The only place to be

Fortunately people like you have no bearing on the legitimacy or worthiness of my support. If I get to the ground tomorrow and someone doesn't think I deserve to be allowed in, then I might give a shit. I'd probably twat them, but I'd feel bad for at least half-hour after. I've said he's a great player and I've been effusive in praising his time at Chelsea, but also fair. You don't agree with me. I don't mind that but you've done it in a way that reflects poorly on Chelsea supporters. The thing is I defended us signing him all those years ago and it's something I'm very glad I did. But going forward, I don't think his presence is imperative to our success. Here's the rub though - you and I had a bet on Chelsea finishing in the top four this season. If we do, you leave. The reason you're going to lose is because you bet against Chelsea. Me.....I've never done that. Oh, and paedophile, cunt and wanker are all nouns. :tophat:

I think you're absolutely spot on. Ba could probably do 60 minutes tomorrow and still be fine for Sunday. If he's suffering after that then he'll have to miss the Swansea game, but I could live with that. The league has to be the priority.

It's very harsh to say he hasn't been good enough for Madrid. He's gone to a new club who are struggling, and I don't think you can blame him for that. The simple fact is that he has shown he's capable of playing at the highest level in the Premier League. Moutinho has spent his entire career in Portugal. if you were being fair and applied the same standards to him as you have to Modric, I can't see how you would suggest he is a better fit for us.

Management's.....who in particular are you questioning? We've signed one of the brightest young goalkeeping prospects in the world for £5 million, and he's now worth at least three times that (probably more). We've got as close to a ready-made replacement for Cech as you're going to get. Football is the business of buying and selling players. I don't understand how anyone can question his acquisition. From almost any perspective, it makes great sense. Once again, you might not like (or understand) the answer but for the life of me I can't understand why anyone with even the slightest knowledge of football would ask the question.

People have learnt their lesson from the QPR game.

That's one way to look at it. Another is to point out that if you link a player with us, the deal gets completed not soon after. :eyebrows:

It's absolutely ridiculous to suggest that the Courtois deal wasn't thought over by the Chelsea 'management' (I'd be intrigued to know who specifically you think didn't think it over). With regards the point about Cech and Courtois, I've said for a while we'll have to make a choice in the next 18 months. But it's a great problem to have. Cech could be our keeper for the next 5-7 years, Courtois could be for the next 15 years. If we do go with Courtois, Cech will still have a decent value in the market and I could see him going to a big club like Juventus (although Buffon is still only 34) or one of the Spanish teams. Bearing in mind that one won the Champions League last season and the other won the Europa League it's unrealistic to think either will be happy sitting on the bench again. If we do sell Courtois, we've almost certainly doubled our money but there's absolutely no guarantee we get another keeper who has his potential and then goes some way to fulfilling it at a top club before coming back to us.

I'd say he's definitely better than Pele. All he has to do is score a thousand goals and it'll be beyond doubt - apparently that includes friendlies, kickabouts in the park and goals scored on FIFA 13 too. I like how Pele sells Viagra now - his fake erection matches his fake goalscoring record.

I always wondered what happened to Michael Johnson and Shaleum Logan. Apparently Michael Johnson ate him.

Gotta be looking for Brentford here. One of those derbies you don't get too often, plus they're managed by Uwe Rosler of all people. Shame he's lost the mullet though.

Wow. And I'll say this now just to make myself unpopular - good work by the board in securing not just a pretty awesome sounding match (which I'm hoping they'll give Chelsea supporters preferential treatment for tickets to) but also a new revenue stream. Plus the Women's Champions League Final - wonder if Torres will be playing?

If they end up murdering each other.......us? (just kidding). Wait until we sign Isco - then the Spanish fans will wade in.

I'm happy to agree to disagree over Lamps. I actually think we both view him as one of the greatest Chelsea players of all time and I'm sure we'll shed a tear when he goes like all Chelsea fans will. But I've never known Chelsea supporters to call fellow Chelsea supporters paedophiles because they disagree with them about a player. I don't think I'm some 'super-fan' and I've only defended myself when certain posters on here have called into question my support, simply because I have an opinion that doesn't match their's. But I've known enough Chelsea supporters in my time to know that you don't resemble one of them in the slightest if that's how you conduct yourself.

It's 18 months down the line and he's only just come back from injury. Let's see how things go but if he plays like the old JT then I can see us offering him an extension, although let's not pretend there aren't a number of factors that might end up seeing us not. To me though, he's Mr Chelsea.

Not a bad idea. It's clear that there's a conversation between the two clubs going on which bodes well. Good loan for the lad too. He's had a taste of what being part of the first team is, he's travelled with the big boys and now he'll get a chance for regular football (fingers crossed) at a good club. If it goes as well as the loans the club has sorted for other players then it could pay off big style.

I'm not a psychiatrist, I just happen to know a lof of humans. Marin was bought as an insurance policy in case we didn't get into the CL (as I've explained). He was relatively cheap too, so not a huge waste of money in the larger scheme of things. I'm not sure if you're aware, but it's not up to Lukaku if he comes back or not. He's a Chelsea fan too, so I'm not in the least bit concerned about him. Also, Chelsea are in the football business, and that includes selling players. I don't think your problem is my answers, I think it's the fact that you need to ask these questions in the first place.

You're talking utter bollocks again. Flair and tricks are great, but they're by no means the be all and end all of how I judge a footballer, and they certainly weren't what defined Zidane's game in my view. If you're reducing him to a glorified futsal player or even a high-class Denilson then you're way off the mark in your assessment of his game. He was just the most beautifully composed footballer I've ever seen, able to move the ball around with such grace and efficiency that he didn't need to jink past 3 players - but he could if he had to. It's got nothing to do with old-school attitudes or any other bull-shit term you'd like to throw in there (I'm in my twenties - old-school for me barely reaches beyond the start of Ryan Giggs career). People seem to want to paint me as a Lampard-hater (and I use a term only twats use intentionally) because I'm not getting too hung up on him leaving. I'll be sad to see him go, because almost every time I've gone to a match in the last decade he's been there. He's part of the furniture, but we're redecorating. In fact we're not just redecorating, we're having the foundations re-done. Now would I like him to be part of the squad next year - selfishly, yes. But do I think that's best for the team going forward when we'll probably have a new manager in trying to build something new? I've got to be honest and say probably not. The one thing we can all agree on is that Lampard is a massive presence and that is both a good thing (countless numbers of examples over the years) but occasionally it's something that can hold you back. People want to talk about Giggs and Scholes but they ignore the fact that Fergie has been a constant there and they haven't really changed the way they play football in 20 years. We are and I think there are players out there better suited to the position. As for my feelings being hurt, that's not the case. I just think what you did was scumbag behaviour and I'd hate for someone to view this forum and this you represent in any way what the average Chelsea supporter is like. I've been going for 20 years and you aren't what I recognise from my time supporting the club. If you think you are then you haven't got the first fucking clue about the greatest football club in the world.

JT's contract is up next year and he's becoming increasingly injury-prone. I think it's likely that the club parts company with a player who has a shit ton of baggage. But if we are talking about Terry, it is perhaps fair to note how the club stood by him when it might have been easier not to. It's been mentioned that the club doesn't respect it's legends and treats them unfairly, but Bruce Buck not only supported JT every day during his trial but also defended the decision to reinstate him as captain (alongside Gourlay) when it might have been easier to sell him down the river.

Piazon hasn't been 'sitting around for some 6 or more months', he's been training with the first-team and learning what it is to be a professional footballer. Now he's got that under his belt, he can go on loan knowing what to expect. Footballers are complicated beings - they're very much like humans in that way. Marin wasn't bought 'hurriedly', he was bought as an insurance policy because of the very real possibility we wouldn't be able to attract a higher calibre player who would've needed CL football. Lukaku could've been brought back, but the club needed to look at what was best for his long-term development and right now that seems to be being the focal point of West Brom's team. At Chelsea he wouldn't get that and it's hard to know exactly how he'd have reacted, so we bought in a proven PL player who is in form, cheap and has a lot of sell-on value if we decide to promote Lukaku to the first-team squad next year. If that sounds like too 'simplified' a response then I'm sorry.

It's not like comparing Bobby Moore and John Terry (I actually think JT was better). One wasn't playing with 2kg footballs on bogs comparable to the Somme (although Upton Park and the surrounding areas do share a passing resemblance with a war zone), whilst the other played on manicured pitches with featherlight balls (coincidentally that's Julian Dicks's nickname). They both played in almost exactly the same era, with the same players in a couple of instances. It's perfectly fair to compare the two. You make a fair point, but I personally don't think losing Frank will have a massive impact on next season. Now that's dependant on us getting the right manager in, and he may think differently (the new guy might want Frank), but if we're looking at signing someone like Modric to play in that DLP role then I think we'll be pushing for the title. Personally I would have loved us to get Dembele in the summer and it's annoying that he's gone to Spurs.

Marin was bought when there was a chance we wouldn't qualify for the Champions League (we only did because we won it and the holders have to be in it the following year). When we did we were able to sign better players, so he's seen as somewhat surplus to requirements especially if we sign another wide player. At the moment they're just sounding out clubs who could take him off the wage bill. Piazon needs playing time and he won't get that here right now. We signed Lukaku because he has massive potential and we're just starting to see it. He simply wasn't ready for Chelsea so he needed to get experience, but also get in the right physical shape. He's still very young. Which other players do you have questions about us signing?

I don't have an anti-Lampard attitude. I was there at his first game, I'll be there at his last game and I've been to hundreds in between. But I'm a Chelsea fan first and foremost and the club's interests will always be more important to me. I've had shit from people on this forum telling me what proper Chelsea fans should think and calling into question my own support. I've had scum like you calling me a paedo and it's quite frankly ridiculous. If I thought people like you represented Chelsea fans in any way, shape or form I would probably chuck it in tomorrow but you don't. Lampard is one of the greatest midfielders in the Premier League, he's responsible for some truly happy times in my life, he has some fantastic statistics and he's a true gentleman to cap it off. He was even one of the best midfielders in the world for a couple of seasons. But Zidane is in my view the greatest player to have ever played the game - he's certainly the greatest player I've ever seen and I've been lucky to have seen the likes of Ronaldinho, Iniesta, Messi, Rivaldo and even the Weah bear. I'm with Makelele on this issue - there is no doubt over who the greatest player of the last 20 years is. That doesn't mean I don't love Lampard, as I'm sure you'll tell me in a long-winded post (you need to learn the power of brevity), but it just shows that I'm capable of being objective.

Thanks for that. I was actually thinking how excited I was about going to this match but you've just created a rather sick feeling in my stomach.

I think this thread has jumped the shark. :confused: :confused: Lampard does have massively impressive stats and he's one of my favourite players of all time. I can't count the number of times he's made me jump out of my seat and hug complete strangers in stadiums all over the country....all over Europe in fact. But Zidane is probably the greatest footballer I've ever seen. He might not have scored 20 goals a season from midfield (which is a magnificent achievement if you do it just once), but he did score the winning goals in both a Champions League Final and a World Cup Final. Lampard will be the first to say that he didn't have 1/10th of Zidane's natural footballing talent but he worked harder at his game than almost any other English footballer in recent times. If you want to argue about who maximised their talents to the fullest then maybe you'd have a case. But beyond that I think you're really on very shaky ground.

The point is that we don't know who the new manager will be, but we can hazard a guess at the type of style he will play You may call it 'written shit' but it's simply the opinion of one Chelsea supporter. I'm sorry that you see that as brainwanking if you need to.