Chelsea F.C [2010-2011]

[Zakov]

I don't know if its just me, but I'm liking the looks of the new away kit.

Rumours on Guus has faded in recent days and Sneijder looks set stay at Inter, which leaves Modric as a realistic target, albeit the chances are small.

EDIT: Lukaku is reportedly close to joining, he's always stated that it's his dream to play for us. With Drog here, I'm sure his transition will be made easier.

 

[Tiago_10]

I hope we keep Bosingwa and Zhirkov too. Zhirkov will never be a starter for us, but he's a good squad player and if Jose can regain his early 2009 form, we'd have one of the bets RBs in the world

What happened to Bosingwa anyway? Does it have something to do with his injuries?

He's not even being called up to the NT, and to be fair I much rather see him as Portugal's RB than João Pereira (Sporting Lisbon). On form he's twice the player JP is.

 

[Xifio]

get rid of the underarm panels, and that would make for a sick away kit! a million times better than the grid one ...

Don't know much about Eriksen, just that he's young, promising and has a contract running to 2014, which means a lot of money so I'm not a big fan of this possible deal.

Eriksen is a tremendous talent, and has the level of vision I look for when judging creative players ... but he could certainly do with another year at Ajax playing in the Champions League before making the step up to a bigger team in a bigger league ...

Aguero will probably go to either Madrid or Barca, probably Madrid, but I'd definitely be excited to see him come in.

I can easily see Man City also coming in for him, especially if Carlitos forces his way out ... and you know they'd be willing to match Atleti's €45mil valuation ...

if Alexis ends up at Barça, Inter will be looking for another marquee attacking signing, and both Kun and Pastore will be top of the list ... Moratti will use his already-established relationship with Agüero's father-in-law to clinch the deal if really wants him ... of all the potential suitors, I'd certainly want to see Inter get him ...

 

[rooney91]

Chelsea is a dominating team,but continuous changes in managers is effecting their gameplay,roman Abramovic who know's what's going in his mind?!?

 

[Mandieta6]

Hilario's contract has been renewed for another year. Aright, an experienced keeper, familiar with the club, who will do a not-terrible job deputising Cech. Considering that we don't have anyone better right now, and for some reasons aren't even looking (I hope it's because this Delac kid has what it takes), I'll take it. Like him more than Turnbull anyway.

And rumour is once/if Hiddink arrives, he will ask Abramovich to offer Wilkins his job back. I doubt Roman will agree to this, not to mention Wilkins wanting to return, but I hope it happens. I didn't get why Ray was sacked in the first place, and his departure marked our abysmal mid-season run. Not saying he's the reason, but it's a factor.

Hiddink and Wilkins back would make me very excited. A new keeper (Begovic, for example), Modric/Sneijder (neither looks likely right now), and Lukaku/De Bruyne/Neymar would make even more excited, although wary of what's going to happen to our frontline.

Please, please, please, though, I want us to sign a good playmaker. Although I'd rather Sneijder or Modric, at this point, for a reasonable price, I'd even welcome Kaka.

 

[Cosmo]

That money amount what Chelsea is spending isn't worth it. Can't Chelsea board see that money don't bring any major titles? It's not a TEAM if you bring in every year bunch of new players. Spending 46m € for Neymar - ridiculous.

 

[Mandieta6]

1. Money well-spent WILL buy you titles. If it weren't for Roman's millions we wouldn't have won all those titles since 2004.

2. While I've advocated promoting from within, it seems that our youth academy isn't at that level yet, and we were dire this season, and need major improvements. So I support major investment so long as it's done wisely.

46m for Neymar is excessive, though.

 

[Cosmo]

45 million € for Torres and 46 million € - I'm not sure it's well-spent money or good investment. Fortunately Chelsea isn't the worst example, Real Madrid is extremely unhappy team because they're also spending huge sum's but not getting the most wanted title - Champions League. Okay, building up successful youth department is long process. But isn't smarter and financially healthier to continue with almost same team that last year and get only few add-ons? But looks like Chelsea is going to replace whole team again. I just don't know..

 

[Mandieta6]

No, it looks like management wants to rebuild the front-line around Torres. Personally I'm not a fan of this idea, or Torres right now. We overpayed, and frankly I don't think we should've even bothered. But he's here. and with Drogba, Malouda and Anelka in their 30's and Kalou's form fluctuating a lot, I can see why they want to do this.

We are just getting a few add-ons, they're just more expensive than we'd like.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

If City won't release Boateng for a reasonable fee we're going to swoop for Alex for ~15m Euros.

 

[coxlenox]

and Sneijder would be good for Chelsea at the moment? I dunno, maybe in place of Benayoun who is always out of play due to injuries

 

[Mandieta6]

Yossi is good, and if he gets a good run of games, could be our playmaker, but his fitness levels aren't there, and we need someone who will be able to play 180+ minutes a week at a good level. Also, Yossi is good, but not world-class.

Regarding Alex, I wouldn't sell him for less than 25m, if at all. He was brilliant before his injury, and he's still my preferred choice (for now) to partner Terry in defense. Alves is still a bit error-prone for my taste. Tipped Alex to become great this season, and injuries undermined him.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

Over Luiz? Crazy talk. Bayern people are saying 15m is an outrageous fee.

 

[Mandieta6]

Bayern people haven't been watching Alex play for the past few years like I have.

And yes, over Luiz. Luiz is great, young with a promising future and has qualities that none of our other defenders have, but he's not better than Alex, not even better than Ivanovic. If he gets the starting berth next season, my theory is that it's to allow him to blend into the squad and style of playing sooner and for him to develop. Alex was our best defender at times, and our best player in some matches. I don't see why we would sell him, especially when one of the reasons attributed to our bad season was that we didn't replace Carvalho and only had 3 good CBs, one of whom was our starting RB. And ESPECIALLY with Mancienne sold, Hutchinson retired and Bruma tipped for a year at another club.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

Seriously going to add Drogba to make a Modric transfer work? Makes all the logical sense in the world, but... that's cold.

 

[Mandieta6]

I'm really disappointed to see so much talk about Drogba leaving. He's been so brilliant, and he was brilliant last season as well. While we need a playmaker more than we do a striker right now, Modric in for Drogs and money out sounds like a really bad deal. If we ever sell Drogs, I really hope he goes to another league, it'd be a real shame seeing him terrorise his old team-mates.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

He's going to be like 34, but yeah that's just not cool.

 

[Mandieta6]

Roman is too much of a businessman to allow him to retire at the club like I would love to see. If we sign a playmaker, I expect Lamps will get the same treatment next year, and Terry the same if Bruma performs at Hamburg in two years' time.

 

[Mandieta6]

Recent Chelsea rumours:

Guus still the most likely managerial candidate, although Gourlay has come out and said that the policy of 'trophies = job' will remain. If Guus comes and doesn't get trophies and gets fired (assuming performances are as good as they were in his last reign), I'll shoot myself. SOME consistency please.

Wilkins has stated that no one has talked to him about returning to the assman job, but he hasn't distanced himself from it so I'll take that as a positive.

Modric has stated that he wishes to join us, although he won't put in a transfer request. Seeing as the Sneijder reports have died down, I guess he's our playmaker target now. 22m bid shot down, and we'll be offering 25-30m soon. I can see this dragging out all summer and ending badly, but I hope we can get him. Right now I'll even be glad if we splash 40m for him.

Looks like we'll be signing Lukaku for 22m as well as De Bruyne for somewhere around 10m, and he'll be loaned out to Anderlecht for a year. Sounds good. If it goes ahead and Drogs doesn't get packaged into a Modric deal, I assume he'll stay on and be asked to tutor Lukaku and when Romelu looks to break into the team, he'll get sold. I do wonder how Lukaku will work with Torres any better than Drogs, but we'll see.

Gourlay has said that we'll be having 3 or so players join the squad soon, let's see if that works out.

 

[Mandieta6]

More gossip:

Abramovic has offered to triple Arsenal's chief scout Steve Rowley's salary to come in and work as a head of scouting alongside Guus Hiddink, instead of appointing a director of football to replace Arnesen. Doesn't seem likely to be honest.

Genk have said that they will put in a clause in the De Bruyne sale to stop him from going to Anderlecht on-loan. This could be an issue with the Lukaku deal, although De Bruyne could still just stay at Genk on-loan.

Lot's of talk about Modric, Spurs will drag this out and say they won't sell and wait for Roman to bid a huge sum and THEN sell. Essien has apparently been included in a possible deal, which is moronic in my eyes. Essien is brilliant, he wasn't as good last season, but no one else was, I think it was more psychological than anything else.

Apparently we've also bid for Aguero and Barca are gonna offer Villa for another huge sum. Basically it looks like we're gonna be linked with every good striker in the game.