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... And this is coming from an international member ^ It's about culture, it's about history, it's about identity. As a semi-italian football fan I WANT to see italian players at Milan & Napoli for example. It has nothing to do with me being english or Leif being a bitter scot. Smh, philistines.

Lmao, Leif came into the thread screaming xenophobia, yet it's the international members who want an english core just as much, as the responses in this thread demonstrate. How about that for a backfire!, brilliant irony.

When Lamps, Cole & JT retire/leave, we will lose that all important english backbone, dark times for the culture of the club and english football in general. I'd rather pay £30m for Shaw than get this guy for peanuts.

First teamers should be 1-11, like international football, we should have given him 6. but w/e

Number 6 was available, and he goes and choses Kalou's jersey. An astute signing nonetheless.

David Luiz is 'practically' a reserve centre back and a reserve DM now. Can you really see Mourinho dropping Cahill?, or another player (*would be signing*) in the same mold as Gary..

If that's the case we should sell, it would be an absolute coup! It's a PR disaster for the people who fell in love with his character/personality but fuck those people, this isn't big brother.

Who would sign Luiz?, bar the aforementioned club who were 'rumoured' to want him. He's in the exact same position as Mata under Mourinho.

By that, I'm not quite saying AVB would have been more successful if we had managed to sign Modric for the pivot, but still..

Luiz is in the same position as Mata in this squad now, the only reason he's been playing recently is due to Lampard's injury. He's worth £25m tops and that's IF the Barca rumours were true, so no he hasn't increased his value all that much. As a club we would have only benefitted long term with that January 2011 transfer window from never happening at all really. It doesn't make it 'all worth it' though, especially when you consider we threw everything but the kitchen sink to sign Modric.

Oriol Romeu...

I'd assume he'd take the number 15 shirt, since Cahill has claimed his former number.

Tomo was right, the David Luiz-Torres deals were the worst bits of business any club has done in the history of january transfer windows. But then again, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

More teams. One recruitment thread from Jim, and we'd gain an extra 10 members without a doubt.

Monaco will soon become a top club too, french football are looking to topple italy as the 4th powerhouse.

Precisely.

Stars: Lavezzi & Thiago Silva High potential youngsters: Marquinhos (£27m!!!!) & Verratti ..Money talked, italian football needs to talk back and bring in investment.

Clough invented the wheel, Mourinho made the car.

Remember when Milan were the best team in the world under Carlo?, how the mighty have fallen. Italian football needs investors, PSG shouldn't have been allowed to rape the league.

No, he didn't.. football was still in the dark ages in a marketing sense, the premier league era changed everything. Clough was a massive character in the english media, but not in the same context and certainly not on a global scale. He laid the foundations though, in regards to an image change, but not on the same level.

Don't see the problem with re-signing him, since he would have NEVER become the player he is now if it wasn't for leaving. We should sell Chalobah outright, but with a gentleman's agreement that 'we'll be back'.

Mourinho made being a manager 'cool', the coach in a football club was once perceived as that old guy nearing retirement who wears a sheep skin coat. Jose came along and made it sexy, the manager replaced the player(s) as the star of the team. He's a revelation in every sense of the word, and will go down as one of the most influential people in the sport.

The 'bullshit rumour' ended when you read the word Chelsea in the sentence. This isn't Valencia or Spurs ffs.

Surprised this story hasn't got more of a reaction!.. Massive loss, retarded decision from adidas.. Sports Direct hold a monopoly. Consumer choice should come first, clearly the club don't want the shirt being discounted.