Thomas Williams

All good points, but PSG has managed with a certain degree of success. City also has a pretty easy first 6 games, I'm afraid if they get some momentum going at the beginning of the season they'll be unstoppable.

I know you guys are all optimistic, but this manchester city team seems out of our reach this year. They steam rolled us last year, and in the short term their signings look like they'll help them more than they'll help us. Maybe Jose's magic will be able to even the odds, but I'm hesitant. I think we should lower our expectations a bit and realize our squad is still quite young, and second or third place finish wouldn't be the end of the world as long as players keep improving. It will be an exciting season none the less and I think we'll finish ahead of United this year! (which is saying something because we've only done it once, and by just one point, in all the years since mourinho's been gone).

mikel, with more effort/concentration and the willingness to more creatively use his passing ability would be phenomenal in any DM position.

I don't think you guys understand the financial impact of 240k wages. That's 12.5 million a YEAR, and would make him more expensive than cavani since cavani allegedly agreed to wages that were 100k less a week than that.

Fantastic, and your work as always is well appreciated by all the members and guests here.

Cavani et Rooney? Un peu inutile, peut-être. Also, this is an English forum, I don't think the mods would like another language being posted on here.

I think Azpilicueta was our most consistent and best defensive player over the past season, even counting Luiz (when also factoring in the first part of the season). His defending was always excellent, in my opinion he never went missing in games (at least he only did very rarely, when he was EXTREMELY overplayed) and he was probably our best player at connecting the defense with the offense, which our CM struggled to do all season.

For every good football prediction I've had, I've probably had two or three very wrong ones (thought Kagawa would be a star at United his first year, a good recent one, lol) But I'm an absolute wizard at spotting good music before it becomes popular. Well "good," meaning it becomes very popular on the radio, etc. But I attribute it to the fact that I must have the most mainstream American music taste, so whenever I hear a band just starting out, if I like them, probably everyone will. You'd think I'd be able to profit from that somehow...

I understand 45m is a WHOLE lot of money, but I don't like when we fans try to play our team like an account on Football manager. Luiz is over half of the heart and soul of this club, not to mention our only good center back who isn't quickly on the decline. Not to mention all those players you listed could all easily flop in the EPL, I don't like when we are so quick to want to sell our club heroes, but I understand the desire the reinvest in the club. Maybe I'm just biased because I really like Luiz..

We were just as guilty back when Abramovich first became our owner, I feel hypocritical to criticize the current City, PSG, and Monacos when were probably even more responsible for the extraordinary player inflation of the mid 2000's. I do hate it though, I'd hate it even more if we were a smaller club on a very tight budget. The only positive is it creates an even stronger demand for smaller teams to create good academies and to scout up and coming talent.

an excellent talent who was better than all of our players besides Mata this year, and was still very close to as good as him. Could walk onto every team in the world, and I hate to break it to you guys, was a better player than Hazard last year. That said, I believe Hazard has more potential and will become a better all around player, but Bale was special last season and made a very average Tottenham team make us sweat it out for Champions league football.

Man city's team looked twice as good player for player as United's last year (Cleverly, Jones, Evans, Evra, etc.) but they still finished FAR beneath them. Ferguson was 10 times the manager Mancini was, and i'd say Jose is a way better manager than Pellegri. People often forget the impact of a manager, but I think it is more important a role than any individual on an opposing side. If Chelsea make a few good signings this summer, we have as good a shot as City, although that side is looking unreal in terms of finished product talent. (They'll be ridiculous on Fifa I imagine).

I was surprised the commentators did not mention it, that first touch was absolutely superb, it is what set up the goal.

oscar thinks he's hazard now, lol

good play by city, but Luiz could have done better

RLC looking realll good

We never have to worry about City stealing away Chelsea supporters, Chelsea are well and away the #2 BPL team in the U.S. (only behind United) I think Chelsea are catching up as well, and I'm glad, because even though American Chelsea fans are typical awful (excluding those on this site of course) the more supporters means more money for the club! I know of about three guys who have recently bought official Chelsea kits but haven't watched a match in months...the Champions League win helped us a bunch!

We can all grovel at Ba's disappointing performance for us, but interesting statistic---here are the points of some teams since Ba joined us in January Chelsea-----------------37 points Manchester United----37 points Manchester City-------33 points Tottenham--------------33 points Chelsea were much closer to the top since his arrival

Don't you dare jinx him!

Almost as happy about signing him as signing Hazard, He'll be one of the top RB's in the world in a couple years and we got him for peanuts in terms of what Chelsea normally pays.

Don't you guys think spending BIG on a pivot player and perhaps a CB and then keeping Lukaku would give us a better team than spending big on a striker and having to purchase a mediocre pivot player? Of course, if we could somehow do both, then no problem.

We COULD play Lukaku as right winger, he'd be decent offensively but I imagine it would be atrocious defensively

loftus looked really good to me actually

I don't think anyone (or at least most people) are saying that. I think we all know he is still very rough and far from a finished product. He definitely has a lot to work on, but I think a lot of what he has to improve on is coachable (while his athleticism one can only be born with) But 17 goals speaks for itself a lot, especially in as few minutes as he's done it. If he improves half as much next season as he did this season, I think he'd be fine to lead the Chelsea attack. That said, there is a lot of risk choosing him to be our main striker, and I'm honestly very much less than sure that he could handle UCL football at the highest level. I think we all understand it would be a huge risk to make him our main striker, but a lot think it would be worth it, and a lot think it wouldn't, but I can certainly see both sides.

I disagree, we would need at LEAST one phenomenal DLP/DM (preferably two) along with a really great CB in order to win the league, and with the purchase of Andre Idon't think we'll get all that, hopefully I'm wrong though.