TorontoChelsea

He is what he is and that player has value on a Mourinho team. It's too bad his transfer fee was so absurd because it makes us want more than he can deliver. He's a hard-worker with great energy and he can create space with his pace and movement but he isn't much offensively. He plays with his head down, makes some strange decisions, hold on to the ball FOREVER instead of moving it quickly, and has a poor final product. (He's scored 44 goals in 317 career games, the vast majority of those games in a poor Ukranian league).

We need another striker. Anything else is luxury but going into the season with Drogba and Torres primed to play major minutes is extremely weak and in the case of a Costa injury or failure to adapt, we have no chance of winning anything. Not upset about the transfer particularly because the fee is very good although I don't think it's bad for Everton either (like I think the Luiz fee was ridiculous for PSG). They get a 21 YO striker who scored 15 goals for them, fits their system, and is likely to improve. I wouldn't be surprised if he scores 20 for them this year and scores in the 15-20 range for another decade in the league. I don't think he's a superstar by any means, but it is extremely rare to find strikers this young being this successful so yes, there is a lot of value in that. If we can go get another striker, I will be fine with this, If not, I won't be.

The issue I have is that defensive football actually isn't any more successful than offensive football. The bottom line is that you have to score more goals than the other team and that can be 5-4 or 1-0. In fact, last year, goals for was a better indicator of success than goals against. The top 7 in goals for finished 1,2,3,4. 7, 5,6 (in other words all the top 7) The top 7 in goals against finished 3, 1, 5,4, 7,8, 11. I don't expect us to be exciting offensively because Mourinho is not that kind of coach. I don't like it, but it's the way we went and we have to keep on that path if we want to win. Trying to force a certain offensive style on a team it doesn't fit is a disaster.. BTW, for 95% of teams, you just need to do what you can do win. I will never begrudge a lower level team of playing super defensively against us. What can you do when your entire roster costs less than any two players on the other team's squad? However, when you are spending 60M pounds a year, you should be able to produce some attractive football.

Exactly. We should assume that every young player with any talent is secretly a start player because it happened to one player. Let's just run out our youth team because Paul Pogba did it! Feruz, Loftus-Cheek, Bamford, Baker...we will have a team of potentially elite players! (And finish in the relegation zone). Pogba is a rarity, even the exception. You can't point out the exception and say that's why we should be doing something. There have been thousands and thousands of players who have played in the Championship in the last decade, played in youth teams and exactly how many of them went immediately helping out even mid-table Premier league sides? For every Pogba, there are a thousand Zahas, a thousand Tom Inces, and a thousand Wes Hoolahans. And those were players who were elite in the Championship, not someone who was benched regularly. Maybe Chalobah could play with Chelsea this year and be a great player but historically those odds are probably not even 0.1% and why risj it? What exactly is the benefit? Almost no chance of making an impact and no game time for a player who badly needs development all because fans want to see a young player play? If he's good enough, he'll force his way here eventually and if he's not, he won't. He isn't good enough yet.

A loan is absolutely the right thing. He is coming off of a poor to mixed season in the Championship (after a great one). He's not ready (the jump to the Premier League is a massive one even for more polished, more experiences, and more accomplished players) and we don't have enough game time to give him to develop. We have Fabergas, Matic, Ramires, Van Ginkel, Romeu, and Mikel all ahead of him for 2 positions in midfield and Terry, Cahill, Ivanovic, and Zouma ahead of him for 2 positions in central defense. (and no, getting rid of Mikel wouldn't suddenly give Chalobah playing time.) I'd ideally love to see him on a lower Premier League team where he'd get minutes (Burnley?), but there aren't many of those and I think back to the Championship is a little more likely.

Chambers isn't starting caliber for Arsenal yet but he's an improvement on Jenkinson and Chambers might not stick at RB either. I've heard talk of him going to CB or CM. Overall, He was bought for the future. Arsenal look quite dangerous to me. They have some excellent talent and a fair bit of depth especially at midfield where it's a ton of depth. . Just because they haven't won in a while, doesn't mean they can't again. People were saying we couldn't win until we did.

I am not one for twitter rumours but chelsea have 4 strikers and too many players so either Torres or Lukaku has to go.

Would be a terrible move unless they aren't done buying yet. Torres and Drogba as our backup strikers? Yikes. Second strikers get a lot of gametime and that's a combo that scored 11 goals in 56 league games three years ago and has gotten older and worse since. I don't think Lukaku is some superstar player, but he has shown the ability to score regularly when given a chance and that's something neither Torres or Drogba have done for a long time.

Why would Sunderland buy him then? People are so obsessed with not losing talent that they want to put buy-back clauses on every player but there is a reason they are really never included. @iii3 Second choice LB is I think, pretty obviously, Azpilicueta.

Nice strawman. I never said anything like that nor do I think for a second that Costa won't start. Too much does not equate to starting ahead of Costa regularly. Too much means playing more than about 15-20 games total all season.

My worry is that Mourinho will play Drogba too much because he's familiar with him. He hasn't been a very good player for a while now and is 36. He really isn't close to Chelsea quality anymore. If he plays regularly, we're in trouble.

We have a bunch of players on the fringes we could get rid of.. Last year, we had 17 outfield players who played more than 15 games in the league (including subs) and 2 more who played more than 10. After that, it's a few players who barely played. And that was with buying and selling people in the middle of the year.That's the total rotation. We could get rid of/loan half a dozen players and be fine. We should actually as outside of the top-16-18 outfield players, nobody will get any game time.

Yes, I can definitely see that as well. If Mourinho doesn't like Lukaku, we might as well sell him for some big money but...that would leave Chelsea with a massive weakness at striker again. I am not sold on Costa as an elite player but no matter what, you need a second striker who can play and I don't think Drogba or Torres are even premier league caliber players anymore(and I mean that) never mind Chelsea caliber players. If that is the case, the Drogba signing is awful and makes us a much worse team. If it's Torres who goes, it really doesn't make any change except gets us some money and some leadership.

We need it, Azpilicueta was very solid defensively last year but overall was overrated because he offered nothing offensively at all. No goals, no assists, the worst passing percentage by a defender and he offers nothing on set pieces (Cahill, Ivanovic, and Terry are all dangerous in the air). He had 5 fewer key passes than Cole in roughly double the number of games. Hard to blame Azpi though as he was on his off side playing a newish position and he was extremely solid defensively. However, Luis can give us some natural width which we desperately need. Last year, almost all of our crosses came from Ivanovic because nobody else played wide. A wide player on the left will stretch the defense and create more space for forwards to run into and attack the ball.

Like you and I wouldn't take that job in 2 seconds! It's easy. Just have two hats. One with player names in it and one with teams. "Sources tell me that Barcelona and Argentina forward Lionel Messi is close to joining Scottish League two side East Fife in a shock transfer". That is fun!!! @Choulo-I think it means that Torres will go. The third striker on a team barely plays but having 4 strikers is useless. I think Atletico will buy Torres and whatever they pay for him is a good deal for us.

Stop being so Canadian. There is no need to apologize! Your post was not offensive or anything. We just disagree and that's just fine! @Chelsea Legend 11- De Bruyne didn't start the first game because he was brilliant in pre-season, he started the first game because Chelsea hadn't bought Willian yet and Mata wasn't back to match fitness.Once those two things happened, De Bruyne was never going to play regularly. He played 1 game, sat a game, and then never saw regular action again. De Bruyne didn't deserve to play regularly (the players ahead of him were better or better suited for the system), but plenty of players had much longer spells of playing poorly and still played regularly (Ramires, Oscar, Willian, Lampard, Etc...) If the pre-season mattered at all, KDB would have been a regular player for Chelsea for a lot longer than 2/3 games.

Disagree entirely. Maybe at a lower level, it's about chemistry, but at the top level, it's all about fitness. Who is going to play and where has already been decided and there is no correlation between playing well or poorly in the pre-season and anything in the regular season . Our best players in the last 2 preseasons were Marin and De Bruyne and neither played much of a role in the following year. You can also see this by looking at every single year of the past. Our second to last pre-season game featured 5 starters who wouldn't start our first game. (And if the last game weren't a personal game for Mourinho against Real Madrid, you would have seen the same thing again) Managers play with different things but they know the players they have. Barring injury or a late transfer, the rotation will be Azpilicueta, Ivanovic, Terry, Cahill, Luis in defense. Hazard, Willian, Oscar, Schurrle, Ramires, Matic, and Fabergas in midfield (with Salah, and probably one of Van Ginkel or Mikel likely also getting some minutes) and Costa, Lukaku and Torres at striker. Zouma will probably get a few games but apart from that, the rotation is done and no matter how poorly someone in the rotation plays or how well someone outside it plays, it won't change a thing. It's what makes sense at this level anyway. These players have track records of years of competitive play that are infinitely more important.than what, 150 minutes, 200 minutes against bad teams or teams also trying to get in shape.

Football is mirroring the real world. The economy for the top-10 teams (the less than 1%) is so absurd and it doesn't even matter because they just get who they want. Did Barcelona with Messi and Neymar need Suarez? Not at all. Does Real Madrid need James Rodriguez. Not in the least. This kind of stuff is so bad for football because great players, players we should be seeing every single week, sit on benches and play as a subs once in a while Madrid now has Ronaldo, Bale, Isco, Alonso, Kheidera, Kroos, Rodriguez, Modric, and Di Maria for 5 positions. That is a complete and utter waste of talent. The rich just keep getting richer and football suffers.

Hard to know but I don't think that's likely If he makes the most of his chances early, I can see him being a fairly regular player. When Mourinho takes a shine to you, he will play you and we don't really have someone who is as natural on the right side as Salah is. On the other hand, Willian, Schurrle, and Ramires will all play on the right and all of them have to play. I don't see 25-30 games as likely, because I think he's behind Hazard, Oscar, Willian, Schurrle, and Ramires/Fabergas at attacking midfield and the 6th attacking midfielder isn't going to play much. Also, Mourinho does like to use a second striker as a sub when the team is behind which means fewer appearances for midfielders.

Mata still led the team in through balls. It was a system thing, that's it. Barcelona played five through balls a game last year. Chelsea played one. Mata is extremely capable of playing through balls as we've all seen.

Liverpool would have had a hard time repeating their performance even if they kept Suarez. They had a lot of luck and got had no runs in other competitions. Without him, they are going to have massive problems. They have bought some good players but elite players are hard to find and almost impossible to replace. I can see them finishing behind a resurgent United. Arsenal's moves have been a lot better and unlike Liverpool, they were quite unlucky last season. They have a lot of depth on their squad and a ton of talented players. They are the only team outside of us and City I can see winning this year.

It was our biggest issue for sure. Mata didn't fit Mourinho's system but you can't counter-attack against everyone and sometimes you need to break down teams. Too many times, it was down to Hazard to create something magical for us to score. Fabergas will hopefully give us some of that creativity Mata did from a deeper position.

I wouldn't have Torres start at all unless there is an injury. Costa is our #1 and Lukaku should get all starts he doesn't get. Torres has been a poor (in terms of performance only) player for years now and having a good game against Schalke the CL doesn't make him a European specialist,

I'm good with this if Drogba is being brought back to mentor and lead. With Lampard and Cole leaving, it's not a bad idea to have someone who other players can look up to and he could help Lukaku a lot. If he's brought back to play, it's a bad move. His excellent play in the Cups, disguised what was some pretty poor play from Drogba his last couple of years at Chelsea. 16 goals in 50 games is not good. He's 36 years old and hasn't really been an impact player in about 5, 6 years. I can see him as a sub in a game where we want a striker who can defend late or we need someone who is an aerial threat, but I don't think he should even make the bench most games.

Yet despite spending about 60M more pounds, being able to mold a team in his own image, not starting in mid-season Mourinho who is a top manager, didn't accomplish any more than Rafa did. We finished third and trophyless and at the end of the season actually looked worse than we did at the end of the last season. Avram Grant had more success in the CL than Mourinho ever had with us. RDM won the CL. Managers don't matter much and certainly not a fraction of the way the media and fans treat them. Long-term successful managers are managers that are on high spending clubs. Managers do matter in a couple of ways 1) Controlling egos. Big name managers can handle players' egos with their own. That is important. 2)There are managers whose games suite different styles of play and may be a better fit at different clubs. 3) Managers can make a little difference and at the top level that little difference could be between winning and losing. People always blame managers for losing and give managers credit for winning but they relatively little impact, about, I would say, the impact of a squad player. It goes against everything people learn about football but football is in the dark ages still where people think teams win because of heart and will and so on. Teams win mostly because of money.