petre.ispirescu

I saw the interview with Jose on CTV right after the Sociedad game and he said that Drogba has a minor injury and he'll be back to full fitness in maximum one week. So I guess there's no other centre forward coming in this window. Rumours about Benatia starting to pick up though.

Chelsea TV and Sopcast both working just fine for me.

Three hours to go. Come on Chels

Liverpool, Tottenham, Arsenal, United, Real Madrid. With a special mention for: 1) Liverpool - because of their deluded supporters, especially the Romanian fanbase. There is a very big community of Liverpool fans here in Romania and they have all the characteristics of an English scouse. I despise everything about them. They only talk about history, bygone times and how they hate teams investing lots of money on buying players and stuff. I remember having two or three Liverpool fans at work. They were some of the guys who founded this Liverpool fan club here in Romania. They were working for the IT section (bearded guys with glasses, big hair, big belly and homeless looks), while I was working for another department. One day, they were all wearing Liverpool shirts and we started a conversation. I told them I support Chelsea FC and man, they treated my like I was some kind of child rapist or terrorist. It didn't even matter we were working together. They started talking about Abramovich's money, Mourinho, history and all kinds of shit. Everytime I remembered them they are some useless team nowadays that didn't win a EPL trophy in ages, they were responding by talking about the 70s and 80s trophies and how great Paisley, Shankly, Dalglish, Barnes were, things they didn't even witness. Also, according to the Romanian scousers, Liverpool is yet to win a trophy for so many years because the other teams, with their money, ruined the league and stole the beauty of it. They blame Abramovich and the Arab owners for buying the league every year and the refs for helping United. The only thing that matters for a Romanian scouser is the years before 1990. And there are lots of others stories about these deluded Romanian scousers. 2) Tottenham - I hate them because of the way Romanian media reacted to the Chiriches move. Man, months before the move and months after the move you couldn't read or watch anything other than how great Tottenham are and what an amazing team they will be now that Chiriches has signed for them. Newspapers, talk shows, all about Tottenham and their quest to dominate European football in the next years. Then months after they realised how shit Tottenham are, they stopped talking about them and concentrated on Chiriches and his Chelsea move. Although there was nothing in the European media to suggest Chelsea would want to sign Chiriches, all the newspapers and TV shows were talking about this move and how impressed Mourinho is by him and how he sees him as Terry's successor.

I said it last summer, last winter, two months ago and I say it again - there is no better centre back in European football to fill John Terry's boots. Glad he didn't join City, now hopefully he won't join United either. I know Chelsea can spend up to €70-80m this month w/o breaching the FFP rules, so Benatia and Remy would end this terrific transfer window on a high note.

Remy is a good player and you won't find a better 2nd choice centre forward for that money (€10m / £8m), but I feel his wage demands are the reason why top clubs stay away from him. Prior to that medical he failed in Boston, I read something about Remy demanding a €6.5m / £5.2m per annum salary at Liverpool. I can see this move happening only if he'll lower his wage demands - €140k / £110k p/w for a guy that won't even play a lot of minutes if Diego Costa stays fit is a bit too much I feel.

Signed for QPR a month ago

Porto = €30.5m Doyen Sports = €17.8m Standard de Liege = €5.4m That's €53.7m (£43m) for Mangala. wow

I have a friend that works for Eurosport here in Romania and commentates Bundesliga every week-end. He told me this morning that some friends of him that work in the German media (very close to Bayern) have told him that Reus to Bayern is a done deal. Reus has agreed terms with Bayern, everything between the player and the club is done and he will move to Munich next summer. Bayern even payed the €25m release clause in advance to make sure everything is done and dusted. My friend also joked and said that the only way to prevent this deal from happening is to convince Reus to retire at the end of this season .

The thing is you are comparing Filipe's pre-season with Azpilicueta's last season and that's wrong. You forget that Filipe was part of one of the best defences in Europe, too. Atletico have only allowed 26 goals in La Liga last season (compared with Chelsea's 27). Also they were undefeated in Champions League in regular time, allowing only seven goals in regular time (plus three in ET), compared to Chelsea's 10. So yes, the fact that he hasn't assisted or scored against Pellets and Ferencvaros does not change anything about his role this season. Pre-season is all about fitness. Kids like Baker, Zouma, Chalobah, Ake have something to prove in a pre-season, not Filipe. You are basically saying that even if Messi would sign for this club, he'd still have to prove himself against Pellets.

There is an article in today's Gazzetta Dello Sport printed edition in which they say Jose has convinced Roman to pay €38m for Benatia. He wants to have a complete team before the game against Burnley and Benatia is his favourite centre back at this moment and the #1 target. Talks between the two clubs have already begun yesterday and Gazzetta Dello Sport believe that Chelsea have made an offer too good not to be accepted.

Influential in what way? He does not have to prove anything against Pellets and Ferencvaros, he is coming at the club as one of the best left-backs in the world. That's enough to make him a regular starter. You don't buy this kind of player just to have him as a back-up for a right back playing out of his natural position. If Mourinho wanted Azpilicueta to stay at the left-back, then he would have looked for another right-back, not for Shaw or Filipe Luis.

Il Messaggero is one of Italy's most reputable newspapers so there might be something in this story if they are reporting it. I read in that article that Chelsea have made a last hour offer and have outbid Barcelona by €5m (€45m in total). Also Marin will go the other way. On loan. Now let's wait and see.

That was nice

Good game, now let's win the trophy

LOL at the linesman........

Don't panick over a pre-season line-up guys, Luis is not starting because Hazard and Schurrle are in the line-up. They are not at 100% yet and they won't track back that much, hence Jose using two defensive minded full backs.

Hopefully it'll stay like that for the entire season!

Cech; Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry ©, Azpilicueta; Fabregas, Matic; Schurrle, Oscar, Hazard; Diego Costa.

Gigi said Courtois has some slight injury, while Lee said that he'll play 45 minutes. We shall see.

Courtois, Mikel and Didier 45 minutes. Eden 30 minutes.

Yes, two 45-minute matches, similar to that Italian pre-season tournament between Juventus, Inter and Milan.

Fenerbahce with their best line-up against Besiktas. 433 - Volkan, Caner, Alves, Bekir, Gökhan, Mehmet Topal, Emre, Meireles, Sow, Emenike, Webo.

Agent Demba Man I can't believe those stupid fucks at Legia will miss on Champions League play-off just because they used an ineligible player for the last three minutes of that game hahahah

I would not have expected that Qatari owner to say that they have signed him just because Thiago Silva wanted a new friend at the club, but to say that they have signed the best centre back in the world is outrageous and at the same time an insult to the likes of Terry, Kompany, Ramos, Benatia, Boateng, Hummels, Godin and especially his employee at Paris, Thiago Silva.