Barbara

from what I'm watching from Milan x City - we better beat Inter and face that Milan. Hideous football. FFS - did the defenses stay in England and Italy? Because they're nowhere to be found...

It's really great Super Jim. You keep spoiling us. Now let's pay for it

I don't think it's as soon as January, but it's clear to me Mourinho likes others' style better and if the right amount of money for him comes and the team works with the other options (especially playing as a CAM), they'll just do it. so I can see him being the first to leave the team, but I suppose he'll stay at least until the end of the season. If I had to bet I'd say he'd leave then or even later.

I have a guess Hips don't lie

sexy? That's the last thing in my mind when I saw that... ewwww. just no.

I don't know... it's just bad. then again is Sergio... Good to have you back, hope we get to talk more now looking forward to it

no wonder a certain duo from the gif focused on their hair ahead of the new season... #Senando edit: still better than this - visually speaking (beware boys, it may hurt your eyes)

Torres' preparation to the new season: it's going to be a very long season... *sighs*

let's not underestimate Mourinho's preferences for certain kind of players. Oscar is ahead some of his competition because of his style - that suits Mourinho's preferences better than other players. That said, yeah, he may not start tons of matches, but I have a couple of guesses on what Mourinho is planning... I don't think he will play Oscar in the '2' though (in a 4-2-3-1). I think he'll either play him in the MF '3' in a 4-3-3 (as the most advanced MF) or he'll play him as CAM in the 4-2-3-1. Also I see Oscar ending the season in the starting XI and I guess he'll start all UCL matches.

wow mates, wow. I was late to the party - too much real life party even if it's Monday - and everything I could have thought of saying about my bb you guys said and some more. I wouldn't have said better myself. I may have lost some of the transfer gossip last year because as far as I knew Oscar was certainly going to Spurs. I wanted to die because I really love Oscar as a footie and I think he'll become a great player - not world-class (I use the word carefully) - but a great player nonetheless and I despise Spurs with a passion. When I heard he signed us I was over the moon. In addition to everything you guys mentioned, I think talking about his personality may be valid. He is very shy. To a fault. He lost his father when he was very young - 3yo - and maybe this or something else made him very introvert (he lived with only his mother and two sisters, although his father's brother was close and he married his childhood sweetheart at age 18). So what some may call awkward I think is just a shy guy that is incredibly confident and quiet and an astonishingly hard worker. His work rate isn't result of a manager's demand. At Inter he even played as a full back on occasion because they didn't have one for whatever reason (I guess the guy was sent off) and he stepped up and played as a frigging full back. He also played as a DM a few times because the team needed him. A guy that starts supporting his family at 15 is a hard worker, or do you think a guy playing U17, in a club in Brazil - not matter how talented and promising - makes tons of money? But he stepped up and took responsibility with his small wage. So that's his personality. He's in a foreign country, culture, speaking a language he doesn't know, adapting about everything, of course he's going to struggle! I admire the kid, a lot, because of everything he showed. His legal dispute in Brazil made him cry - literally - I remember when he was finally allowed to play again after 45 days he broke down crying scoring in his comeback match for Inter. It wasn't just a few tears, but nearly sobbing in the pitch because he felt terribly for not helping his team mates when they needed him the most (in Libertadores - South America's UCL). That's the value of a man despite being only 20 then. How many 20yo behave like that? So while you guys gave so many technical reasons as to why this guy is class, I think I could add a few things about his motivation, his values, his personality and the hard work that comes from his personality. In many interviews while in Brazil he thanked the club for giving him everything he had... as if he wasn't entitled to his salary by the work he gave the club. Because that's the idea he has... that he has to work hard for the club that is paying him. I was re-watching an interview when he won ESPN's best Brazilian player in Europe and how he talked about Chelsea... it made me happy when he called Chelsea his house (it's not only what he said, but how he said it). He doesn't take those things lightly and he said he plans to spend the best (and many) years of his career here and wants to help Chelsea win everything because Chelsea is now his house. So well, given his skills, his commitment and how he feels about Chelsea, that's enough for me.

I cleaned my cache and it worked.

I'm mourning!!!!!! My long hair died. I'm crying nonstop

I did, on Chrome I can sign out okay I did it now and it worked, thanks

oh poor thing. He misses his testosterone! Don't worry for my part I'm keeping most of it private @JayC is my fave member at the moment and trust me, it's not because he's my brother substitute far from it I just happen to agree with 99% of what he's said so far and the kind of post he offers to the forum and none of us had anything to do with the weather talk. I know that's how you feel:

I also can't mark all my notifications read and that really annoys me If I could sign out I wouldn't sign in again, but as I can't...

I am. I can't.

it seems like only you, @Reddish-Blue and me are the only ones to think they could possibly struggle because of chemistry. I've said it in numerous threads now. A zone of their team is completely new and the manager is also new. I'm not questioning their squad or saying they won't be on fire in 2014. I think they may struggle for a while especially against teams playing too deep. A few points lost this year and it gives other teams the edge. Of course they could shrug if off, I just don't think football is such an exact science and you just change half the team (mostly in the same zone), have a new manager and plim, everything works out and you're the done.

I know I've been pissed beyond words after the first match against ManUtd last year (for EPL) because of the very poor officiating and I know they happen to have done doubtful calls that favor ManUtd for a few years now - especially when Howard Webb is officiating, BUT bad calls happen to all teams, in their favor or against them. Poor officiating has favored ManUtd awfully much lately - imo - but I can't call it corruption and I'm not even sure how much Fergie influenced on that and if he did, he was doing his job. He can - and should - ask for better officiating as many times as he wants. I don't like managers talking about officiating after matches because it comes off as whining and overlooking their own flaws except in extreme cases. I think that's for the board to complain when it's outrageous. Before the match is just their right and job as I said. Sometimes you have to pressure the referees so they'd think twice before being the man of the match. Sometimes they want to take the award from the players. The thing about officiating favoring ManUtd more than anyone else and quite often imo isn't suspicious, just irritating, but that's part of football. It may cost UCL titles, but the team should overcome those things in the pitch as it is one of the variables. Not one I appreciate, but one nonetheless.

I think Brazil is one of the best time zones ever. When the team played in Asia it was happening at earliest 10am here. The US (EST) matches are happening 1h later here (at most 4h+ in Pacific time), so the match is 9pm my time. England time is normally 4h- so it's normally the middle of the morning here. The only times I remember waking up in the eerie hours to watch sports is during Australian Open but if the matches were late morning/early afternoon they were evening/night time here. If they were night time there, it was about 6-7am here, so nothing drastic except the middle of the afternoon local time. I really like the timezone here

I don't know if I'm a legend or if I just have way too much time in my hands and don't do anything useful with it I suppose most of my posts make some sense - with either opinions, articles or pictures (gifs) from players and matches, but I do have my share - a considerable large one - of silly posts and useless stuff. Thanks for the compliments, I just have the time of my life in this forum, so I enjoy you guys just as much!

I had the same issue as Hutcho, but it's now fixed. I can't sign out either - nothing happens - and I couldn't sign in anonymously before I couldn't sign out and the user names now (online on threads and the forums) is some sort of individual box colored according with their status (adm, mods, members, waiting approval, etc)... I use FF.

The team is traveling to US on Tuesday, so basically today the CC players are doing some physical and medical assessment, they'll train tomorrow with the rest of the team - as far as I know the guys who were in Asia have the day off today. So they'll train tomorrow, travel Tuesday, train Wednesday and train and play Thursday, that's awfully little for guys who had not played in basically 30 days... so yeah, I don't expect to see much from the CC boys in the first match, but I guess they'll be all there by the third match. Let's not forget Roma's friendly is on the 10th... so it's not like they'll recover form with an average of 10 training sessions from now until August 9th even if in some of those days Mourinho does the double sessions he did in Asia - which I'm not sure he's keeping. I hate International football aside from Euro and WC, it should work like club football. There's relegation and promotion. Depending on how the NT performs on Euro (and other continental competitions) they may go or not to the WC. So you play like 2-3 Euros just like the first, second, third division (all at the same time, 2 years prior do the WC) or how many others Europa needs, the same go to the rest of the world. And then we have this nuisance only every 2 years (one for continental, other for WC) and as we won't need the stupid and annoying international weeks, the calendar will be shorter, and give players more vacation time so even when there's one of the two international competitions, they have time to rest and then go back to pre-season and club football. Too bad it'll never happen otherwise how will FIFA continue to milk and feed its board members' corruption? I don't really care if it doesn't give enough preparation time to NT's, I hate it either way for the most part.

I expect to see Mata playing in the right wing after what Mourinho said to the press last week. He wants to test him there and what better opportunity than pre-season? I can't help but think why Mourinho has avoided to talk about Mata so bluntly. He dismissed questions about him, answered curtly the ones he didn't dismiss and barely acknowledged his importance to the team. I know he said it's harder for a top player to get a compliment from him than the hard worker kind of player, but it was in the same interview that he said Eden was a special/talented kid and listed him along the best guys he worked with (Joe, Robben and Duff, Cristiano Ronaldo, Angel di María and Mesut Ozil). Either he has amazing plans for Mata (and is being coy about his plans) or he doesn't rate him as high as everyone else does and has better plans for Eden and Kevin.

they're back!!!!! :getin:

Thanks a lot for that, I really appreciate it. You just have to love Eden. He's amusing and cute and nice. I love him - for his personality and his capability as a football player. The bold parts are my fave. He made me smile I have no doubts it'll happen quite more often. And it's only going to progress as seasons go by. Mourinho is the best thing that happened to Eden and Eden is the best player Mourinho could find in the team. And Chelsea will benefit from both and the combination of both for years to come.