The only place to be

I agree with a lot of this, and have mentioned a few of these points in the past. We still talk about Luiz in terms of what he can be, not what he is so when you factor in his age (26 and with almost 300 first-team appearances in his career) then he probably isn't worth £40 million. That's why any offer would have to be considered. In terms of replacements then you're almost certainly looking at younger players with potential as well, along the lines of Zouma or Mangala. But my personal preference would be to take that £40 million and dangle it in front of Real for Varane.

League cup, FA Cup, group games in the CL....that's maybe a dozen games, plus he'll probably get a lot of time on the bench in league games. His versatility will be an advantage too. It would appear as though Jose simply hasn't seen enough of him to make a decision though, so why not keep him around for a few months? There's still a chance to move on in the January window, but he has time on his side. The odd young prospect filling in on the occasional matchday isn't the worst thing to have around. I don't think he's the strongest prospect in our academy but he's a tidy young player who showed against Everton that he has something to offer as a midfielder.

Support Choulo's opinion = Very insightful. Don't support Choulo's opinion = Clearly manipulated.

I'm sorry, but anyone who thought the youth system would bear fruit in anything less than decade after the club was radically overhauled was always going to be in for disappointment. Now is when you'd expect the system to bear fruit and in players like Chalobah, Ake and Loftus-Cheek we actually have a shot at producing top class players. People can be negative about the club and write them off but I really don't see the point in that.

Because that's what he does. Luiz is a defender who was deployed in midfield because he gave far more effort than Mikel was capable of. He played about a dozen games there, lacked the fitness to do so for 90 minutes so why not compare him to Mikel? Choulo slagged off Van Ginkel after less than 100 minutes of pre-season friendlies purely to defend Mikel. I simply don't get this mentality. If Mikel was even close to being the player that some people on here describe him as then the supporters would love him, but there's this amazing thing that happens right now. You can go up to any Chelsea supporter, say Mikel's shit and they'll agree 99% of the time. Happened to me in the pub on Friday and it made me chortle.

Surely we should be loaning Ivanovic out after all it was his mistakes that got us knocked out of the League Cup. We're Chelsea...we can't expect mistakes from out defenders. Defenders will make mistakes. Young players will make mistakes. John Terry made mistakes. The trick is to stick with them so they can learn from their mistakes and become better in the future. It's called 'supporting' your players.

I think this is a great set of kits to be quite honest. The home kit has received near universal acclaim on here because it's just a very simple looking kit with a couple of nice touches. I'm a big fan of the white away one with the horizontal stripes (partly as a nod to our heritage), and the new black one is just a very simple kit that will appeal to some of the more rotund supporters who feel black is more flattering to their physique than a white one. The campaign has been eye-catching too, so all in all you have to give Adidas credit for doing exactly what they're supposed to do in creating a good product and marketing it well. Can't remember the last time I was inclined to get all three kits but I'm sorely tempted this year.

Don't agree. I think most supporters recognise he is a fairly unique player who offers a lot, but that he's also massively inconsistent at times. He's done well in these matches but against Villa he managed to get himself sent off when every bloke and his dog could see it coming a mile off. Yes he's had great games like you mention (although a couple of those were as a winger) but he's also had games where he couldn't find a teammate with a pass for love nor money. What Jose can do as a coach is work on the mental side of a player's game and give them that extra bit of belief that brings that consistency to their play. Ever since he came in he's made it clear Ramires will be a big player and to his credit he has responded brilliantly. That needs to continue.

I can see this one going right to the end of the window simply because of the game at Old Trafford. There are so many permutations to be played out that I simply don't understand how anyone can be certain that this deal is dead in the water. He still has the biggest trump card left to play, which is the formal transfer request. The Glazers quite simply won't let him leave without him putting that in, but equally Rooney's people will be reluctant to do so until they absolutely have to so you have a stand-off at this point in time with both sides looking for the other to flinch.

He's a young kid with a lot of potential and he's going to make mistakes. That's what young players do. What we do is support them, understand that and don't immediately question them and ask for them to be loaned out. Personally I'm hoping the club looks to loan out some of the supporters this year. Coming into a club like Chelsea who are looking to develop youngsters is a big step up and some time at a smaller club where the blooding of youngsters is a necessity would help develop their skills when it comes to understanding that youngsters take time to settle in new teams, new systems and new environments. Six months at somewhere like Crewe would be great and then they can come back in for the title run-in when we need them.

Seems like he could go either way. His level of maturity is already mightily impressive and is the kind of thing we really need in our midfield, but it's simply a matter of minutes apparently. Personally I'd be inclined to give him a shot at the midfield spots in the rest of the pre-season games and decide then, but that risks him missing out on establishing himself at another club. Tough decision.

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Except the double pivot doesn't have to just be about that dynamic you've laid out. It doesn't have to be one DM and one playmaker or box-to-box midfielder. Increasingly the trend has been for two players who are very much all-round players to share the workload of defence and attack. Either way I'm going to support this young player and not have a pop at him to fit my agenda.

Yep. Personally I'm going to reserve judgment and support the lad as he gets used to a new system. Getting on his back after two games to prove that I won the internet argument about signing him really isn't what I associate with supporting Chelsea, but whatever floats your boat.

To be fair, those 'bashers' waited 200 games before starting on Mikel in some cases. Choulo has decided to bash Van Ginkel after just two pre-season matches. Personally I think the biggest problem he has with Van Ginkel is that he plays in the same position as Mikel....

Yay for you. At least you're not getting on the back of a player after just two pre-season matches....you were well into that before he even pulled on the shirt.

In context it's slightly less damning with faint praise, but it's still a nice insight. That task is to overthrow Manchester United while also fending off the threat of Manuel Pellegrini's Manchester City, Wenger's Arsenal and Villas-Boas at Spurs. It is David Moyes at Old Trafford who draws the focus, a manager awaiting his first major honour and tasked with succeeding Ferguson, one of the greatest managers of all time. "Before I won the first trophy I had not won anything, so everyone is the same," said Mourinho. "He is experienced. To win trophies with Everton is not easy. When he finished fourth or fifth there, he didn't take the medal home but it's a trophy. "One of the most difficult things in the club is to create a victory culture, one where you walk through the front door and smell the success, smell the confidence, smell the self-esteem. When I first came to Chelsea we were training at Harlington [the former university sports ground now occupied by Queens Park Rangers] and the only trophy they had from the previous season was the Malaysian Cup they won here. Now Chelsea is a big club. "But other times you arrive and just think: 'This is already a big club.' David is in a big club with a winning culture already there, and that is a help. Everybody there knows how to win, but he must be the proudest man in the world and has a huge chance. "City have bought four important players who will improve their fantastic squad. In my first time here people always put pressure on me, saying: 'You buy this, you spend that, you buy the title.' So I hope now they say that about the other side. But it's not about the money. It's always difficult to win. You can have the best players in the world, but you will have other kinds of problems to deal with, in terms of some choices, changes, rotations and turnovers."

I'd like seeing that, but generally you'd see a no-nonsense defender (Vidic or Terry for example) alongside the more forward-thinking one. Having those two would be interesting but I still think his future might be in the middle. Maybe in five year's time we're talking about Loftus-Cheek and Chalobah dominating that midfield, with Luiz and Kalas in defence....a lot of football to be played between now and then though.

Nope.

Personally I've always enjoyed watching him play further forward, but he could very well be a Rio Ferdinand ( ) type presence for us in defence. He's a fantastic ball player and he's physically-gifted so there's a case for him being developed in either position, but right now he offers something to English football that is in short-supply in midfield. A lot might actually depend on the progress of Loftus-Cheek in the long-run too. His versatility might be what keeps him at the club this season too.

Out of interest, why no mention of Van Ginkel? I'd love us to get De Rossi but at the moment I think we can work well with either Ramires or Essien as one of the midfielders and Lamps or Van Ginkel as another so long as the team plays a lot more 'joined up' than it did last season. I still have hopes for this transfer going through partly because the arrangement of that friendly was rather peculiar. At this point in time it does far more for Roma's image in the States than it does for us, but then again it simply might be a matter of convenience just before the start of the season and something that arose out of negotiations for De Rossi or Wallace.

It's not like that at all...in fact that's just a complete misrepresentation of what people have said. He's a guy who missed 8 games for racist comments. He also arrived at Liverpool having received a ban in Holland for biting an opponent. Three years later and he is once again banned for biting an opponent. He seems to have an inability to learn from his mistakes which simply compounds his reprehensible actions.

I'm not sure how you've reached that conclusion His position at United is becoming increasingly untenable, Moyes has essentially labelled him a back-up and other avenues seem to be disappearing day-by-day (PSG, Monaco, Barca etc.). Yet we still have the formal transfer request to come and another month and a half of the transfer period. Oh, and Rob Beasley really isn't a very good journo.

A transfer request means he forgoes certain 'loyalty' bonuses though, so they're playing hardball as much with him and his team as they are with us. Calling him RVP's backup was a calculated move to diminish his role within the United squad so their supporters would be able to comfort themselves that they're not losing a major piece of their squad. Why else would Moyes say such a thing? Honesty? :lol2:

I'm going to reserve judgment for a few months. I know Essien's history with form and fitness, but I also know the man and what he's capable of. Maybe I'm being more than a bit silly, but I'd back this guy to surprise a few people and I'll be supporting him all the way even if all he's capable of is making up the numbers.