Tiago

[Bir_CFC 3,455]

I can understand an argument for Chalobah but Loftus Cheek? Really? There is no way he's ready to be part a top 5 European team.<br />

I can understand the excitement and inclination for everyone to get youth players into the squad but let's be realistic. These guys just played a youth cup and you want then to jump from that to the PL? <br />

Patrick Roberts was one of the best youth/reserve players in all of England and he didn't get into Fulham's team for goodness sake.

[Fernando 6,376]

Expierence is the most undervalued aspect of football, or is it a coincidence Arsenal kept falling epically while 20 year old Fabregas was the captain?

If Lamps goes Thiago can take the spot off the midfield veteran. Im all for giving youth a chance and i really want Chalobah building up some minutes next season but imagine this.........

CL semi at the Nou Camp, 1-0 down, 10 men, Matic pulls up. Eva instantly calls for a sub, who do we call upon? a 19 year old who is very talented and got a great future, but is in his first season at the top level and has mainly been playing cup games and league cameo's when the win's secure

or

an experienced international with 58 caps, won the title in 3 different countries, played in England, Italy, Portugal, France and Spain and will add some calm to a horrible looking situation.

Who would you choose in such extreme adversity. If this was fifa career mode, ill sign Vidal for 20m plus Torres, but sometimes an experienced bargain is the order off the day.

If this is the case, then there's no need to get rid of players like Cole.

Fact is that Chelsea is no longer going that route. If we can't keep some of our oldies, the fuck we doing looking for another oldie?

[Pizy 17,860]

I thought it was obvious to everyone here that Lamps was staying for another season. He clearly is.

We don't need to sign Tiago. José speaks constantly about wanting to usher in a new era of Chelsea players. Don't see how bringing in a 34 year old accomplishes that. We have more than enough veteran leadership. We need a young, top class midfielder with potential not a player at the end of his career.

[Term-X 7,891]

Expierence is the most undervalued aspect of football, or is it a coincidence Arsenal kept falling epically while 20 year old Fabregas was the captain?

If Lamps goes Thiago can take the spot off the midfield veteran. Im all for giving youth a chance and i really want Chalobah building up some minutes next season but imagine this.........

CL semi at the Nou Camp, 1-0 down, 10 men, Matic pulls up. Eva instantly calls for a sub, who do we call upon? a 19 year old who is very talented and got a great future, but is in his first season at the top level and has mainly been playing cup games and league cameo's when the win's secure

or

an experienced international with 58 caps, won the title in 3 different countries, played in England, Italy, Portugal, France and Spain and will add some calm to a horrible looking situation.

Who would you choose in such extreme adversity. If this was fifa career mode, ill sign Vidal for 20m plus Torres, but sometimes an experienced bargain is the order off the day.

Ancelotti thought that when he kept shunning Kakuta for Benayoun, where is Benayoun now?.. what impact did he have for us?

[The only place to be 11,313]

Youngsters won't get a chance anyway (Loftus Cheek etc), Benayoun was always favoured over Kakuta, and he was a 'Tiago level' player. Hence the danger..

Mourinho can only work with what he has and if the club can't offload Mikel, he becomes an easy option for when we need to tighten things up.

Tiago is a much better option than Mikel all round. Mikel really is only useful in one type of situation and Tiago probably does that better anyway.

If Van Ginkel and Chalobah are the young guys this year then who are the senior players? Ramires? Matic is still young himself and that leaves Lamps who may not stick around. A 33 year old whose last two games were the La Liga decider and the Champions League Final and who knows the club and the league and the manager could be a valuable commodity.

I can understand an argument for Chalobah but Loftus Cheek? Really? There is no way he's ready to be part a top 5 European team.<br />

I can understand the excitement and inclination for everyone to get youth players into the squad but let's be realistic. These guys just played a youth cup and you want then to jump from that to the PL? <br />

Patrick Roberts was one of the best youth/reserve players in all of England and he didn't get into Fulham's team for goodness sake.

Actually Roberts did and he's younger than Loftus-Cheek....and not as good. Yet.

Loftus-Cheek is probably one of the best young talents around and is possibly ahead of where Pogba and Chaloba were at the same age. He could skip the loan process all together and go into the first-team squad.

[The only place to be 11,313]

We need a young, top class midfielder with potential not a player at the end of his career.

Van Ginkel

Chalobah

Loftus-Cheek

Colkett

Boga

Swift

Ake

Baker

[Blue Armour 4,165]

Expierence is the most undervalued aspect of football, or is it a coincidence Arsenal kept falling epically while 20 year old Fabregas was the captain?

If Lamps goes Thiago can take the spot off the midfield veteran. Im all for giving youth a chance and i really want Chalobah building up some minutes next season but imagine this.........

CL semi at the Nou Camp, 1-0 down, 10 men, Matic pulls up. Eva instantly calls for a sub, who do we call upon? a 19 year old who is very talented and got a great future, but is in his first season at the top level and has mainly been playing cup games and league cameo's when the win's secure

or

an experienced international with 58 caps, won the title in 3 different countries, played in England, Italy, Portugal, France and Spain and will add some calm to a horrible looking situation.

Who would you choose in such extreme adversity. If this was fifa career mode, ill sign Vidal for 20m plus Torres, but sometimes an experienced bargain is the order off the day.

Not to mention we've lacked a proper "utility" player since Belletti left...useful signing and a free transfer. Not bad at all.

[Tomo 21,681]

Ancelotti thought that when he kept shunning Kakuta for Benayoun, where is Benayoun now?.. what impact did he have for us?

Tiago is a lot better than Benayoun, would Yossi at his 'peak' let alone past his best got into the side of the La Liga Champions. Plus Leti are a more advanced version of the direction we are going in, which goes a way to explaining the link.

Regarding the Kakuta thing, i trust Jose more than Carlo to strike the balance, he found enough games for Huth, Diarra and Mikel amoungst the world class superstars surrounding them.

[Pizy 17,860]

Van Ginkel

Chalobah

Loftus-Cheek

Colkett

Boga

Swift

Ake

Baker

Are any of them other than MvG even close to ready to step into one of Europe's biggest and best teams? Honestly.

You really think these teenagers are ready to regularly play in the best league in the world?

I can say right now with confidence that if our only real noteworthy addition going into next season is up top well still fall short of the title. We aren't winning the league with that headless chicken Ramires as an every match starter. We NEED an upgrade in midfield. Not 18 year old unproven kids. Top class, ready now, immediate impact player who can slot in and be an instant upgrade.

[Tomo 21,681]

If this is the case, then there's no need to get rid of players like Cole.

Fact is that Chelsea is no longer going that route. If we can't keep some of our oldies, the fuck we doing looking for another oldie?

We don't know the full circumstances re Cole. If his departure was beyond our control then we need experience to fill the void.

Lamps and Cole go this year, Cech and JT next (hypothetically) all off a sudden we only have Ivanovic and to an extent Cahill as the experienced senior pro's.

[LDN Blue 7,903]

Only makes sense if we're losing Mikel AND Ramires to be honest because he just seems like he's coming for depth. If that's the case then I definitely cosign the calls for Chalobah to come do that same role. This doesn't make sense unless it's a rolling contract..

[Fernando 6,376]

We don't know the full circumstances re Cole. If his departure was beyond our control then we need experience to fill the void.

Lamps and Cole go this year, Cech and JT next (hypothetically) all off a sudden we only have Ivanovic and to an extent Cahill as the experienced senior pro's.

If Lamps go this year, then why get this guy?

Shouldn't we just keep Lamps who can do a good job on rotational basis, if that's what we are getting Tiago for?

[Miki-Liki 405]

You really think these teenagers are ready to regularly play in the best league in the world?

You really thing that this guy is going to play regularly? A pointless move...

[The only place to be 11,313]

Are any of them other than MvG even close to ready to step into one of Europe's biggest and best teams? Honestly.

You really think these teenagers are ready to regularly play in the best league in the world?

I can say right now with confidence that if our only real noteworthy addition going into next season is up top well still fall short of the title. We aren't winning the league with that headless chicken Ramires as an every match starter. We NEED an upgrade in midfield. Not 18 year old unproven kids. Top class, ready now, immediate impact player who can slot in and be an instant upgrade.

I honestly don't think we need to spend massively in midfield this summer. Why not actually give our youngsters a chance to develop rather than signing a player for £30 million?

The fact that one of the guys people want to buy is Pogba, a guy who left United because he wasn't getting chances just strikes me as odd. Instead of splurging on a player to player 40 games a season why not let Tiago play 20-odd games and give the rest to the yougsters? We were only 4 points off the title with Ramires and no striker last year.

[Tomo 21,681]

If Lamps go this year, then why get this guy?

Shouldn't we just keep Lamps who can do a good job on rotational basis, if that's what we are getting Tiago for?

Because like with Cole, Lamps might go for reasons beyond our control. Also Mou might think Thiago in this current day is more energetic and fits the system better.

[Pizy 17,860]

I honestly don't think we need to spend massively in midfield this summer. Why not actually give our youngsters a chance to develop rather than signing a player for £30 million?

The fact that one of the guys people want to buy is Pogba, a guy who left United because he wasn't getting chances just strikes me as odd. Instead of splurging on a player to player 40 games a season why not let Tiago play 20-odd games and give the rest to the yougsters? We were only 4 points off the title with Ramires and no striker last year.

United, Arse, and Liverpool will all likely invest heavily and improve and City will be formidable as usual. I think next season will be even more challenging than this past one was.

Signing Tiago and letting some young players in the team won't help us achieve our goals. Maybe if we win the league then the following season we can start bringing the young guys through when the manager has a bit more leeway. José will be under massive pressure to deliver this season and I honestly think if he doesn't bring home a major piece of silverware he could be sacked. When you're under that kind of pressure can you really risk playing the kids?

We'd still have the exact same frustrating and infuriating issues we've had for a couple of years now. The new striker may get a few more goals than Torres, but we'd have very little creativity in midfield and our buildup play would be tedious and labored. We need a pace setting creative player in midfield and it would be a huge mistake not to bring one in.

[iseah100 5,612]

Lol at Tiago being just barely good enough to be a benchwarmer for us while he was good enough to start a CL final vs the team that knocked us out of the CL. It's a good signing.

[OneMoSalah 8,614]

Would be a good signing as a squad player who plays 15-20 games as opposed to a 17, 18 or 19 year old who needs to be playing week in week out to develop in a team which isn't fighting for a PL title or a possibly CL trophy. I mean Chalobah is a great talent but he was in and out of the Middlesbrough team, McEachran was in and out of the Wigan team, Loftus-Cheek is probably better of playing u21s football again this season as is Ake or he'd possibly be better off going on loan somewhere. Yeah its good to give youth a chance but are Chalobah, Ake, McEachran at that sort of standard yet? No. Marco van Ginkel is also returning to match fitness and will give us a chance to see what hes made of, hes played over 100 games for Vitesse, looked promising in pre-season and if he had been fit he'd probably have been included in Holland's World Cup squad as they rate him very highly.