Rating the 2013 Summer Window: How was it for you darling?

[bushman 2,043]

64M€ is crazy money for one single player, plus the salary.Willian & Eto'o is a better deal.

Willian was bought as a part of the Eto'o deal first, and secondly because Moses isnt technically in the same level as our offensive midfielders.So we replace Moses with a better player, and we loan Moses to become a better player, win win.That's what Abramovich money brings, possibilities, not Cavani and Falcao.I dont think we could have done better because you must not forget we went for Rooney first, if Rooney came and Eto'o + Willian would not, it still would be a good summer.

As I said, money is no object & there is no comparison to Cavani. You keep an eye on him. Soon, you will see what he is all about. As for Rooney, Jose knew all along there is no deal. Meanwhile, he was waiting for miracle. Bad judgment, in my view.

[xPetrCechx 13,547]

8/10.

[Heisenberg 1,824]

As I said, money is no object & there is no comparison to Cavani. You keep an eye on him. Soon, you will see what he is all about. As for Rooney, Jose knew all along there is no deal. Meanwhile, he was waiting for miracle. Bad judgment, in my view.

I know very well Cavani, no need to keep an eye on him, the goal he scored against Ajaccio against a very good Ochoa that day proves everything, but still not the striker we need.José knew there is no deal ? Many serious newspaper thought it was the end of Rooney at Manchester, the player wanted to go, the club did not want to sell.

[bushman 2,043]

8/10.

Perhaps, very generous ?

[hjperdeath 2,226]

Cavani could easily end up like another Sheva.

[bushman 2,043]

I know very well Cavani, no need to keep an eye on him, the goal he scored against Ajaccio against a very good Ochoa that day proves everything, but still not the striker we need.José knew there is no deal ? Many serious newspaper thought it was the end of Rooney at Manchester, the player wanted to go, the club did not want to sell.

Cavani is exactly what´s missing at Chelsea, trust me.

Jose screwed up with Rooney, it´s simple as that. Waisted time.

[bushman 2,043]

Cavani could easily end up like another Sheva.

[xPetrCechx 13,547]

Perhaps, very generous ?

7.5.

[bushman 2,043]

7.5.

That´s more like it. Still the jury is out on Eto´o & Willian.

Schurrle & Van Ginkel, very good signings, I feel.

[Heisenberg 1,824]

Cavani is exactly what´s missing at Chelsea, trust me.

Jose screwed up with Rooney, it´s simple as that. Waisted time.

Screwed up ? Since day one we knew we had nothing to lose with Wayne, no top striker available, went for Rooney, Got Willian and Eto'o when we could have ended with only Schurrle and van Ginkel.

[bushman 2,043]

Screwed up ? Since day one we knew we had nothing to lose with Wayne, no top striker available, went for Rooney, Got Willian and Eto'o when we could have ended with only Schurrle and van Ginkel.

Well said, screwed up with Rooney. After the 1st bid, there was no chance, but bombastic Jose went on...result zilch.

Anyway, it was nice chatting with you. Just keep on trucking, see you.

[NishC300 1,865]

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/pitchside-europe/final-transfer-report-did-club-113415094.html

LOL! They gave us one of the lowest ratings!

Eurosport decreased our grade! So are they saying signing Willian and Eto'o was wrong?

Moreover, City a better window than us? They might have signed stars, but we bought potential players.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Poor. We spent 60M pounds and had fairly mild upgrades. There's a point when adding players, even quality players has very little benefit. (Law of diminishing return). I have no doubt that we are a better team now than when the transfer window opened, but not that much better and for the amount we've spent, we should have improved enormously.

If we play 60 games this year that means a total of 180 starts for our attacking midfield. Last year, Mata, Hazard, and Oscar combined for 150 starts. (With Ramires and Moses taking almost all the rest). We needed to add depth there and getting De Bruyne back was perfect for that. It made Moses our fifth attacking midfielder and gave us 4 solid players to rotate. Without Willian or Schurrle, we could have gone something like Oscar, Mata, Hazard, with 45 starts De Bruyne 35 starts and Moses with 10 starts. Perfectly fine. Without just Willian, that breakdown becomes let's say Oscar, Mata, and Hazard, 45 starts each , De Bruyne and Schurrle 20 starts each, and Moses 5 starts. That's already great depth, less playing time for our top players and fewer starts for De Bruyne and Schurrle than they should be getting. And then we added Willian which now means that any time one player gets will just be taken away from another quality players' time.

Similarly, for Eto'o. Does he improve us over Lukaku? Probably, but it's a marginal improvement again (although this time, the cost is low).

Going into the season, I would have rated our primary team needs as follows.

1) Elite striker (not in goals per se, but overall link-up, efficiency, goals, etc,,,)

2) Excellent central midfielder

We didn't get either of those. Of course, even a marginal improvement can help an expensive and talented team get a few extra points and win the league (which is possible for us), but I don't think we spent the money particularly efficiently.

For me it was all making sense up until the Willian deal. Our squad was strong enough with a lot of young players with incredible potential. But we needed proper depth especially at the Am positions. We did that with the return of KDB and the purchase of Andre Schurrle. Even though I was not too happy with the fee for him, seeing what other teams have paid for some players this window, I am now convinced that it was not a bad buy. We obviously needed a good back-up keeper and we got Mark Schwarzer for free which was some incredible business. And we also got MVG who has loads of potential and can provide depth for the pivot.

As for a striker, the club and Jose where implying with what they were saying and doing that we won't be spending ridiculous money on the likes of Falcao and Cavani and rightly so imo. Our team is built around the AMs and any striker that comes in needs to fit in with them; he won't be the star of the team. And no one striker would be scoring 40 goals for us because the striker in our current system will always have to sacrifice some of his goals to create space for the AMs to score. So making a 100m+ investment between fees and wages for someone who will only slightly improve the team did not make any sense. I thought that, for our current system of 1 lone striker, Torres as first-choice, Lukaku as a super sub and Ba as third choice was good enough for the season. We ended up loaning Romelu out so he can get more playing time and getting Eto'o for free. I personally would have liked Villa for example who was an absolute steal and whom I think would have fit very well with our team, but what we ended up with is not bad and certainly not worse than Torres-Lukaku-Ba.

At defense, we needed another body in there and we decided to give Kalas a chance; nothing wrong with that. I would've personally liked to see someone come in to partner Luiz (and maybe Iva departing) but Jose decided to put his trust in JT and although it has only been 3 games, that has worked out well so far. I still think that we'll get a CB in the next couple of windows, though.

Up till then you could (well, I could at least ) see the thought process behind our business in the market. Yes, we tried to get Ronney, but even that made sense as he would have given Jose the option of playing with two strikers and can cover all over the front four (we probably would have loan Ba or Romelu out had we gotten him). But then came the Willian deal. Now I'm not criticizing the player himself. The lad has not yet put on a Chelsea shirt and he has my full backing and support. But it's just that the deal made very little sense. He's a great player, but 30m goes against everything the club has been saying and doing that implies that we won't be spending that kind of money just for the sake of it. I can fully understand us paying 30m for Rooney who would have definitely improved the team, but for Willian whose position is over-loaded with quality I just don't see what justifies this kind of huge investment. He certainly adds quality but he also adds a selection problem for Jose. I think our squad with Moses and no Willian made much more sense and would have kept everyone happy while now Jose will be really struggling to get everyone the minutes they want.

What I think happened is that the team under-performed in the first 3 games, some players did not live up to Jose's expectations. The team still needs time to adjust, and Jose knows that at Chelsea he will not get that. Imo, the Willian (and Eto'o) deals were panic deals by Jose, unfortunately.

So overall, I would have to agree with you: for the amount of money we've spent we really did not add an equivalent amount of quality to the team.

[nadavTKL 1,787]

I think Eto'o will come good, and when i know other strikers on the market were too expensive/not available/ didnt fit the team, i think Eto'o will prove he was the right alternative for Rooney.

I liked Willian's signing very much. Think he'll surprise alot and will give us so much in attack.

The only thing i didnt liked and to this point im still worried about is the CM issue. I was sure Mourinho will adress the CM (DLP) problem, and he brought MVG. Now its up for those two, the player and the manager, to show if it was the right move at this point. I realy dont like to see Lampard-Ramires anymore, i hope the MVG-Ramires combo we've seen in pre season will come soon enough in the league and it will improve us. If it wont its totally on Mou, But even so, i think we're still favorites when it comes for the PL.

In the end of this season, i think we'll say it was at least a "Drogba". Lets see.

[Ollie 4,400]

To get Jose Mourinho as our manager, then watching him piss all over Moyes in the press conferences, to then steal Willian after he passed a medical at Tottenham and then get Samuel Eto'o.... yeah, it was ok.

I was really confused that we gave Lukaku away again but this guy needs to play week in week out or he'd lose some vital parts of his development so i am happy about that too. For us, the summer has been brilliant. I'll vote for my Arsenal Killer (because i rate him as the absolute best ever personally).

Glad we kept KDB, MVG and of course Mata too.

[edenhazard17 281]

is a massive upgrade. So I would say it is Torres.... errr, I mean Drogba.

[-Kaplan- 410]

Cavani is exactly what´s missing at Chelsea, trust me.

Jose screwed up with Rooney, it´s simple as that. Waisted time.

Instead of spouting random dross, you should make your idea clear. He screwed up? No. He made a failed bid? Yes.

He has Torres, Eto'o, and BA. I think Mou already had the failed bid in mind when he started the season. You just want to hate on Mourinho every chance you get without any worthy substance. 2/3 of our strikers have already won the UCL. Obviously they aren't there for show n' tell.

[Barbara 15,149]

I also voted for the Arsenal killer as @Ollie nicely put and I only didn't go for Osgood because I think a CM wouldn't have hurt (although Mourinho has been so stubborn about Lamps starting every match that it makes me wonder if we got the CM whoever he was he wouldn't play much).

I want to our board though for something else (and go a bit off topic, a bit on topic). I saw this list on Twitter and while I was aware of 90% of the guys there, when you think that we loaned 24 players it shows how impressive our squad depth is nowadays. The guys in bold are guys I think could fight for spots in our starting XI, or at least be super subs, the guys underlined are incredible potential.

Atsu, Delac, T. Hazard, Courtois, Walker, Kane, Clifford, Wallace, Pappoe, Saville, Lalkovic, Cuevas, Davilla, Pirez, Bamford, Perica, Van Aanholt, Piazon, Kakuta, Hutchinson, Marin, Lukaku, Moses, Romeu.

So you have a complete bench only with super subs or guys fighting for starting positions and a couple more of potential (and I have to admit I don't know some of the players - from our youth - so maybe there are even more real potential players I've missed).

Then you look to the squad we do have at Mourinho disposal (ordered by shirt #). In bold players I rate 8 or higher, underlined crazy good squad players:

Petr Cech; Branislav Ivanovic; Ashley Cole; David Luiz; Michael Essien; Ramires; Frank Lampard; Fernando Torres; Juan Mata; Oscar; John Obi Mikel; André Schürrle, Kevin de Bruyne; Marco van Ginkel; Eden Hazard; Demba Ba; Willian; Mark Schwarzer; Gary Cahill; John Terry; César Azpilicueta; Samuel Eto'o; Tomas Kalas; Ryan Bertrand; Henrique Hilario; Jamal Blackman (and in addition to Josh McEachran and Nathaniel Chalobah who are great potentials).

You guys may disagree how I rate a few of those players, but the point is we have 24 guys loaned out, 28 guys in our squad - 16 of which who could start any match for us and it wouldn't be crazy and if we had a Chelsea B (like Barça and RM have for example) I wonder where that team would play - Championship? Would it even fight against the likes of Reading and QPR to be promoted? I think depending on the combo we have of them, plus a few very good kids that stayed with our youth, I think we might. Some of the guys we loaned out are already good (not only potential), some of the guys we have on our bench the same (some of the guys that don't even make our bench every match are really close to moving from potential to talent). And I didn't even cover our U-21 team where we also have good players.

How can I criticize the board and the managers that brought those players to Stamford Bridge? Personally I just can't.

Of course we've had big failures throughout the years, gambled with players that were disappointing and bet on established players that faded on our side - but that's the thing in the transfer market, a player may not suit a style, a league or even have problems in a certain club which makes a transfer completely unpredictable - although some transfers are hard to turn out disappointing (Hazard, Mata, Oscar, etc). So the balance is way positive in my opinion.

PS.: I underlined Torres against my better judgment and in hopes he'll be a good sub coming from the bench. I could have done the same with Mikel, but then I'd be too close to delusional, so among two guys I rate as average, I chose to give one the chance to surprise me. Also Lampard is still amazing solid in my opinion - as long as he doesn't play twice a week - which is why he's in bold and underlined.