Mohamed Salah

[Fernando 6,585]

Lol wut?

K, Salah is good. But replacing Mata with Sala is like replacing CRonaldo with Antonio VAlencia. We still got Moses, Atsu, Piazon etc out on loan. I doubt that Salah is so much better than those... How many AMs does a club need?

What people don't get is that we replaced mata with Oscar.

Mata plays in that role but Oscar made it his thus pushing him to the wings. In which 9 times out of 10 he was going to fail with the likes of Willian.

Now salah is just replacing the role that mata was having, that of a sub.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Alright lets clear up a few things right now lol

I never said he is currently better than hazard. If you look at my post history, I joined after Hazard signed for Chelsea to just lurk and see what people were saying, and I must say I was impressed by the amount of knowledge people had of him. Nothing major but they knew his skills and characteristics. This time around it seems that people know much less about him, which is strange since he beat you guys twice.

What i said is that Salah right now is better than Hazard was two years ago. Two years ago in UCL with Lille Hazrd couldn't touch Inter's defense and looked like he was completely lost. However Salah was able to break down chelsea's defense in a home and away series. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

In the second leg Salah was lined up against Azpilicueta for the entire match and as soon as he drifted towards Ivanovic's side and found someone he could outrun, he scores the game winner minutes after. Regardless of that being a manger change or if he noticed it himself, the fact that he was able to adapt on the fly is a very rare commodity at his age.

That's awfully selective of you to just pick 2 CL performances of each player as criteria for comparison. Two years ago Eden was the player of the year in France and the most sought-after footballer on the planet while Salah, as good as his performances against us in the CL were, is not even the best player in a much weaker Swiss league. Even the comparison is hardly fair. Hazard came up against a treble winning Inter and probably the best defense in Europe at the time while Mohammed was against Ivanovic...not exactly Javier Zanetti at RB, is he?

Anyway, take nothing away from Salah who took his chance and has got a move to a top team as a result.

I realize that you are bound to be biased to your countryman and I respect your opinion. My post was of a joke than anything else.

[Sheva. 5,373]

About his defensive skillz:

"In fact, only two outfield players (Shakhtar's Darijo Srna and Porto's Fernando) have recovered possession more times in the Champions League this season than Salah's 44. Meanwhile, no Chelsea attacker has recorded more interceptions than Salah's six, while only Oscar (12) has more tackles than the Egyptian (7) – Mata, as testament to his lack of suitability, has zero"

[The Mak 4,459]

How is going from Mata to Salah underwhelming? Salah's natural position is a Winger not a CAM like Mata is. So basically chelsea unloaded a CAM that they weren't using out of the 4 they have on staff, and replaced him with a Winger and gained a 26 mil pound profit......seems like good business to me.

Also, considering Jose's favorite formation that he used at Inter & Real (4-2-3-1) and all three player's versatility, I could see any of them line up as a Winger/CAM so this gives Jose millions of opportunites to rotate. but ideally I'd play them as

Hazard - Oscar - Salah

or

Willian - Hazard - Salah

Not my point. Please see:

Mata was a squad player at Mourinho's Chelsea and that is what Salah is now - a bench player. There is always going to be an element of disappointment if we get £37m to spend and just sign a squad player. I know a squad player is still needed to replace Mata, but I don't believe we are particularly stronger than before. Only United have been strengthened.

Anyway, if this was going to be the case, why not just keep Mata until the summer and sell him abroad? Sure, you may not get £37m for him, but you won't have to fucking spend £11m on another young player who won't get a proper chance to fully develop here either. We could've waited until the summer, sold Mata for less but could've picked from Traore, Piazon, Hazard etc. to take his place while not strengthening our rivals, and not spending another £11m and giving our current youth a fucking chance for a change.

[LAM09 7,043]

He has proven himself vs some village teams from Switzerland+some average African countries. The only decent teams he has performed against are us and Spurs, both teams have not exactly been impressive in the RB department in these games. He is just like Marin, maybe a tad faster and younger, but just as one-dimensional and only signed based on a couple of decent games against quality oppositons, in which they accidentally performed well. After German Messi Marin we now got Egyptian Messi salah. i'd much rather keep the only juan. We also got atsu, who is exactly the same fuckin player as Salah, just not as hyped.

Ghana an average country?! I have a feeling you have only seen his European games and that's it. Also, he is in a different league compared to Marin.

[The only place to be 11,313]

Its stupid because he can't even lace Mata's boots. Mata isn't the profile Mourinho wants but hes still better than every other player we have except for Hazard possibly, we are selling Mata so we should replace him with someone just as good so we would still have a very good squad. Salah is good but hes hardly a touch on Mata.

Wllian was Mata's replacement. Jose viewed Mata as an inverted right-winger. He ended up signing and playing Willian as a replacement.

Salah is Mata's replacement in so much as he'll take his place on the bench....except Salah actually offers what Mourinho wants to play.

he is indeed replacing mata. mata was playing as a RW for Mourinho. Salah is also playing RW. do you think its a coincidence we sell mata and immeadietely sign Salah? of course he is his replacement, if you consider Matas role in our team by now.

Willian is first-choice right-winger. Salah will rotate and come off the bench.

MATA.

WAS.

REPLACED.

BY.

WILL.

I.

AN.

[The Mak 4,459]

About his defensive skillz:

"In fact, only two outfield players (Shakhtar's Darijo Srna and Porto's Fernando) have recovered possession more times in the Champions League this season than Salah's 44. Meanwhile, no Chelsea attacker has recorded more interceptions than Salah's six, while only Oscar (12) has more tackles than the Egyptian (7) – Mata, as testament to his lack of suitability, has zero"

Oh yeah, the whole 104mins Mata played in our first two CL games where he was trying to adapt to a new system - good comparison.

Whoever said that is an idiot.

[Sheva. 5,373]

Oh yeah, the whole 104mins Mata played in our first two CL games where he was trying to adapt to a new system - good comparison.

Whoever said that is an idiot.

Would you prefer them to have used last season's stats for Mata? because i bet it'd pretty much be the same

[Special Juan 28,132]

I'm really looking forward to seeing how he will do.

[Toli 977]

what do we have here now ? The Jewish owner sign an Arab player ?

The guy has not even signed yet & some of you already designated him as a squad player ? How fucking clueless ?

well, you think that he will get past Hazard, Oscar or Willian? if yes, than you are the one who is clueless

he is CLEARLY coming in as a squad player. he is replacing Matas role- who was/is a squad player at the moment. the same thing Salah will be.

@The only place to be:

Mata is our 2nd choice RW. Salah will be our 2nd choice RW now. how isnt he replacing him?! its a DIRECT replacement for Mata. we are talking about the situation of CURRENT mata. which is, that he is the 2nd RW/CAM. And now Salah will take this role.

back to Salah: his stats this year are awful. he wasnt even good in the shit swiss league this season. hopefully he will turn up and show more. still doubting if he has the quality to play for a top-team yet...

[The Mak 4,459]

Would you prefer them to have used last season's stats for Mata? because i bet it'd pretty much be the same

Eh, you mean the system where he was allowed to roam free because he was our attacking fulcrum? Oh yeah, good comparison! You're just as knowledgeable as the other guy!

[Pharaoh 12]

That's awfully selective of you to just pick 2 CL performances of each player as criteria for comparison. Two years ago Eden was the player of the year in France and the most sought-after footballer on the planet while Salah, as good as his performances against us in the CL were, is not even the best player in a much weaker Swiss league. Even the comparison is hardly fair. Hazard came up against a treble winning Inter and probably the best defense in Europe at the time while Mohammed was against Ivanovic...not exactly Javier Zanetti at RB, is he?

Anyway, take nothing away from Salah who took his chance and has got a move to a top team as a result.

I realize that you are bound to be biased to your countryman and I respect your opinion. My post was of a joke than anything else.

I like this, lets keep talking about this cuz we actually have uncovered a good amount to talk about now.

So lets not overrate Inter's defense during the Benitez era, they were good, but not the best in the world. However I will agree with you that Zanetti was the one marking him and did a fantastic job shutting him down. And true comparing that to Ivanovic is unfair, however when looking at Hazard vs Salah the key point I was making was that Salah was getting shut down by Azpilicueta during the second leg. However the ability to adapt allowed him to find an opening on the other side of the field.

Again granted that we are only looking at a small sample size, it's still impressive in my eyes for a 21 year old to do that.

Secondly lets not overrate Hazard's performance in 2011-12. Hazard scored 20 goals, of which 9 came from the penalty spot. Where Hazard's hidden quality IMO was his 10 assists that year.

Salah this year in UCL scored 5 goals in 10 games, unfortunately i can't find more of his stats right now. And finally Salah was awarded the Swiss player of the year award last month, so they were both atop of their respective leagues at the time of transfer. I honestly think he's going to thrive especially in the EPL where he'll have more space to run around and show his speed.

[Special Juan 28,132]

One thing I like seeing clips of him is how direct he is, his first thought is to get at people and he has tremendous pace.

[Fernando 6,585]

Is Chelsea’s new signing Salah on collision course with Roman Abramovich?

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/pitchside-europe/chelsea-signing-salah-collision-course-abramovich-191148729.html

[1chelsea 864]

BTW you have to agree that if these were Benitez's signings last season he would have been shot

True about it been Benitez. Jose just don't sign player that don't have the gear in them, you just know these are Jose signing and he can make an engine from it all