The only place to be

Because Mata can seem tired sometimes. He needs to be at the best he can be in every league game. It's a tin pot club in which there's a very real chance that Bradford fucking City could be a finalist. Yes it's a final, but in the grand scheme of things it's utterly meaningless. We only pretend it's a big deal so that we can take the piss out of Arsenal fans for losing to Birmingham. But it's just the Coca Cola Cup. Out of our next four games, this is the most meaningless.

Yay...let's run our most important player into the ground in fucking cup games. :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

It all comes down to what we plan to do with Oscar. We're letting Lamps go in the summer and still playing him in midfield. We're shifting Oscar from one wing to the middle, when we have Mata to play there (massively effectively I might add) and it looks like we're playing a strong team in the Coca Cola Cup when we've got three massively important league games in 8 days. It's sometimes hard to see what the long-term plan is.

So when do we rest Mata? Stoke? Southampton? Arsenal??

So we're simply going to discard players like Oscar and De Bruyne before they've had a chance? What about McEachran? Capoue might be half the price, but he's untested. That's what I like about Fellaini - he's suited to the prem. He has the physicality, the technique and the tactical discipline to play that DM position. People seem to simply latch on to the flavour of the month as the solution to our problems when this is a guy we've been scouting for over 3 years, who has done well in the league and seems to be a significant upgrade over what we have.

Agreed. I think we should add an addendum to the over-30s contract rule. One-year extensions for players over the age of 30 UNLESS you are the best player in the world in your opinion (any poll involving Platini or Blatter is invalid).

That's a valid point, but if you look at that game as a whole we didn't play particularly well. Everton were nowhere near their strongest side yet they overran us in the first 30 minutes. Now if you're saying that's a good example of what we could do with Lampard going forward, then I don't know if it's such a good point. We lost the midfield and struggled for a lot of the match and it wasn't until Mata started playing well that we started to assert ourselves. That isn't totally down to Frank, but I think the goals masked a lot of things that weren't so good about his performance. Let's also not forget that the game after was QPR and he had about as bad a game as I can remember for Chelsea. That to me came down to one player missing - Mata. He's our most important player now and he's taken the role that Frank fulfilled for us.

Mikel, Romeu, Fellaini - 'destroyer' Oscar, McEachran, KDB - playmaker Ramires - floater. I think Fellaini could be our Busquets. The guy who just picks the ball up from the keeper or centre-half, brings it forward and lays it off to Oscar or Mata. He'd be the out ball, but in games where we're dominating (like QPR) he'd be an excellent presence in the opposition box. He'd be another target at set-pieces and he also offers a threat from long-range (unlike Mikel).

This is the weird thing about him. People say he's 'not creative', yet he creates opportunities for other players because of his presence. It's this weird mental block people have where players can only be deemed creative if they are like Mata or Pirlo, putting the perfect pass in. Yes that's one way players create opportunities for others but it's not the only way. My opinion is that if he comes to Chelsea, he plays a much simpler game where he's not asked to find a pass in the final third but looks to lay the ball off around the halfway line, laying it off to defenders and simply pulling the opposition around the pitch. It might not be the final ball but it creates opportunities for that ball to be made. And I think we have players who can play alongside him and make those passes. One option is Oscar. Next season we might look at McEachran or De Bruyne. We have options to try n that position, whereas we don't have a 'destroyer-type' of Fellaini's calibre.

I think Fellani suffers from 'tall man syndrome' where he looks a lot more sloppy than he actually is. You can make excuses for Benat's % being low, but Fellaini plays in a more advanced, congested position and the pass completion % seems to be higher the further back you go as there's less pressure on the ball. I'd also be interested to see if headed passes are included as well because he wins a lot of knock-ons. So in essence, I think you're completely wrong about him technically. I think you'd be hard pushed to find a current Belgian player who isn't technically sound. I think having alongside Mikel would be strong, but creatively lacking something. That's why I'd love for him to play alongside someone like Oscar or McEachran. He'd essentially be the enforcer, the third central defender and the point around which the team plays. That pass percentage would leap about 10 points if he was asked to do what Mikel does, but you just benefit from everything else he brings to the team.

We've been scouting Fellaini for over 3 years now. He's proven himself in this league. I also think his passing skills are tremendously overrated. But having looked at the statistics I do see your point. Fellaini the terrible passer has a completion rate of 78.1% Benat (with the 'great long passing skills') has a completion rate of 79.3%. But to his credit that extra 1.2% of passes that actually reach their target have created an extra 2 assists. Plus Fellaini's oft-criticised aggression is a black mark against his name.....except Benat does seem to have DOUBLE the yellow cards against his name (10). Now I'm the first to point to the flaws in statistics, but come on.

Are you going to be one of those people who moans that we should buy Benat (AKA Flavour of the Month) instead?

Torres won't play as much now, and that might make him better. Personally I don't care that Sturridge left in the slightest. He became a bit of a joke to be honest, and then all of a sudden took on magical properties whilst he was out of the team. The truth is that he's a decent young player with bags of talent but a reputation as a selfish player. That's why the only club who came in for him was Liverpool.

I'd rather neither. We replace Sturridge with Ba up-front and Moses on the wing. I'm happier with both of them instead of him. The team looks better with both of them.

It's somewhat humourous to me that we dropped points away to Swansea in the league after playing our main guys for up to 120 minutes in the preceding game against Man United in the Coca Cola Cup. Now we're going to play them again for 90 minutes before a tough league game against Stoke????? :banghead: :lol2:

You strike me as the type of person who would rather Sturridge scored a hat-trick against us and we lost to prove you were right, then us actually succeed without him. Danny was given chances but his attitude wasn't right in training. Now you can choose to believe me or not, but there's a very good reason why AVB didn't go after him for Spurs. There's a reason why Liverpool were the only club interested. Circumstances might not have been ideal at Chelsea but 90% of a footballer's success comes from how they react to circumstances. People seem to want to re-write history, but he got a reputation as a selfish player for a reason. It became a joke by the end of it and the groans he elicited in the ground weren't imagined.

I hope this is true. Beyond his technical skills and his strength, I love the fact that he's not one to shy away. He can impose himself on games whereas someone like Mikel needs people around him to play well rather than driving the play on himself. He needs to learn a bit of self-control but I like a bit of nastiness in that position. Plus he's a goal threat from midfield. We all laugh about Mikel's 200-something games without a goal and it's really not one of the main things he's asked to do, but with all the tools at his disposal (his height in particular) you'd expect the occasional one.

Based on the information available, both Terry and Lampard earned roughly £30,000 p/w more than Ballack did. Whilst their arrival did help him get such a wage, it was actually the leverage that his agent used of a possible move to Inter that led to such a wage hike. When does the club ever comment on these types of things? You make a fair point here. If we don't get Guardiola then that's a big blow to our plans and if they appoint Benitez on a permanent basis then all hell may break loose. I actually think there's a lot to attract someone like Pep to this club but that's a point for another thread. I've actually defended the board on a number of issues, this being one. We're in transition and that pertains to the tactics as much as anything. Put simply, Lampard's position (where he made that history) doesn't exist on the pitch anymore. More importantly, we've done about as well as any club could be expected to replace him with young players with massive potential. Just like when Frank joined the club and Wisey left, we'll move on (yes I'm aware of the difference in quality). This is what happens in football. It's what makes it great. Players become legends and then move aside. It happened with Osgood, it happened with Dixon, it happened with Zola and it will happen with Lamps. But they'll never stop being part of the Chelsea family.

You're wrong about what the club wants to do. They actually want a 'conveyor belt of talent' and we're actually reaching a point where the talent level is good enough to make that a reality.

He does drop deeper quite often. Watch the game against Southampton for a very recent example. Often he's on the edge of the box for opposition corners too. Not quite sure what you're on about to be honest.

I don't know enough about Taison to know how he will turn out. All I can go on is a couple of people's opinions (who I respect) and the board's track record in this area. With regards Lampard, I actually see the case for letting him go and giving the youth a chance. It's not simply about trusting the board in either case.

Makelele fouled quite a bit from what I remember. His passing stats are based on him playing in a more advanced position for a weaker team. He's scored a goal every other game and had 3 assists, although we don't need him to be creative in a holding role and his positional sense is very good in that position. Honestly, it sounds like you're simply making the right type of statements to discount him rather than judging his period in that position fairly. But I can see why you'd rather have Capoue with his 2% better pass completion stat and one less yellow card.

Bought him for £12million, sold him for £8million. In that time he played a role in our success. People like to blame the board, or doubt their acumen but you can make a case that they've done well in the last couple of years.

Don't know if he goes straight back into the team. Cahill and Ivanovic have done well in his absence.

Lukaku is 19, getting better week by week and cost roughly £12 million. At the moment it seems like a good bit of business. If he wasn't a Chelsea player, there would be a 200-page thread saying we should sign him up. Marin was a good bit of business at the time, but he simply became surplus to requirements after we qualified for the CL. I actually think one could argue it was a good bit of business that simply suffered due to changed circumstances. Cahill has been great for £7million and has really stepped up in Terry's absence (both this season and in the CL Final). It was a phenomenal bit of business. Luiz hasn't panned out the way anyone hoped, but he has shown flashes of brilliance, helped us win the CL and still probably has a lot of sell-on value. But Torres is the big black mark in the book, and that seems to have been one man's decision - Abramovich. In fact if you look at our dealings since Emenalo took over as DoF, we've bought players who are younger and with something to prove rather than established stars. Taison comes under that heading. He's the type of transfer we've done well in recent times, so I'm inclined to trust our scouts. The fact that Shakhtar were also interested goes a little way to making me more confident considering their track record with Brazilians (Willian, Fernandinho, Elano).