, they don't like managers who alienate half the players. In order to get respect, you have to earn it and AVB didn't earn it. Yes, Rafa did inherit a team not playing well and he's still done poorly relative to that. There was no new manager bounce, and we haven't played well for any stretch of games. It doesn't matter because he's gone anyway. As for Chalobah, no he's not ready. I think he is more likely to have a long-term impact than than any other Chelsea loaned player not playing in a top league right now. However, the difference in class between the Championship and the Premier League is big but the difference between the Championship and the top of the Premier League is enormous. The best player in the Championship (which is not Chalobah) would not be good enough to play regularly at Chelsea. I agree with @the only place to be and others that we need to bring in youth players, but next year, that'll be KDB and Lukaku who are both doing well at a high level and even then, I don't see either of them being a starter right away. Chalobah needs to go back on loan to a better side. Ideally, Watford will be promoted and he'd go there, but any Premier League side where he gets regular time will do.