TorontoChelsea

1) Feruz is not going to be on the team next year (except maybe in the way Ake is this year), He has played zero professional games. He's not even remotely ready for Chelsea. He's likely not even ready for a loan to a Premier League club. 2) Kevin De Bruyne is not ready to be our #1 CM. He's played exclusively as an attacking midfielder or a false 9 this season and mostly that or a winger last season as well and his game seems to be more suited for that position . It's possible, he can develop into a central midfielder as might Oscar (who I think is actually better suited there) but starting the season with someone who is not a central midfielder and has very little experience playing there as a starter is a massive risk and teams that plan on contending can't take risks like that in their starting XI. 3) We're all writing Torres off as gone but it's possible they won't be able to get rid of him which would very very bad for us in so many ways. 4) I don't think Ba and Lukaku is a good enough strike-force to win the Premier League (I'd rather see either as the #2 guy right now) but they're both too good to be a #3 striker as well.

I don't think very good. He'd be fine as an emergency striker, but I don't think any of us would be happy with him as our #9 for an extended period. It goes back to an overall strange transfer policy from us in many ways creating some real imbalance (we have made a bunch of good signings in the past year, but the overall vision still confuses me).

The problem with even that is that we're already stacked at attacking midfielder. Mata, Hazard, Oscar, Moses, and De Bruyne are all best suited there and will all demand consistent playing time so even getting someone flexible (like Jovetic) wouldn't mean much, because we are so attack-heavy already.

Welcome and keep posting!!

Bought a kindle...I read a lot and I travel a lot so it makes sense. I love it already.

The problem is that you can't integrate three strikers into a one-striker system. ManU and City play with 2 or even three strikers at a tim. 4 strikers for 2 spots is very different than 3 strikers for 1 spot. Let's say we play 60 games next year and we buy a Cavani or a Falcao or some other proven striker. They would rightly expect to start 40-45 matches. That gives 15-20 starts for Lukaku and Ba combined, mostly in domestic cups which is simply not enough to develop Lukaku or to keep either him or Ba happy. Ba can play on the wing, but we have Hazard, Mata, Oscar, De Bruyne, and Moses for attacking midfielder so any time he sees there would take away from their game-time.

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.

Afghanistan is unwinnable, but it's not Vietnam. In Afghanistan we're talking about 15, 000 troops, 15, 000 civilians, and unknown number of Taliban killed in about 12 years. In Vietnam, it was about 800, 000 fighters killed and millions of civilians the vast majority of whom were also killed in a 12 year period ('63-'75). We're talking the difference between say 50-100K dead and millions. North Korea is the weirdest country in the world. This is what happens when countries become isolated. They start to listen to their own internal lies only and they forget what's true and what's not ("Did we make that up to scare people o is it true?). You look at South Korea and what a generally very good country that's become and then you look . North Korea is just impoverished, isolated, and ruled by maniacs who would be funny if not for the actual misery they inflict on their people.

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?

The multicultural debate is a very very interesting one. I am from an incredibly multicultural city and have friends from almost every background you can think of but I do see the downside and the complications as well. Many people point to Northern Europe as the ideal society but one of the reasons they are able to have that social structure is that they are small, homogeneous populations. It's much harder to run that sort of society with many different different types of people, You look at Europe, they haven't been able/willing to assimilate many immigrant groups and the end result has been isolation and resentment, in many cases a two-tiered society one for the natives and one for the immigrants. (Who sometimes live in almost a ghetto with satellites all around, they are barely even in their own country) If you look at the US which allows multiculturalism but only within the context of being American, immigrant groups do much better there. I hate nationalism and ethnic nationalism most of all. Immigration is mostly a good thing, but it's a complicated issue.

I've seen the future and it is memes. It's just going to be like this from now on. Some stupid dance or other fad goes viral and then everyone does it for 6 months, before some new stupid dance comes in. I don't understand the appeal at all.

But that's what any sort of extreme ideology will turn into. Countries that claim to be socialist almost always turn out to be repressive just like right wing countries. There is no perfect political system, but to me a social democracy with a free market and high taxes for the wealthy/lots of protection for the unfortunate is easily the best system available. The things is, people want their ideologies to be pure but it doesn't work. Chavez to me , like to a lot of people, is a controversial figure. He did a lot of good, raising a lot of poor into better living conditions, and he also stood up to the US interference which in Latin America is something to be proud of. However, he also tried to silence his critics by force and let the country's economy slip into shambles and the country become one of the most violent in the world. South American countries have often veered from Fascist military strongman to Socialist strongman..What can I say, they like their charismatic, strong leaders. About Stalin versus Hitler. I hate this sort of thing. It's not a competition. Both were absolutely evil. Stalin had people killed indiscriminately. He was paranoid and mad. Hitler wanted to cleanse the world of all undesirables (Basically anyone who wasn't an able-bodied heterosexual Aryan)..

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.