Hybrid Angel

The same one as you. I don't tend to overreact when there's clearly many factors to consider; Pedro, Hazard and Bakayoko three guaranteed first XI players were out, Morata was playing on the wing, even Rudiger who will start in the Community Shield started from the bench this game. Still, We should have probably won that game if it wasn't due to poor officiating. There are clear issues in the squad and most members on this forum are aware of that. Lack of depth in quality and quantity in the wing back positions and lack of depth in midfield. But you're being way too harsh with your overreaction given the circumstance we're in.

Not too fussed about the result, we probably should have earned at least a draw with a competent referee. Performance was OK, nothing to worry about that much imo. Morata should play up top.

Don't let anyone ever tell you that David isn't our best defender. Proper athlete and defender, very physical, intelligent, great at reading the game and also a fantastic player with the ball at his feet. I know it was "just a pre season friendly" but today he showed he's the only real leader in the team. For how much we suffered in the Koulibaly saga, we really got lucky with this one.

As if Torres could control a football, let alone do something with it... (assuming you mean Chelsea Torres)

Low-key more excited for him than any of our other signings. He's going to be an absolute game changer in big games, I'm absolutely sure of that. Conte is also perfect for his development. I think the defensive aspect of his game and his technique are already very good (though he can improve on receiving the ball in deep areas of the pitch), and his passing game has got real potential to easily be above average.

That's our fault for giving such a great number to the likes of Franco fucking Di Santo

This post is full of lazy arguments and comparisons. First of all, how did you determine that Alex Sandro is not worth 60m or 70m? Benjamin Mendy of Monaco who has only had one top season is going for +45m. Alex Sandro has shined at a world class level Juve for two seasons and was already known as a good player at Porto. This is the current state of the market nowdays. Full-backs are very important in today's Football, I would have no problem if the club spent this much money for this caliber of player. Secondly, Bonucci's sale simply cannot be compared to this one. Despite the fact that Bonucci is a top 3 player in his position just like Sandro, Bonucci wanted to leave Juve which put Juve in a bad negotiating position. Not only that, his wife wanted to stay in Italy which would mean only a select few clubs were available, which means very small competition for those clubs (and the only two were probably Milan and Inter). It's only common sense for Milan to use all of these conditions as leverage and Bonucci's will to leave meant Juve can do nothing about it. Lastly, Di Marzio and Fabrizio Romano have reported that we've made a 60m euro bid for him. Two of the most reliable journalists for the transfer market.

All I care about is if he's fit enough to play at Wembley against Spurs, but preferably before the community shield. We're gonna heavily rely on him as a major outlet against pressing teams. His ability to retain the ball under pressure through a smart turn or one or two dribbles is invaluable in these type of matches. He dominated the Spurs midfield last year in the CL.

Well, I think the real question is not if he can score enough goals, but rather if he can score the goals. I think Morata can easily score +15 goals in the league this season (unless a repeat of 14/15 occurs). Consider this: Diego Costa scored 20 goals in the league last season which isn't 'that' impressive for a side that won the league. However, no-one can deny the huge effect he had on our success. A lot of the goals he scored either brought us the victory (WBA) or sparked a comeback (City away). Even before Costa we had Drogba who didn't score a lot of goals per se but he scored important goals and was always a handful for the opponent's defenders. This is what will be expected of Morata. And thankfully, he's shown that he's very capable. He's scored goals against the likes of Bayern, City, Real Madrid, Barcelona which includes the CL final and Semi final, also multiple match winning goals in La Liga and CL last year. Besides that, Alvarito is someone who will always contribute positively to the team whether he scores or not. Wouldn't be surprised to see our other outfield players score a lot more goals this year. In fact I'm expecting Eden to once again break his record goal tally in a season for us. He's a player that thrives on link up play, and this is the first time in his Chelsea career that he will play alongside a striker with great link up play and technique. He'll be feeding off the one-twos with the new Spanish man upfront.

If it comes down to Morata for our only option left in the striker department then I wouldn't even be mad if we miss out on him as well. Might be a bit unpopular but I don't think the difference in quality between Michy and Morata is any big. 70m down the drain for a striker who hasn't shown that he is a clear level or two above Michy is very risky business. I think it should be Belotti/Auba or nothing right now. If we're gonna sign a striker who's gonna start for us then let it be a top class one.

http://gianlucadimarzio.com/en/manchester-city-surpasses-chelsea-for-real-madrids-danilo Yesterday, it was Chelsea that made a move for him with an offer to Real Madrid. Today, however, Manchester City seem like they have surpassed the London club for Danilo. -- Another L. I like to stay optimistic but it genuinely seems like we can't sign anyone to save our lives unless no-one else at our level wants the player or the player himself wants to join us. Getting ridiculous now.

Don't really see us linked with this guy anymore, but he'd be a great addition to the squad as a depth midfielder option this season and a potential starting XI member for the future. His development in the last few years has been incredible.

Chelsea need a striker, Aubameyang wants to leave, we've just missed out on Lukaku and threw in a desperate 'bid' at the end. Now some lazy websites link Aubameyang to us even though he's almost never been linked to us previously this summer. Other media outlets pick up on it and suddenly this Auba->Chelsea seems to have become a story out of absolutely nothing. Yeah, seems to be pretty bullshit. Would love to be proved wrong though.

Even though he seems to be the most reliable reporter for Chelsea, Matt Law is the king of saying nothing in his articles.

And it's so ironic cause the left side seemed to be by far our weaker side in this regard. Goes to show how you can almost always make an upgrade in every position.

I have a feeling Lukaku is done already. If that's the case Van Dijk seems to be the only one left to be finished or almost finished.

Dani Alves I imagine.

Said by a Juve fan: "Posted by Agresti? Seals the deal, that's two our of starting players gone now. Fucking joke" Seems like it's happening

Conte should pull a Van Gaal and sub him on before a penalty shootout. Overall very decent keeper, happy with this signing.

Personally I was one of Lukaku's biggest critics for the longest time. I always believed that the technical deficiencies in his game would prevent him from being a top player and he could never improve his abilities in this aspect substantially. However he's slowly and gradually proved me wrong. At this moment of time it's pretty clear that he is better than Costa technically and also possesses a higher football IQ. His awareness of space and movement of teammates relative to his position in or around the box is also a big improvement since his time at Chelsea. He's very good at being the striker who receives the ball in his feet and makes a sharp turn, using his strength and speed. Then he can open his above average vision for a striker to find teammates or make something happen himself. I never understood the similarities to Drogba around the time when Mourinho arrived for the second time. Aside from the fact that they are both big and black strikers, there really weren't any other similarities. Drogba's biggest quality that Lukaku never had at the was the intelligence to use his strength effectively. Imo Romelu was and still is a physically stronger player than Drogba. However, if you watched both play around that time you'd think that Drogba is the stronger player in a sense that he used his strength to shield and hold up the ball way more effectively. But now Lukaku has grown a lot in this aspect. He uses body much better than he did before and alongside his improved technique, he's edging closer and closer towards becoming a perfect striker. You can see what I'm talking about in this newly posted Youtube video: As you can see, his combination use of his body and the ball have improved drastically. People often complain that he struggles using these in big games, but as @The Skipper mentioned it's fairly obvious that Everton play very defensively in big games and look for scraps up top. In these type of situations it's very harsh to judge a striker's performance and abilities. But even then, if you look at the table I posted above or the statistic that @pHaRaOn posted you'll see that he's managed to have a very solid big game record in his CV. I think this record will improve even more if/when he comes to Chelsea and he'll become a hit here, comfortably scoring 20+ goals in the league if our season goes relatively well.

What I would give for him and Nelson Semedo as our wingbacks...

Can we take a moment to appreciate the fact that there's someone in this world who believes this lanky slow brainless Serbian is better than Zinedine Zidane? Everyone has an opinion and all but fucking hell.

Good. I understand that everyone's angry including myself but there's a genuine silver lining to take out of this fa cup final. When we last won the title in 2015, we all saw that the performances in the second half of the season weren't good enough. Even though we won the title, the success itself was in some form papered over some of the cracks in the squad. The issues were not handled in the transfer window as we suffered from a huge case of complacency. Sure we should have performed better the following season with the squad we had, but the lack of activity in the transfer window played a huge part as well. When we lost 3-0 to Arsenal earlier on in the season, we made a huge change in terms of system, starting players and their positions, changes that sparked a 13-game winning streak and eventually lead to this incredible season. League winners and cup runners-up, we must not forget that we were all merely hoping for a top four finish. I think this season, THE major key to our success has been the consistency against smaller teams. The performances in the big games have not been good enough and this is even more indication of this season being a clear case of a managerial masterclass by Conte. Sure, we've had great individual performances by every player throughout the season, but we can all agree that there are some positions that could clearly take upgrading during the transfer window. A common theme has been against top oppositions who heavily press us, we simply cannot cope with the pressure and that has a lot to do with some of the personnel. We need to remember, top teams in Europe won't respect us and will be pressing us the entire match. The way we perform against those sort of teams right now will lead us to constantly sit back and look for scraps upfront. Alonso might be a fine option against smaller teams, but he simply can't get out of pressure simply because he isn't slow and agile enough. The same applies to Matic. These two players lack a lot of self awareness when it comes to receiving passes and playing with the ball which leads to the loss of possession. Kante is the same, but at least he's agile enough to help himself sometimes. What we can take out of this defeat is that now maybe the board will try to be the least complacent they can in the transfer window. Just like how the defeat against Arsenal at the Emirates lead to the change in system, maybe this defeat will cause our board to listen to the demands of the manager and spend in the summer, and spend big because our rivals aren't fucking around. TL;DR: Hopefully this defeat will give a wake up call to the board and reminds them to spend in a transfer window where our rivals, especially the Manchester clubs, will be severely strengthening their squads.

This isn't even the worst of it. Wait till we play the top CL clubs with him in the lineup, it will be chance after chance for their forwards cause this man doesn't have any awareness whatsoever when receiving the ball or in possession of it. Nor does he have the agility and the skill to retain the ball under pressure. Kante suffers from the same problems as he does but at least the Frenchman has the pace and agility to get himself out of trouble sometimes. Improvement in his the summer needed big time. This midfield will get crushed in Europe if it's kept this way.

Allegri for me is the best manager in the world. For me he's been top 3 for three years now and weirdly underrated, despite his great success. No-one touches him from the tactical point of view, especially his flexibility. If we're looking at things more generally, he started with Juve using the 4-3-1-2 formation in his first season and almost won a historic treble with a squad that Conte claimed to be not good enough to compete for the CL. Next season, he lost Vidal, Pirlo and Tevez and after a horrific start to the season he reverted back to Juve's 3-5-2 and showed his ability to manage a very tough situation and lead the club to the double. They'd have arguably much more to say in Europe as well if it weren't for some questionable referring calls in the Allianz. Earlier this season he experimented all sorts of formations to find the perfect balance after Pogba's departure. It was only against Lazio in the second half of the season that he used the 4-2-3-1 the way we see it today. But the important thing to notice is that Mandzukic isn't exactly a winger in this formation, he plays more narrow and this allows Sandro to use his amazing stamina and offensive abilities throughout the game on the left flank. This Juve team are drilled to absolute perfection and they're a joy to watch. But what I like most about him is his game awareness and the approach to games. He knows when his team should press high(and he's not afraid to do so against any opposition), when to drop deep and when to keep the possession of the ball(something Juve have greatly improved on since switching to this new formation.) More specifically, Allegri has world class game management skills, the subs he makes relative to the direction the game is heading are very astute. But game management isn't all about substitutions, and like I said above Allegri is very good in his approach to games and its different moments. If Allegri wins the treble for Juve he will go down as Juve's greatest manager ever after Lippi; A magnificent accomplishment after three years. My family are all Juve fans, causing me to like them as long as they don't get in the Chels' way, but I hope Juve win it for Buffon alone.