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The Chelsea F.C. Thread IV

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For the Bucharest game, at this point I wouldn't even be against having Schurrle up front. Got nothing to lose. Think JT needs a rest and maybe Cech although that might not be too good of an idea...

Cech

Dave - Cahill - Luiz - Bertrand

Mikel
Ramires - KDB

Willian Schurrle Hazard

Reply 8621

9MmBulletz

Original post by mhsc

Yeah, I don't even know. Definitely forget about Falcao, Suarez, Lewandowski, Cavani et al. Not in January, and for some of them probably no chance in summer either. People like Jackson Martinez or Diego Costa might be more feasible. Both on fire at the mo. So is De Rossi at Fiorentina, but with his injury record? Probably not. And then there are random guys like Burak Yilmaz, or we could look at Dzeko, if City would even sell him to us.

Benzema? His contract expire in 2015

Either him or Rooney

Reply 8622

The Assassin

Looking at that article again, I'm quite disappointed in Mourinho. Simple fact is, and what we learn now, is that Jose underestimated Lukaku and he overestimated Torres.

When Jose came out last week or the week before about Lukaku not telling everyone the full story, it wasn't impressive. It seems to me Jose is trying to imply he's blameless in the fact Lukaku is out on loan, trying to pin all the responsibility on the player.

Whether or not Lukaku is the finished product, he should be here, and he shouldn't be on loan for Everton. Very poor management tbh.

Reply 8623

FlavaFavourFruit

Whilst we're on the topic of our dreadful strikeforce, all 3 need to go by at least next summer.

Torres won't suddenly turn into his old ways again, he's past it. And when he does score, we're all surprised-we shouldn't be surprised ! When Augero or RVP or Suarez scores, it's not a surprise, it's expected.

Eto'o isn't good enough, lucky at times too.
Ba is ba...not valued as much as the others so doesn't get games but when he does, I'm not too impressed.

Get lukaku back and buy Rooney.

Reply 8624

bj27

Original post by 9MmBulletz

Benzema? His contract expire in 2015

Either him or Rooney

Funniest thing is that both are very likely, it all depends on who gets top 4, if united get top 4, it'll most likely be at the expense of liverpool, meaning that Madrid will buy suarez, which leaves space for benzema as he would want to be the main striker which he would be over here. There's the case that united don't make top 4 and we then take rooney who's in his last year and wouldn't want to be playing europa league football.

I'd be wary of benzema though, back around the first two years under mourinho I would have taken him in a heartbeat, now I'm not so sure, he got 20 goals and 20 assists last season in all competitions, which does seem good, but in comparison to 35 goals and 15 assists the 2011-12 season, I'd say that he's not been as good and may not be an automatic choice, again one can blame it on mourinho pissing off the whole team and rotating him more than usual and he has got 10 goals and 8 assists so far this season, which is fairly steady.

He'd be an improvement, but if we're buying somebody for big bucks, really they should be getting a goal a game falcao style or in general terrorizing the other team like drogba did.

Reply 8625

bj27

Original post by The Assassin

Agree, it was a mistake, especially since he said that he can't improve a 30 year old, yet loans out a 20 year old and buys a 30 year old, it's just him backtracking on his words, especially since he talks about the pressure of a young team and is now complaining about the age of our strikers.

Anyway he's still got a point, our strikers are terrible and if he gets a kitty in jan for a player like falcao we might as well take it. He'll hand us the league on a plate and we'd be pretty scary to face in the CL, could turn us from likely QF's to Finalists.

Reply 8626

9MmBulletz

Original post by bammy jastard 27

I'd say that in terms of potential Champions League winning capability, there are 2 leagues. There's the elite (Madrid, Barca, Bayern) and then there's the other top sides (Dortmund, Juventus etc )

Cluster 1- Barca, Madrid, Bayern

Cluster 2- Man City, PSG, Dortmund, Chelsea, Juventus, Arsenal, Atletico

City and PSG are probably the strongest on paper in that group (especially in attack), but we're not too far off. Dortmund got beat in the Bundesliga and are miles off the pace but are dangeous, while Juventus' central midfield is formiddable and one of the best in Europe (Vidal, Pirlo, Pogba, Marchisio).

I'd say Dortmund have got a style of play and chemistry, as well as a quick counter-attack which makes them difficult to play against. Saying that, one or two injuries can mess up the balance of their team. They haven't got enough cover in my opinion.

Atletico remind me of our team around 04-06, but they're not quite as good IMO.

Arsenal have been in good league form and look much settled with Ozil.

Falcao would definitely give us an edge against most of the teams because we're quite good at creating chances. Just a shame we don't finish them off

Reply 8627

bj27

Original post by 9MmBulletz

I agree with that. Especially with atletico, they seem a carbon copy of us 8 years ago.

If you were to rank us, where would you rank us out of current teams in europe. We assume that the front 3 are Bayern, Barca and madrid in that order, but where would you put us?
The most interesting thing is that at least one of these teams would face each other in the round of 16. We haven't even included the likes of United.

It's good to see so many good teams capable of winning the competition though. If United get taken out of the top 4, do you think the replacement will be in this tier e.g. spurs or liverpool if they keep suarez or would they be in uniteds/napoli's/Milan's tier? I assume that you probably put those teams in the third tier. Like around where we were 2 years ago.

Reply 8628

mhsc

I would put us behind Juve and Dortmund (when they have an injury free team) as well. The rest of them is pretty close, tbh I think our team is better than Arsenal's/Atletico's but they're both in very rich form and have been for a while.

Reply 8629

chelseafreak

As far as a new striker in January goes i would seriously consider Dezko, he doesn't get enough games at City but as still proved he can cope with the league. Then in the summer look at the Rooney situation and try and address are midfield.

Could also consider Cardozo from Benfica, he was a good scorer in the Europa league last season.

Reply 8630

KingMessi

Original post by chelseafreak

I don't envisage Manchester City being too willing to sell us Dzeko.

Reply 8631

The Assassin

This Ross Barkley fella isn't half bad is he? Maybe if Romelu doesn't want to return we could do some sort of exchange...

Reply 8632

The Assassin

Original post by bammy jastard 27

How much would Falcao cost now though?

typical of Chelsea though, have the option of getting him for 50m in the summer; now we can get him for 20m more!

Reply 8633

Skkc16

Original post by The Assassin

This Ross Barkley fella isn't half bad is he? Maybe if Romelu doesn't want to return we could do some sort of exchange...

Ha and here I was thinking we had way too many AMs already :tongue:

Reply 8634

mhsc

I doubt Falcao is an option in January. Most top players aren't going to be an option in January, tbh. If Lewandowski wasn't pretty clearly dead set on Bayern, then he'd be our best chance as we could offer Dortmund money (or a player like De Bruyne) instead of them losing him for nothing in summer. But I'm pretty sure he'll just sign a precontract with Bayern and move there in summer.

Guess we could get Benteke :colonhash:

Reply 8635

Yawn-er

Do people here really want another striker, when we're already alienating Lukaku with the 3 other strikers already at the club?

We've already lost Kevin de Bruyne, Matic and Sturridge... really don't want to lose Lukaku too. How are we ever going to convince any future young stars that they have a future with us?

Reply 8636

Nickini

Original post by Yawn-er

We haven't lost KDB?

Mourinho said "three is the perfect number" wrt strikers, so if one were to join in January someone would certainly leave. Eto'o will most likely be leaving at the end of the season too (the Guardian ran an article today about him going to MLS) so there would be room for Lukaku upon his return.

Reply 8637

-TheSpecialOne-

Original post by Yawn-er

Who gives a **** about Lukaku. I'd rather win trophies than make sure he's a happy bunny. That's what football is. If Mourinho pandered to a 20 year old, I'd think he's losing his marbles. He's only going to be a #2 atm anyway in my opinion.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 8638

Yawn-er

Original post by Nickini

He's out in January. Agent's been in contact with Wolfsburg/Atletico. There's no way that a player of his ability will be satisfied with 5 minutes in the prem since September. Mourinho's made a mistake with him. He's a better player than Oscar, Willian and Schurrle - but wasn't given the chance, because he wanted to make a point about players that spoke to the media re: their need for playing time.

KDB will prob be given a token match tomorrow - but it'll just be about putting him in the shop window. Only thing that'll possibly change Mou's mind is if he has a wonder-game. For a player like KDB who needs a run of games to get going, it won't go as well as it should/could.

Re: Lukaku - the relationship between the two is already fragmented (read: Mourinho's outburst in a public press conference.) Lukaku's worried about playing time. Buying another top class striker won't help the matter, and he effectively has the respect of every team in the premier league at the moment.

Original post by -TheSpecialOne-

We as CFC fans should? Do you really want a prospect like Lukaku going off to join another top class team? What would it mean to players like Piazon/Courtois (who's already seeing his fellow Belgian players losing out?), or any other future talent we put a bid in for? 'Oh, this is the team that screwed over Sturridge, Lukaku and De Bruyne. They've all left, and they're all having brilliant careers. Why join Chelsea?'

Now that we're in the financial fair play era, there needs to be a massive emphasis on young players. We've bought up a lot of good ones, but are wasting their talents and present a neg. image of ourselves when it comes to youth development. The crucial point then is - can we make up for our inability to get gifted 20-23 year olds by buying top class players in the future?

The answer will be no, because the profits we make aren't so high that we can afford to buy those players.

Loads of people are disregarding how important a time this is for our youngsters - and Mourinho's completely missed the point. It'll come back to bite us very, very hard.

Reply 8639

Nickini

Original post by Yawn-er

You're saying he's out in January like it's a fact when it isn't. There's been rumours yes, and perhaps his agent has been in contact Wolfsberg/Atletico but that isn't anything particularly unusual. All the reports seem to be suggesting he'd be loaned out, not sold, and we'll have the final say with his situation anyway, Mourinho praised him last week and said he'd be playing in the near future. I wouldn't be surprised to see him go which would be a massive shame but at least wait until concrete reports of him actually leaving appear before declaring we've "lost" him.

He's a better player than Oscar, Willian and Schurrle - but wasn't given the chance, because he wanted to make a point about players that spoke to the media re: their need for playing time.

Debatable, he certainly has the potential to be a top class player and is definitely already very good. The next bit is BS though, he started the first game of the season and played well, but all his performances since then have been poor (e.g. United, Swindon) and from what Mourinho has said he hasn't impressed in training either. He hasn't complained to the media about it; when asked loaded questions by the press he just replies he would like to be playing, and what else can he really say? He was dropped before the issue of playing time arose anyway.

This isn't particularly directed at you but why is it seemingly so incomprehensible that a player should be dropped because he's not playing well as opposed to some ulterior motive from Mourinho? Exact same situation with Mata and it's just ****ing annoying; we have 6 quality options for a maximum 3 positions, all of whom are good enough to be starting. Why would we drop an inform player to make room for someone who hasn't been playing well? Especially seeing as our start to the season hasn't been the most consistent. /rant

Re: Lukaku - the relationship between the two is already fragmented (read: Mourinho's outburst in a public press conference.) Lukaku's worried about playing time. Buying another top class striker won't help the matter, and he effectively has the respect of every team in the premier league at the moment.

Lukaku can't expect to be the number 1 choice striker for a club like Chelsea at his age. Even if we did bring in another top striker he'll almost certainly be 2nd choice with the knowledge he'll be no. 1 in a couple of years, and if Lukaku doesn't like it he can leave. Obviously it would be a massive shame but no one should/will be allowed to hold the club or Mourinho to ransom, least of all a 20 year old.

And what is this talk of "another" top class striker, we don't even have one in the first place :tongue:

(edited 10 years ago)