The only place to be

So hard limiting this to one person (not really) and if I could nominate you all I would (I wouldn't). But just because I haven't nominated you don't think it's because I don't like you (although some of you know I really don't) or value your contribution (you're dead to me already). For me though, it's Muzchap but it was close (by a country fucking mile). Good insight, calm, relaxed, doesn't throw the team under the bus after 10 minutes, is fair-minded and most of all can count to 5 (which is the number of appearances David Luiz has made in midfield - all wins no less) and doesn't judge players too soon. And Muzzy (should've never let him go) if you don't win just remember it's an honour just to be nominated in the first place......by me.

I like KDB, but we spent about £20 million on Oscar and I think that was mainly due to our inability to get Modric. I think the club sees him being Lampard's long-term replacement and I tend to agree. He has the vision, but also the workrate that you need in that position. What he needs is time there, and for the fans to hold fire on criticising him if he has a few bad games. Having seen some of the responses to the Luiz experiment, that might be asking too much of some.

Absolutely agree. I said earlier he should be rested but he's just too important at the moment. If we can start like we did against Villa then he can maybe play a shortened number of minutes or we could simply rest him in one of the cup games and go with Oscar further forward. Personally, I'd like to see Oscar in the midfield alongside Mikel or Luiz. If the Lampard situation goes the way it seems to be then it makes sense to start looking at other options.

People are free to chant what they want, and RDM is a Chelsea legend. But the Villa game did make me laugh. Chelsea fans chanting on 16th minute - why? Well we hired this guy after he couldn't get a job in the Championship and then promoted him to manager because no-one else was available. The guy did an amazing job and won us our biggest prize, but then underperformed when he was given the job full-time despite the owner not really wanting to hire him and he was sacked. But he was well-paid and should be far more employable after his stint here. Aston Villa fans chanting on 19th minute - why? Well, he had cancer...... Oh.

My point was that the win against Spurs counts as a win where Lampard has played, but we were already 3-2 up at that point. Now one could argue that he played a part in securing the win and that's an entirely fair point, but without analysis these stats can be fairly superficial. The same goes for the Arsenal match - he was included in the matchday squad but didn't play.

Do those stats include substitute appearances as well as games where he was an unused sub? For instance, he was an unused sub when we beat Arsenal, and came on in the 90th minute when we beat Spurs. So does he get 'credit' for being in the team in those games despite his impact being minimal? Lies, damn lies and statistics - did you know that we're undefeated this season when Ross Turnball plays. The guy hasn't conceded a single goal!!

Those would be the blind twats who have gone out and bought in not one, but two of the most highly-rated youngsters in that position in the last year (De Bruyne and Oscar) whilst also securing valuable first-team experience for two of the most highly-rated young English talents around (McEachran and Chalobah) as well as buying another midfielder who has arguably been the player of the season so far in the Premier League, on course for 25 GOALS AND 30 ASSISTS.

That makes little sense unless those people want Malouda, Essien and Benayoun to stay too. Personally I wish Malouda had gone in the summer and I supported the deals to move Essien and Benyoun off the wage list in whatever small way we could. None of these players has a future with the club yet they're taking about £250,000 p/w on their current contracts.

Not to engage in childish arguments more than I already have, but it is akin to having a dictionary thrown at you in each post with no discernable self-editing skills. In fact the only word missing from his dictionary seems to be is; brev·i·ty /ˈbrevitē/ NounConcise and exact use of words in writing or speech. Shortness of time. Synonymsbriefness - conciseness - shortness - concision - short

He was signed because we thought we might not make the CL. Unfortunately we did and we spent £32 million on a fairly similar player, then Moses took his chance with both hands and it's been hard to drop him unless for tactical reasons. I would love to see him given a chance and he'll get it, but he's going to have to play his socks off when he does but I think he's just very unlucky and will probably leave sooner rather than later.

I've sorta alluded to that I think - he's irreplaceable in the sense of a like-for-like replacement but someone will be wearing the shirt he wore on Sunday. We aren't going to shut up shop and say 'we had a nice run but we can't go on without him'. In terms of goals from midfield, Mata is statistically on his way to a 25 goal (and 30 assist) season. He seems to have picked up the slack not just in terms of goals from that position but also in terms of getting key goals at key times (Leeds, Spurs, Norwich etc.). His responsibilities will have to be spread amongst the team, but someone will play in that midfield two alongside someone else. Again, we aren't going to play with 10 men and wear black armbands when he goes (we aren't scousers). Someone will be the 11th man on a team sheet.

Great news. They seem to be giving him enough responsibility and there's a chance at a playoff run. He's always been big for his age, but his technique is phenomenal too. His reading of the game is at a level that 90% of pros will never have and he's got that knack of slowing everything down and not panicking. A good season and he'll be in contention under a new manager in the summer.

FFP is to stop other clubs competing with big clubs (of which we are one) through means of outside investment. It benefits us long-term, but I agree it's a massive joke. Either way, it's the new reality and we're making strides to comply with it.

That's a good point. If you look at Mikel, Luiz and maybe Chalobah taking one spot (although that's all up in the air) then you're looking at McEachran, Oscar and Rami sharing time in the other position. Putting it into contest, Oscar will be 22 next season with over 100 club appearances and about 20 international appearances in the number 10 shirt for Brazil. At the end of next season you'll have the World Cup in Brazil and Oscar will need to be playing regular first-team football for us, and I guarantee that's something he was expecting when he came here. There's a notion that we'll be playing with kids next season if Lamps leaves - it's bollocks. Players like Cech, Terry, Cahill, Ivanovic, Mikel and Luiz are all going to be between 32 and 25. Some have League Winners' medals, some have Champions League medals, some have both and all have international experience. We're about as well positioned going forward as any team can be.

Behave mate. FFP is a reality. One of the people leading the charge for some form of salary cap in this country is Roman. IT'S THE NEW REALITY. It isn't 2004 anymore. We aren't going to simply dole out whatever wages Geremi or Shaun Wright-Philips wants anymore. He's being offered double his wage, which is in reality four-times his wage because he only makes the other £20K if he plays. As for him being big in Senegal, who cares? Half of their population is unemployed, half of them live below the poverty line and the rest earn on average $5 a day - if you want to open up a Chelsea megastore in Dakar to capitalise on Ba's popularity you're going to be seriously fucking disappointed.

He's been good, but he hasn't been at the level he once was. Yesterday he scored twice but his passing wasn't what it once was in my opinion. Fitness-wise he's always going to be up there because he work so hard at it, but I don't know if he's the best fit for what we want to be doing going forward. Mikel, Ramires, Oscar (the guy earmarked for that position), De Bruyne, McEachran, Luiz and possibly Chalobah. That's 7 players for 2 positions and I'm assuming Essien isn't coming back either. And we made just £1 million profit last year. When you factor in the cost of a new striker and a new manager then it becomes a signifiant amount although I do envy anyone who works in an industry where £5 million+ is consider an 'obscenely small amount'. The reality is that every penny has to be accounted for in a post-FFP football industry. I'd love him to stay but there are legitimate reasons against that happening. This club has been around before Lampard arrived (hard as it may be for some on here to believe) and it will be around long after he's gone. In terms of replacing what Lamps offers the team I think the board have done as well as anyone could have realistically expected in acquiring Mata and Oscar and at some point you have to trust them to put the club on their back and take us forward.

Yeah, but we're not talking about getting rid of Torres at the same time are we? They have different contracts because they're different types of signings who have different associated commercial benefits. Even if he could sell a ton of shirts, we make a third less on the printing don't we? The club has to take a stand on wages so that we can continue to comply with FFP - we've known that for a long time and there's no point in making these rules if you just keep breaking them. If he's really going to down down a very good wage with us to go and play in France, then do we really want that type of guy in our squad? This is completely ignoring the fact that he's got a knee so bad that Stoke backed away from a deal. This transfer has more hurdles in it than the Olympics.

We all know the club has been acting tough on wages. Ba's a good player but he ain't a marquee signing which means he has to fit into the wage structure like Mata and Cahill did. Ultimately, we're offering him double what he's earning and the chance to compete at the top of the table and maybe the Champions League. If he wants to ply his trade at PSG then he probably won't earn as much because of the new tax laws in place. Realistically I can't see anyone offering him £100K so this just sounds like his agents playing hardball. But if QPR do offer him £20K more and he's seriously entertaining it, you have to question his mindset. The best offer might actually come from Newcastle who just re-up him on a higher wage because it would probably cost them more to replace him unless Alan Carr's old man can work his magic again. Being honest, does anyone actually see him as a long-term option?

The over/under is based on how many Torres threads can run concurrently, surely?

Now we're going to have to discuss what 'best for the club' means. Okay. Like it or not, the investment in Torres was close to £90 million. That's not something you can write off in an age of FFP so the board felt he had to be given a chance up front without any pressure on him. It clearly hasn't panned out so now we're looking for an alternative route forward. I'm not saying whether it was right or wrong, just explaining why they felt that. Ultimately yes. Much like when he said 'Sack AVB' and then a few months later we got to go to Munich to see something we thought we might never see 15 years ago, or like when he said 'Sack Jose' and then we got to go to Moscow to try some lovely vodka and that was all that happened, and there definitely wasn't a football match or the most gut-wrenching experience of my life. Nope definitely didn't happen. What was I saying? Oh right....yes ultimately Roman has the loudest voice in the room because he owns the room. But he's not generally a stupid man. Stupid men don't tend to become billionaires, especially under the circumstances he earned his billions.

With it looking like this could be the last season for arguably our greatest ever player, we're obviously going to be looking to replace him. Now that's tough because he's pretty much irreplaceable in our hearts, but someone's going to have to take his place in the team as a double pivot/deep-lying midfielder/DM/playmaker/whatever you want to call it. Now we have a number of youngsters on our books who are all promising professionals. We also have Juan Mata who is right now having the type of season in terms of goals from midfield that you'd expect from Lamps in his prime. My own view is that the style of football that Lamps thrived in is one we're moving away from slightly, and what we need is someone who can just keep the ball moving and feed the attacking midfielders. 18 months ago a considerable number of us probably thought that would be Luka Modric but good old Daniel Levy solidified his record as an amazing businessman and managed to flog him for about £10 million less than we offered for him. Instead we bought Brazil's Number 10. Chelsea bought Brazil's Number 10, chief playmaker and arguably their brightest prospect. Except not only does he have great vision and beautiful technique, but he also works his bollocks off like a young Dennis Wise. The guy virtually marked Andrea Pirlo out of a game whilst also scoring two goals, both of which were vintage Lampard efforts. He's my choice for us going forward.

Actually I'd like to see us go with Oscar in the midfield alongside either Luiz or Mikel. If he is seen as the long-term option in that spot then this is the type of game he should play in. I've actually changed my mind on resting Mata too - just too important at this point in time and this is a game we need to win. 60 good minutes and then bring on Piazon when we're hopefully winning. Turnbull Azpi Cahill Bane Bertrand Mikel Oscar Moses Mata Hazard Torres

Not to be pedantic but isn't it the other way around? I mean, the moron element tend to categorise Torres as effeminate so wouldn't he be the bitch? I know this is like trying to tell someone who licks windows why they aren't a nutritious meal but let's at least be consistent with out stupid insults.

Robbie was sacked because Roman didn't want him in the first place. Robbie knew that. He also knew as soon as he got us knocked out of the Champions League, he was fucked. At that point there really wasn't a huge number of options of top-class managers (which Benitez arguably still is) available on short-term contracts to take over until Roman can have a run at Guardiola. As for Robbie, Roman gave the guy a job when he couldn't get past an interview at Birmingham fucking City. Now he'll be in contention for a mid-table European side.

You could write a song but you should probably stipulate certain things like contract length, wages, bonuses and maybe even appearance fees. The board know the feelings of the fans and they're going to do what they think is best for the club.