TorontoChelsea

So basically don't mind arguing about the merits of individual players as long as people agree with you. Just because people disagree with you about a player, doesn't mean they don't know anything. Dismissing anyone who thinks that Fellaini wasn't a fabulous defensive midfielder as not knowing anything doesn't make you right, it makes you a prick. You have quickly become one of my least favourite posters on here because of your arrogance and habit of dismissing disagreement as ignorance. I mean your depth of football knowledge is just too vast for us mere mortals. We all just started following football May2012. Is the guy kicking the ball towards the goalie man supposed to try to hit him or to get the ball past him? Please, tell me more. I don't know anything. If we try to do more goals than the other team, is that good? Are we the team in blue or red? I'm so confused! Just fuck off.

One can manipulate stats, but these are actually important ones. Defensive midfielders make tackles, they intercept, they pass at a high percentage, they make tackles, they intercept the ball, they make clearances, and they don't get involved too much in offensive play. If you look at defensive midfielders like Mikel, Busquets, Song, Tiote, Sandro, Lucas Leiva etc...they are generally pretty similar in what they do. Fellaini is a completely different player. And not just this year either. He's been moving up the pitch gradually for years and the numbers show that. What people who want him are essentially saying is "let's take a player who was a mediocre defensive midfielder and was miscast there and who is now excelling as an attacking midfielder, let's go out and spend an enormous amount of money based on that player's success as an attacking midfielder so we can turn him back into a defensive midfielder". It makes no sense .

Fellaini is valuable and people want him because of what he is doing the past couple of years where he hasn't played much at all of DM. As a DM, he was mediocre and wasn't really a real DM anyway. Even before this season, he was taking between 1.5-2 shot a game. Defensive midfielders don't do that. They almost never shoot. Look at last year shots taken. Busquets-5, Song-14, Mikel-11, Fellaini-52. Defensive midfielders don't shoot that often, because you're not supposed to find yourself in scoring positions twice a game.If you also look at positional charts, Fellaini was nowhere near the DM position. People like him because he's noticeable and he's always involved in plays, but he was nowhere near elite as a defensive midfielder. He was often out of position and forced to foul, something he still does but matters a lot less because of his new position. What you want in a DM is someone like Busquets. Safe, smart defensively, makes mostly short to medium passes at a high level, etc...Fellaini is the opposite of that. Here's a few head to head statistic differences (and I'll throw in Busquets too to show a good guide to what DM should be) Passing pct%-Busquets-91.3%, Mikel 89.9%, Fellaini-78.7% Avg # of passes a game, Busquets-79.4, Mikel, 61.4, Fellaini 47.7 Long balls/game-Busquets-4.5, Mikel-3.4, Fellaini-2.2 Tackles per game-Mikel 2.6, Buquets 2.6 Fellaini 1.7 Interceptions per game-Mikel 1.8, Busquets 1.5, Fellaini 0.7 Fouls per game-Busquets-0.9, Mikel 2.1 Fellani 3.2 Dispossessed per game- Busquets-0.5, Mikel-0.6, Fellaini 2.5 People want Fellaini because he's flashy, but he's worse than Mikel in every way as a defensive midfielder except in aerial ability. His passing is weak, he gives up the ball way too often, his positioning is poor, and he fouls constantly. People always overrate certain sorts of players and Fellaini is a perfect example of that.

I don't see how anyone would think Fellaini would help us. He's an attacking central midfielder bordering on playing as a second striker which we don't need at all. He is the player Everton is playing around so Fellaini is taking 3.7 shots a game (by comparison, no Chelsea player has taken more than 2.5 shots a game.) He has real strengths as a player (great in the air, very good at finishing) and massive weaknesses (He doesn't position himself defensively well and fouls way way too often. 3.1 fouls a game for an attacking midfielder is insane). Where would he play at Chelsea? How would he fit into the side? Doesn't make any sense to me.

Apparently he had a long-standing charity commitment.

Fellaini is basically playing as a second striker right now...maybe even just as a striker. Everton run their attack through him. He has more shots than Jelavic despite playing in one less game. He's a talented but flawed player and as you say, massively overpriced right now.

I don't know either and I don't like them. It's almost always a needlessly showy move where you don't have all that much control over where the ball goals. Fans and players love skills moves, but they aren't what win you games.

Because trying to win it means that you have to play key players in it which means that they will have to sit out some Premier League games to rest. To me, the Europa League is as if there were a second Olympic Games where people who failed to qualify from the first games and people who failed to make the cut in early competition faced off. The games will still be fun and winning is better than not, but it's a ridiculous tournament. even if you win, it means you are the best team in Europe except for the best teams.,,The Premier League is the highest priority. We absolutely need to finish top-4 and that's still a very attainable goal. The ramifications f we fail to make the CL are massive.

Yeah. This was similar to the Wolves win. We played great, but the opposition was awful so it's hard to read anything into it. Nordsaelland played decently in Denmark, but we still beat them 4-0. This time, they were missing a couple of key players, then lost another key player early so that their entire shape was messed up. There was no chance of them winning anyway. We won 6-1, crashed out of the CL, but really there's not much to say. We got a tough group and didn't play badly overall, but ultimately, we weren't good enough. Very disappointing even in a rebuilding year, I thought knockout stage at a minimum. I'll obviously watch Chelsea in the Europa league, but I really care about 1/50th as much. Even if you win, it just means that you are the best team that's not one of the best teams. This would normally be a great opportunity to work some younger players in, but the ones who are ready for action at a decent level are all on loan.

Another penalty!

I think he didn't see either of them and wanted to get confirmation from his linesmen. Better late and right than wrong and immediate.

Yikes...

Cech mate!

Oh jesus...

Flipping back and forth between the games.. Shakhtar are definitely pressing forward, looking to score. Dominating possession so far. Vidal has an early yellow which is good. Our game...well, it looks like we should score five. Nordjsaelland are a poor side missing three of their best players.

Chelsea doesn't make any sense for Mourinho. What's he going to accomplish here that he already hasn't? Maybe if we hadn't won the CL recently, he might be interested, but I don't see him going somewhere just to build a dynasty. Not his style. Also, don't really see Roman wanting him back. If Roman wants flowing attacking football, that's really not Mourinho's style. The players we bought (small, skilled, defensively ambivalent) don't fit his preferred style anyway. Also, Chelsea is pretty unappealing for Managers these days.

I don't think you worry about that. You can't make someone the starter over a better player just because you're afraid of losing him. If Cortouis is happy at Athletico, we can keep him there for years for all I care.

Cech is our #1 goalie until he's not good enough. Keepers can last a long time (Friedel is 40 and still a very good goalie) so it might not be for a while.

The problem is that we also spent more than any other club in the transfer market. We gave David Luiz an unneeded and massive new contract. You can't have massive spending and then making little cuts to try to save money. It's ridiculous... It's like weightlifting. If you're lifting weights, one thing you figure out early is that you can't build muscle and lose weight at the same time.

Inflation is real and player are generally costing more, but it's mostly because there are now a few more teams that have gone crazy. Zenit, City, and PSG have all joined the high spenders in the past few years You look at the spending on players now, and almost all of them are going to be poor value. A handful of teams overspend to a ridiculous level now. That doesn't mean we have to. Also, your inflation numbers are off. Inflation hasn't been 100% in the last decade. If you account for inflation, there are still only 6 players who would have cost more than 50M today (the 6 I mentioned in my first post). (And BTW, in terms of yearly salaries, it's very different. Most players are actually worth what they are paid and top players are generally underpaid compare to how much money they bring in for the club.) And as for bringing new fans, that's what clubs like PSG and Zenit try to do by the big buys. Chelsea are already at a high level with as much exposure as possible.Buying a big name won't change anything. (And every player we buy from one country means that we don't buy another player from another country.) You can't win trophies in England without expensive players. It's not possible but the notion of what an expensive player is has been so skewed by a few clubs, that people have lost all perspective. There are almost no transfers of 20M pounds. That's a very expensive player. (I think maybe 4 players in the Premier League went for more than that last season). 15-20M pounds still gets you very good players. Dembele, Cazorla, etc...10-15M pounds gets you starters-Steven Fletcher, Natasic, Giroud, Vertonghen, Lloris, etc...We have spent so much money that, spending 40M seems like nothing, but it's an enormous amount of money even in modern transfers. The average Premier League club spent 14M pounds in the summer. You can't win without ever spending big, but you certainly can win without ever spending more than 30-35M on anybody.

I'll vote for Rmpr. Excellent poster and also a high volume of posts which is a combination of quality and quantity. Some of my favourite posters (SeB, Joke10, etc...) need to post more!

Ummm...what? Lampard won Chelsea player of the year 3 times (04, 05, 09) which is more than any other Chelsea player in history (the award was started in 1967). He came in second in the Ballon D'or in 2005. (And had he and Gerrard not split votes. he probably would have won. Also, the award is generally pretty anti-EPL . Despite being overall the best league in the world for a while and a top-3 league for a very long time, only two players playing in England have won the award since 1968 which is ridiculous.) So, basically, you're saying Lampard is shit because he never achieved things he actually did achieve. Comparing people who think love Torres and love Lampard is like comparing apples with blond apples that can't score. Lampard is the best midfielder in Premier League history. He was one of the best players in the world for years. He is probably the best player in Chelsea history. Every Chelsea supporter loves Lampard and what he's done for our club. How you can compare that to supporting Torres is beyond me.

Almost nobody is worth 40-50M no matter what. There have been 4 players in history who have gone for 50M+. (Ronaldo, Torres, Ibrahimovic, and Kaka) Only 2 other players went between 40-50M (Figo and Zidane) 4 of those 6 players were Real Madrid buys and all 4 of those were previous Ballon D'or winners. Other teams are somehow still able to win trophies and get strikers that score goals without spending that much money on a single player. You can get players that will fit your team and not cost 50M pounds. It's amazing. Chelsea have gone after big-name strikers twice. We bought Shevchenko who was a ballon d'or winner and probably the best striker in the world in a league that's always been difficult to score in. He was almost useless for us. Then, we spent 50M on Torres who had scored 65 goals in just over 100 games in England, the starting striker for the best national team in the world. Utterly useless at Chelsea. (That's without mentioning Chris Sutton who cost a lot of money and was even worse than Torres). You're acting like this is a new situation. Like we've never seen a case where there was a striker that everyone thought was amazing who came to Chelsea and flopped. We don't need to spend 50M on players, especially a player who relies on service to score. (Which he absolutely does). Here are the top goal-scorers in the Premier League and how much they cost Suarez-22.8M, Van Persie-24M , Ba-Free, Michu-2M, Defoe-15.75M, Fellaini-15M-Not one costing more than 24M pounds (and Van Persie cost Arsenal about 1M pounds) The five most expensive strikers in Premier League history Torres, Shevchenko, Aguero, Robinho, Caroll...4 complete and utter flops out of 5. This is why the board needs to be better than fans. They need to actually go out and find players that will fit into the (theoretical) manager's vision of the club, not just splurge on whoever the biggest name is. @FAnta-whoscored.com has very good free access to statistics.

I don't care about youtube videos of players...I hate them.. They tell you nothing about a footballer except that someone wanted to make a youtube video of them. I never said that Falcao was a bad finisher, just that he's not automatic. (And how do you get 48% when he has 11 goals on 47 shots (including 5 or 6 penalties which makes him 5 or 6 for 42 in open play). Look at the numbers of Falcao tin comparison o players I'd consider a more well-rounded strikers in Van Persie and Cavani and his one-dimensional is obvious. Van Persie is also a fantastic passer. He has double the number of key passes..Falcao has 1 cross all season. Van Persie has 14. Falcao turns the ball over 2,8 times a game. Van Persie 1.2. Or take someone like Cavani who is much better defensively. Falcao has 8 tackles all season. Cavani has 21. Falcao has 4 clearances, Cavani has 25. Etc...Falcao is excellent at scoring but he doesn't do anything else particularly well. Falcao is not a player that's going to win you games by himself, he's going to finish chances that are provided for him at a very good rate. .For 40-50M pounds, you need a hell of a lot more than that.

1) Because it's exactly what's wrong with Chelsea. The team isn't gelling, so go out and buy the biggest name available. This is why we're in the shape we're in. We need to be building a team, a philosophy rather than this. Falcao doesn't fit with players like Mata, Oscar, and Hazard. He needs a team built for him. 2) Falcao is a pretty-one dimensional player-much more so than people want to believe. He needs service to score and is limited in a number of other ways. 3) The amount of money it would cost to buy him is insane. Especially for someone who will be 27 in a couple of months.