darrus

5M? 10M in two years for getting rid of Torres and have all chances to get another good striker? I'd say it's a deal.

Can we outbid them for Borini so they would have no other way but signing Torres?

Just out of curiosity - so if he doesn't want to leave we are unable to sell him? Or we can still sell him against his will if Milan meets our price requirements or whatever buyout sum stated in his contract? How this all works? I seem to remember some cases when players clearly stated their unwilliness to move and still were sold...

God it's so great to have a striker... Missed the feeling so much. Costa was average most of the match but did his job when it counted, and that's all that matters. I'm voting Courtois my MOTM. His brilliant save at 0-0 was one of the most important things in the match, no way we would have won if that ball went in.

http://gofirstrow.eu/watch/277130/1/watch-chelsea-vs-leicester-city.html

Which probably means that it will fail too like every previous rumored proposals - who in their right mind would want to pay Torres' fee?

There were rumors back in May that he might do it, so it kind of makes sense that he leaves before the start of the season. I rather find strange all this 1-year sabbatial thing, does it mean he comes back next year? I know that Carlos Lalin worked with injured players in Madrid, as a recovery coach and all that. I wonder if he'll fulfill this function in our club too. Otherwise we're going to have 3 fitness coaches

Lopes is good enough to be #1 in a club, so he's probably off to Monaco. No reason to buy another class GK, especially if we have to sell Cech to not overfill HG quota.

If true, good. I understand that Lalin is a specialist in working with injured players, recuperation and all that?

As if Marca ever cared about posting made-up quotes. Sorry, I'm not believing anything that comes from Spanish press when it is about Mourinho. Just a month ago Jose refused to speak to Spanish journalists alltogether, and it's hard to imagine him concieding exclusive interview to Marca now after the role this same Marca played in his leaving Madrid.

No

Zanetti certainly, don't remember about Lucio.

Yes!!! I like Unai Emeri, I don't like Jorge Jesus and I would have hated it for Jesus to be the one to lift Bela Guttmann's curse So - Hooray!!!

Vhanging the topic a bit. With Terry's renovation and his words of praise for Mourinho I think it will be good to remember this article written at the end of April http://deportes.elpais.com/deportes/2014/04/21/champions/1398108828_465569.html Here Diego Torres (remember him and his books?) informed us that relationship and trust between Mourinho and Terry is completely broken and gone.

It's not hard to teach a team to defend, isnt' it, Brendan?

Especially AVB with the way he left Porto and all this recent scandal with taking away their goalkeeping coach. That Wenger went all out attacking Mourinho (fear of failure babble) is not remembered, Pep's moaning about how "poor he" was badly treated and afraid of Barcelona players caused outrage at Barcelona's fanbase but was quickly forgotten, same as his recent outburst about Beckenbauer (serves Franz right btw but still it was cringeworthy as hell). Pellegrini going about how Chelsea doesn't deserve to win anything because of our style of play - was it classy? On the other hand Mourinho despite his record of 20(?) titles in 11 years is called failure and has to defend himself or better just shut up because if he actually answers "enemy of football", "nazi" or "coward" or other names given by press and opposition fans he is a classless twat. And that's all beside the point by the way. Jose's personality was very well known. Despite of it, Terry was singing lovesongs to him in the press-conference just last Tuesday, and strangely while he's fallen out with every Real Madrid' s player a lot of them still speak well of him. If his character is ok for the team, it's ok, period. The facts are: - we've done a bit better this season than last season. - we fixed our defence, that's a plus. - we still have problems with our game, especially in the creative department. - bying a striker alone is not fixing it unless we buy Messi - and even then it may not help, as this season Messi wasn't able to carry Barca all by himself. - part of it should be blamed on Mourinho. - part of the blame goes to people who were responsible for buying players in last 3 seasons as we have unbalanced squad - part of blame goes to the players who sometimes are not up to task.. - "we were better dealing with parked buses under Benitez/RDM" is a myth - look up last season's results. - we should be doing better against those teams - is a cruel reality that cost us this season. If we fix striker problems and get some width in midfield without sacrificing solidity at the back, we're good to go. And then it will be the season Mourinho will be judged for, if he fails - then he has failed. Though I still not exclude the possibility of him being sacked in a week as stranger things have happened here. @ kellzfresh judging by reports and schemes we are training combinations with short passes and quick turnovers but I guess when your AMs prefer to do everything by themselves than pass to a striker (a worrying thing to see) it's hard to implement. Another problem is too many individual attempts by AMs. Let's see how it is improved\not improved during the summer. With that I'm out of here as everyone of us is going to more or less stay by pur opinions anyway and arguing for the sake of arguing is not the best way to end the season. See ya

I wonder what coach are you talking about? Coaches that made controversial remarks about opposition coaches this season - Pellegrini, Wenger, Rodgers, Moyes. About opposition teams and players - same people. Throwing players under the bus - care to give any example of Mourinho doing it? Never taking responsibilities - any of Mourinho's interviews after matches contradict your statement. I suppose just too many people here confuse political correctness with class and prefer to have the former. For me - give me clasless Mourinho who always stands by his people over classy Guardiola who never once found time to visit his supposedly best friend who was getting treatment for terminal illness 600 meters from his house. But for each their own.

We need to lose and Arsenal needs to win 18-0 for us to lose 3rd place.

Actually he did play. Off the top of my head, the only top coaches without playing experience would be Arrigo Sacchi and AVB which makes them rather rare exceptions. On the other hand, many successful footballers were complete fail as coaches and/or pundits which proves that experience is not everything. Back to the topic - I hope we won't have another round of arguments if Hazard doesn't start tomorrow. I also hope that he's not starting just to prevent the rumors even if he's still not recovered from injury.

Yes, he gavi this freedom to Ronaldo, Ozil, Snejder, Deco etc. But the thing is - those players had the ability to carry the team and make decisions on the pitch. Hazard is showing glimpses of this ability but not consistently.

But Hazard failing to clear the ball from Juanfran was a mistake, he was supposed to do it and he didn't, and that was what Mourinho was talking about. And if you watched the match - we played with 4 defenders, not 6, Luiz was in the pivot (and when he did play in defence last time anyway?) and Azpi was in midfield.

Just out of curiosity - when and where did Mourinho blame Hazard or any other player? Or now pointing out the mistake and the need to improve means blaming?

Hazard does have discipline issues, as both Willmots and Mourinho commented on it. You don't get all the way up on your talent alone, you need to work your butt off as well. That's what Mourinho is good at getting out of his players. There is always a danger with very talented players that they can believe their own hype and decide that they are good enough as it is. Exampe - Bojan Krkic, back then when he and Messi were going up the ranks Krkic was considered more talented of the two and future multiple Balon d'Or winner, and all this talent got him where? I'm not sayiing Hazard is on the same path, no way - he clearly is developing, is more consistent and generally better this season. But all this "I have to do it alone" talk is not good. But there is also questions of personality. Some players need to be slapped in the face in public, and some need to be cuddled and protected. And while Mourinho is usually getting such things right he's not immune to mistakes.

But then how many players in modern football you can name who can be allowed this freedom without compromising the team? Messi, Ronaldo, Pirlo (and with him it already backfires for Juve sometimes). And Snejder and Ozil had enough freedom to create in his team, so probably he can adapt system to this sort of players too.