The Chelsea F.C. Thread IV

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/apr/18/david-luiz-chelsea-captain-john-terry

Interesting article. On 5live the other day the same topic came up, and, due to his experience captains Brazil it seems like a logical step. As much as I like and respect Cech (probably my favourite player of this era), he seems more culpable to make mistakes when captain - as if the pressure of controlling the team is drawing focus away from his primary duties. Apropos Luiz's defensive errors, my dad and I both believe the captaincy would have an opposite effect upon him, causing him to play up to the role and draw in any negative aspects of his play. There is hearsay that Terry could do what Desailly did for him and give up the captaincy to a player who will be starting every match.

The other play who I could see captaining us is Chalobah - who was touted as a future England captain when he was only 16. Whenever I go to Watford games (my local team), whilst not captain, he has an incredible amount of authority in that group of players - especially considering he is surrounded by a player who has captained Roma, and another who has captained the Swiss International side. It will be interesting seeing what happens regarding the captaincy in the next few years.

Only one proper manager can make sure Chelsea start winning properly again - that is Jose Mourinho. All the other managers don't have the strength/courage to ask for more control over decisions against Abramovitch. Jose Mourinho would be the kind of character/manager that is required. Schurrle looks like a good striker but we can't keep putting in 20 year olds, especially if Terry and Lampard won't get new contracts, this will result in no experience apart from Cech/Cole and Ivanovic next season.

If only he could do that in a real match.

We're going to end up losing a gifted player if we force De Bruyne to go out on loan to Leverkusen.

He signed a 5 year contract. Spent a year on loan at Genk, another at Werder Bremen, a potential third at Leverkusen. Unlikely he'd ever sign another contract with us, when a crapload of teams will probably be on the hunt for him and guarantee him football.

Very dangerous approach by Chelsea tbh. It'll be one of the most disappointing losses we'll ever have.

5 and a half year deal. Bought in January half a year at Genk, one at Bremen. Still got 4 years left on his contract.

That's a little better.

I kind of agree with you. Luiz with the captaincy could work. He needs to cut out defensive errors however, but I'd like him to have the captaincy as he seems to be the kind of player who would force the team onwards and push for a winner/equaliser and luiz seems to have great games whenever the team has momentum. He was poor vs city in the first half e.g. but in the second half after we got the goal he was absolute quality.

If chalobah makes it into the first team in the next year or two as a starter and plays well we should give it to him though. Would love to see a young captain, but obviously he needs to be able to get respect from the players first which would be tough at his age but being in the first team and performing well it won't be too much on his shoulders. We'll probably give it to luiz I think considering cech will be competing for game time with courtois who I think is at the same level of ability.

It's in small goals as well. Makes me wonder that torres still has a lot of ability. Weird player we have here...
Mate did the same thing to me when we were playing footy

Hopefully he can get a flurry of goals in this last month to make his goal tally more respectable(although it is fairly decent already) needs to keep on wearing that mask.

Torres is still a fantastic player IMO but its our playing style which doesn't suit him i think he has loads of goals in him if he is played to his strength and i wont be surpirised if he turns to score loads of goals if he leaves in summer, even if we had messi on our team i think he would struggle to score goals

Imo this system suits Torres just fine, albeit he doesn't receive as much of the ball as a striker might like but this is mostly because people clearly have lack of confidence in him. When you look up and see Hazard, Mata and Torres all available for the ball unless Torres is on for a tap in you're not really going to aim for him are you? Even if he keeps up this form he's not good enough to be the main striker of a PL winning team imo.

We're going to end up losing a gifted player if we force De Bruyne to go out on loan to Leverkusen.

He signed a 5 year contract. Spent a year on loan at Genk, another at Werder Bremen, a potential third at Leverkusen. Unlikely he'd ever sign another contract with us, when a crapload of teams will probably be on the hunt for him and guarantee him football.

Very dangerous approach by Chelsea tbh. It'll be one of the most disappointing losses we'll ever have.

We're doing the same thing with courtois personally, however I'm not too fussed because we've done well with him. He's clearly going to give us a lot of money. Maybe de bruyne may do the same for us.

If you lose Courtois you'll likely get 20 million or so for him.

I don't want to lose Courtois

Which is a 200% profit on him. Pretty decent fee for a goalkeeper, considering only buffon has costed more than that, cech costed 9 million and we've got a keeper still playing at the highest level at the age of 32. He'd probably go to barcelona which is fair enough. Unless cech is showing signs of real decline there is no point keeping him I don't like this policy of sell over 30s/not renew contracts look at xavi, puyol, lampard, pirlo, giggs, drogba, zanetti still delivering the goods at such an old age and they're not even goalkeepers. There's also this legendary united keeper who won a premier league title at the age of 41 with one of his best seasons so as long as Cech doesn't suffer from injuries we'd be fine. All I want is a decent backup keeper who wouldn't actually straight up challenge for the position like sorensen/mignolet/zieler/fabianski or matej delac if he steps up.


I wouldn't be too fussed, I trust our scouting network personally we'd find another gem like that. Cech can still go on for a long time and personally I'd find it hard to see him turn into cudicini/friedel. I guess I want to look at the two players though.

Exactly you make a huge profit on him and Cech still looks quality. Hes 30 he can go on realistically for at least another 6-7 years bar injuries and possibly longer. Courtois will not want to keep going on loan every season, he might be okay with it for now but in the future he will want to stay at the club. I dunno I haven't heard anything about Barcelona and Courtois in ages it seems its Ter Stegen who we keep being linked to now.

I wouldn't be too fussed, I trust our scouting network personally we'd find another gem like that. Cech can still go on for a long time and personally I'd find it hard to see him turn into cudicini/friedel. I guess I want to look at the two players though.

Kinda want reina at yours so you can have 11 youth squad players in the team next season and keep that 'barca DNA' but yeah ter stegen would be great for you guys.