The Chelsea F.C. Thread IV

He's no top four player. Painfully average.

Woah, well come back. You used to post here lots but I haven't seen ya in ages.

Agreed btw. Far too many people on this forum are calling Fernandinho a waste of a buy and that he isn't a good player (yeah 35m was expensive but he's a brilliant player). I think Bayern beat city though? 2-1?

hey guys, haven't been here recently tbh, but im back!

Been watching the pre season games when i can and I think we look promising. De Bruyne looks like he's going to be playing a lot and he seems like a new signing mainly because he hasn't actually played an official game for us. He was young player of the year in the bundesliga last year so we must be onto something with him in our team.

We are a class above Inter atm. They finished like 9th in the league and there are a good few teams in Italy better than them (Juventus, Napoli, AC Milan) so I wouldn't say it's too much of an indicator of where we're at atm. AC Milan would be a much better test although we should beat them as we are quicker than them in general.

As for the league, I reckon we'll finish second. Man City have three very good strikers as well as Fernandinho who caused us so much trouble with Shakhtar. He's much better than Barry and Garcia imo. Plus, City lacked genuince pace and width in attacking areas which Navas will definitely provide. And having watched City play against Bayern Munich (who I think are a tad overrated) yesterday, they looked very dangerous despite Bayern being much closer to the start of their league season. Very unlucky to draw, considering Negredo wasted 3-4 headed opportunities plus Dzeko and Nasri having a good few chances themselves and Bayern gaining an unfair penalty.

If we bought another good striker I'd put us up there with City for the league, although if someone put a gun to my head on who'll win the league, going by the teams, I'd say City

He does have some pretty good attributes, and I think he's adequate as a backup. Our strikers were all over the place in terms of both playing time and thus form last season, and I think all three will do better this season (well, Torres probably won't but he'll still provide an option).

I think Ba just isn't suited to our system really. I remember reading some posts in the Newcastle thread saying how they were annoyed they used to modify the lineup to suit Ba the most, and basically sucked up to him, but realised after selling him that it was for the best. Maybe he'll adapt better this season.

Don't know how they argue it was for the best... what was Cisse's scoring record after he left, and how many games did they win?

I think he's a v. good striker, tbh. Unfortunately won't ever get the chance to play consistently for us. A shame.

No I mean the fact that they modified the system to suit him was actually for the best, even if they were annoyed by it.

No I mean the fact that they modified the system to suit him was actually for the best, even if they were annoyed by it.

I was one of those people I thought Cisse would provide just as many goals, that really didn't happen...

Hehe, yeah even though it was a fairly big loss I thought Cisse would still be there to help. The season before he was very good (that goal against us was just... wow), but it just wasn't the same for him last season.

Ba's the weakest of our strikers, not physically obviously, but that says a lot considering how poor Nando has been since 2011. HOWEVER Ba always has a good start to the season and then drops off around February, so if we don't get Rooney then we can use Ba mainly if he's playing well along with Torres and get Lukaku to bed in.

But honestly I think Romelu will start banging them in as soon as the season starts. He thrives on good delivery and we have the best players in the league to give him that. He doesn't usually miss many sitters either.

It's incredible to think that he could be the next big thing and just over 12 months ago he was having a stinker against Blackburn in the last game of the league season

Not sure what happened to Cisse tbh, or whether or not I rate him. There was so many clear cut chances he missed last season, and I was just sat there thinking 'Ba would have scored that'...

i dont look at strikers as a "back up" instead ask, how could this player change a game, as a club looking at europe, ba just isnt good enough frankly.

Juan Mata