The only place to be

Won't you have followed Torres to his new team before he's hired? Do you need bus fare?

Who has said he's not good anymore? The question is what's best for our long-term future.

He missed a year not because fans on forum said 'wow, he iz well gud innit' but because AVB fucked him around. He did the same with Lukaku as well, and I think it's a bit of a stretch to say people are writing him off. Are you one of those people who thinks there's a prescribed method of nurturing talent that actually ignores the individual requirements of each player? I'm a believer in players being old enough if they're good enough, and rewarding hard work. He'll be 19 in December, but again that seems like you're basing your decisions on nothing but his birth certificate. Experience is another interesting measure that people use, but sometimes it's completely overrated. The simple fact is that players either have the mentality to deal with pressure or they don't. It's not something you learn, it's not something you can be taught and it's not something he'll acquire on a season-long loan to Stoke or West Brom. That's not how football works, that's not how sport works and that's not how life works. Lukaku is in the mix not because he's learnt anything revolutionary at West Brom, but because he was able to get a chance there. He has the mentality to succeed, Chalobah has the mentality to succeed and all they need is a chance.

Largely with the team Mourinho built in his time here.

You realise he could win the Champions League at Real Madrid. But I understand that you, Backstreet and Rupert might have trouble understanding why Chelsea supporters might want him back here.

That is a massively simplistic, and wrong, understanding of the issues with Josh. I knew the Ramires game against Arsenal would crop up. We fail to control the ball in midfield (something Chalobah does exceptionally well) so Ramires has to run around for 45 minutes and he does that very well indeed. Against Barca and Spurs he was on the right-wing as well and I will absolutely agree that Ramires is better than Chalobah in that position. Anyway, we're not going to agree on this so I really can't see the point in discussing it further.

Mikel and Ramires aren't Schweinsteiger or Ronaldo. Not even close. I do realise the difference between the Championship and Premier League, but I'm judging the kid on his entire body of work. Everything I've seen of him makes me think he can be a very good player indeed and he has intangibles that Mikel simply doesn't possess. That's why people talk of him as captain material. It's also why I'd throw him in. Maybe he'd disappear against teams like Man City or give the ball away against European powerhouses like Juventus and Steaua, but would we really notice the difference?

They've also fucked up or disappeared against big teams. They may be better but not significantly in my opinion and certain not for much longer.

The difference being that he's 18 and learning from every mistake, and not 25/26 and making the same ones over and over.

You then said he benched certain players and implied he liked a certain type of player - Duff, Robben, Cole and SWP rarely (if ever) played together.

And plays Ozil and Di Maria. They're hardly Huth-esque. He also had Deco at Porto and Sneijder at Inter, as well as Robben, Duff, SWP and Cole here. He knows exactly what type of squad we have here and what we want to do, so it's unlikely he'll come in and tear everything up.

He's definitely better than Cleverley was (and is, and could ever hope to be) and close to Wilshere in terms of ability but he doesn't have to do as much as Wilshere does in the Arsenal team. He has the ability to hit 40 yard passes or even take players on but he can always keep it small and simple. The key point for me is that we already have players who make mistakes in that position. Mikel dawdles on the ball and gets caught out an alarming amount whilst Ramires struggles with his passing in games where teams put pressure on him. It's not like we're asking him to come in and be the new Messiah. He isn't replacing Makelele or Ballack or Essien in the team.

Every time I've seen him play on tv, it's looked easy for him. Guys like him need to be pushed and if Zola can't coach him to stop dawdling on the ball then maybe he needs to be around better influences. The only way we're going to know if he can make it as this club is by giving him a shot and I think he'll simply do what he's always done, and step-up.

United are going to win the league this year with a young keeper who isn't as good as Courtois in my opinion. If we can install a keeper who could last 15 years and cash in on one who would be very lucky to last more than half of that and earns at least twice as much, then it does make a bit of sense.

Then in that case we should cash in on Courtois now and hope we find a keeper as good as him somewhere down the line, whilst also hoping that Cech can have the amazing luck with injuries that VDS had. Looking at it from a business sense though, we have a keeper who is arguably one of the top keepers in Europe (young or not), who is cheaper than the incumbent whilst Cech also has some transfer value. Sometimes you have to make the transition when circumstances dictate rather than taking a risk that you'll have good fortune in future.

The 'yes men' seem to be doing a decent job in certain areas in my point. The issue with Jose is whether he's capable of building something sustainable at this club. We're at a point in our history unlike any job he's ever had to deal with. He has to take the academy we have and utilise it effectively whilst also spending prudently in the transfer market. This is the biggest appointment in our history and the plan is for us to take a team into a new stadium built on young, dynamic, homegrown talent with sprinkles of marquee stardust. The Man City and PSG jobs are typical Mourinho jobs - come in and win now please. Our job is something different. It's the second generation of Abramovich's ownership in my opinion, where he can look at the successes and failures of his first decade and say exactly what he wants. The fear for me is that he just goes back to what he did in 2005. Then we're having the same discussion in 2020.

I'm pretty sure the deal for Robben was done before Mourinho was appointed and both Ozil and Khedira starred for Germany in the World Cup before they went to Madrid. As for his length of stay, the issue isn't that he might leave but what happens when he does. Do we allow him to mould the entire club to his image despite us doing well in terms of our academy and scouting departments? I don't see many people moaning about 'yes men' in the Hazard, Lukaku or Azpi threads for example. Tactically he seems like the perfect fit. We're not a bad team by any measure and we're probably 3-4 players from being title contenders, and we need someone to bring everything together. Right now Jose seems like the only person capable of doing that, but if he doesn't come then we can still move on and continue what we're doing here.

Did the Mayans change the end of the world from 2012 to 2018? Because if they didn't, we're still going to need a new keeper at some point. I'm not sure if we suffer having Courtois in the team instead of Cech. In fact I think it probably gives us about £10 million in transfer funds (at least) and £50,000 in wages at a guess, which allows us to improve other positions.

He's a professional. The idea that he'd let the team tank is quite frankly absurd in my opinion.

Schmeichel was a Champions League winner at 36 - it took 5 years for United to find a replacement. Passing up this type of transition is a big choice to make especially as Cech still has transfer value and a big contract.

It's an interesting point. Would we notice the difference in performance if Courtois replaced Cech?

Interesting that we're getting fairly solid sources coming out with stuff now, rather than people just putting 2 and 2 together. The expectations will be sky high though. I wouldn't be surprised if we're installed as favourites for the league before the season starts.

Let's not go through this again. Of the 24 loans we have in place, I'd argue at least 20 make perfect sense. You don't want to go into specifics so why bother to bring it up?

Yet he's completely unproven in the Premier League. I can't remember a time when we've been in for a player who looks so good on paper (and in person) yet the support has been so apathetic about the prospect of his arrival - and that encourages me to be honest. It says to me that we want to build something properly rather than buying expensive parts. It says to me that we actually want to reward young guys who do everything asked of them with loyalty and fairness. It says to me that the fans are actually starting to look longer-term than simply who models the new kit in July or who they get to play with in FIFA 14. Unless we get a deal that involves Torres going the other way and a reduced price, then I can see this deal being a watershed moment. If we deal Courtois then we're morons. If we overspend when we have greater needs in other areas then we're morons and quite frankly the board would deserve the punishment that comes with idiotic decisions.

Tough to say because everyone will have their own criteria, but he's certainly up there. Our best goalscoring midfielder without a doubt and he gets extra points for longevity but is he the best player we've ever had on our books?