GermanBlue

It's a number set by experts according to statistics and reputation of the player and league etc. which should show the players estimated value on the transfer market. Of course it isn't something like an overall rating like in FIFA, because you can't valuate a human in terms of money, but if there's a difference of €10m it is a good way to rate a player. Everybody knows that it's hard to negotiate with Portuguese sites and Matic leaving for that sum is something completely different and unrealistic. Please read my post again. The only thing I wanted to express is that Matic is still rated lower objectively than Witsel despite playing a great season at Benfica and that getting Witsel would not be any easier, because Fernando pointed out that it could be.

Hopefully he's alright. Twisted ankle can be anything from a slight stretch too a rupture. Let's hope for the best.

Fair enough as the club wants to end the rumours, too, and wants the player to be able to totally focus on his performances.

I remember one of our new signings of last season (anyone remembers who?) saying that Juan knows every corner of London so to say. If you tell him you want to eat a pizza or something, he knows exactly where you can eat the best pizza in London and all this stuff. It seems that he's really settled by now.

http://espnfc.com/news/story/_/id/1544383/everton-loanee-romelu-lukaku-was-90-per-cent-sure-chelsea-stay?campaign=rss&source=soccernet&cc=5739

Thanks. All right then I see no problem starting him. Baines will hopefully not have much time for attacking anyway. I think it's fair to rotate the pivot and give MVG a shot after playing Rambo and Lampard in the first 4 games, but Mourinho will probably stick with Ramires next to MVG/Lampard in front of our defence.

Good point, silly me.

Does anybody know something about Willian's defensive contribution? Although I believe we could play a quite offensive style at Everton, we might have to deal with Baines' runs. Maybe even Schürrle again on the right?

That's unlikely as the structure at Zenit is there for some time now and they've been a top Russian club ever since. It's unlikely that Gazprom will stop their sponsoring anytime soon IMO, they are a too big company and they also sponsor Schalke e.g.. The situation at Anzhi was quite different as the club was construed to achieve short-time success and because they simply didn't manage to do that, their money supply was cut off. Matic's market value (€22m) is still less than Witsel's (€32m) and the fact that Zenit bought the Belgian for €40m, would not make him cheaper for us. Portuguese teams are always hard to negotiate with though.

Off to the first match of the season, FINALLY.

Not a one-man team like Spurs were last season, because they still have the likes of Wilshere, Cazorla etc. in their ranks, but he'll be the key player and they'll struggle if he'd pick up an injury.

There's a difference between potential and reality. I agree that he could be one of the best strikers to ever play for Chelsea. No one knows that, but to say that now when he hasn't even scored for us is way too early.

Any more infos on why he isn't in the Spain squad? It's usual not to see him starting for them, but didn't he always have a spot on the bench? Not that I'm mad, I think those two weeks are very good for him. José maybe has spoken with Del Bosque to let him stay at Cobham so Juan can build up his full fitness!?

I think he'll stay until the end of the season now, or at least José will try to make him stay in January. As there is no re-call clause for Lukaku as far as I know, we would only have 2 strikers by January if Ba leaves. Eto'o whose contribution to our team we can't estimate by now and Torres. I think it'll be a massive risk to go into the second leg of the season only with these two. I can see Demba leaving if we bring another striker in. Will we bring someone in? No one knows. It'd be another punch in the face of Lukaku. Nice move. Arsenal don't really have a replacement for Giroud right now.

From Sky Sports:

From Sky Sports:

@DeadlineDayLive Paris Saint-Germain have failed in an attempt to sign Arsenal target Mesut Özil from Real Madrid. (Source: L'Équipe) Hmm... So it's not the money that convinced Mesut at Arsenal.

I will be angry and confused should Özil decide to join Arsenal.

He didn't want to extend his contract, so they wanted to get rid of him this summer in order to still get a transfer fee for him. He would've been a free transfer next summer otherwise. And no, it's not illegal. Giampaolo Pozzi owns Udinese, Granada and Watford for example.

It will be interesting how he performs in the BPL. He isn't known to be a fast defender and I remember in his last season at Bayern he had some crazy concentration mistakes regularly. Don't really follow La Liga, so I haven't seen him playing a lot lately.

I have the same opinion but I think there were two reasons why Mourinho chose Ivanovic. First is Azpilicueta lacking match-practice lately which can be very important in matches like this were little details can decide the game. And the second is the fact that a lot of balls which reach Ribery are - ironically for Guardiola's system - long balls crossed from the right side of the pitched (mainly from Lahm). Mourinho might have chosen Ivanovic also to make it harder for Ribery to reach those balls due to his aireal ability. But the main fact was probably the first.

The funny thing is that with Cuevas, Atsu, Piazon and Kakuta we have 4 of our loanies mainly fighting for 2 spots in the teams.

As far as I know, Draxler doesn't want to leave Schalke this summer. I'm sure he'll be off next year though if he keeps performing the way he does right now.

Draxler will definitely stay at Schalke this summer according to their manager Horst Heldt. So another brush-off for Wenger.

José is a great manager, an awesome tactician, but he seriously needs to grow up and accept unlucky defeats. It's fair to make the dubious statement that the better team lost last night as he's that teams manager and under certain circumstances you can see that Chelsea was more effective and tactically very disciplined, but to see a conspiracy behind every referee decision against his own team is immature. There definitely were wrong decisions in the past that had negative effects on Mourinho's teams, but the sending-off for Ramires last night was well deserved in my opinion. Although he hit the ball first, you can't go into a tackle like this if you were already booked. The ref didn't kill the game lol. The last-minute goal was unlucky. The added time was okay because of the injuries, that's football and not the referees fault. Still happy to have him back here.