The Chelsea F.C. Thread IV

Lukaku can't expect to be the number 1 choice striker for a club like Chelsea at his age.

Age shouldn't have anything to do with it. If you're putting in the performances that should be it. If we discovered the Brazilian Ronaldo we'd have loaned him out too often and then lose him.

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.

We drew against Man Utd at Old Trafford in that game. Was Hazard any better than KDB? Was Oscar? No - it was a 0-0 where all our attacking players failed to make any kind of impact. He played a Capital One cup match against a Swindon side that we won. Were any of our other attacking players any good there? Nope. KDB became a scapegoat, and it was an excuse to drop someone to the last in the line of our 6 attacking midfielders. He hasn't had a whiff since then.



Because he has favourites in the team, without any real valid reason. It's not based on form. Hazard was horrific from the period between August-October. He came back for pre-season overweight, lacking pace, and unable to beat his man. But he was played relentlessly, week in, week out despite his lackluster performances. From November onwards, he's started to pick it up again.

Oscar has been poor over the last 6-8 weeks. Guy can't beat his man. He's just a solid midfielder imo with a good sense of timing when it comes to getting into the box, but he doesn't create the chances you'd expect from a number 10.

Lampard and Willian have been ineffectual, but they still see far more game time than they really should. The problem is that Mourinho absolutely refuses to drop them. I guess the effect is that those players will trust him, and remain loyal to him, and respond better to his instructions. But it alienates the rest of the team, and it means we lose some of our other prospects who should be given the chance to claim their stake in the team.

We drew against Man Utd at Old Trafford in that game. Was Hazard any better than KDB? Was Oscar? No - it was a 0-0 where all our attacking players failed to make any kind of impact. He played a Capital One cup match against a Swindon side that we won. Were any of our other attacking players any good there? Nope. KDB became a scapegoat, and it was an excuse to drop someone to the last in the line of our 6 attacking midfielders. He hasn't had a whiff since then.

Because he has favourites in the team, without any real valid reason. It's not based on form. Hazard was horrific from the period between August-October. He came back for pre-season overweight, lacking pace, and unable to beat his man. But he was played relentlessly, week in, week out despite his lackluster performances. From November onwards, he's started to pick it up again.

Oscar has been poor over the last 6-8 weeks. Guy can't beat his man. He's just a solid midfielder imo with a good sense of timing when it comes to getting into the box, but he doesn't create the chances you'd expect from a number 10.

Lampard and Willian have been ineffectual, but they still see far more game time than they really should. The problem is that Mourinho absolutely refuses to drop them. I guess the effect is that those players will trust him, and remain loyal to him, and respond better to his instructions. But it alienates the rest of the team, and it means we lose some of our other prospects who should be given the chance to claim their stake in the team.

Yeah of course, perhaps I phrased that badly. I mean at 20 Lukaku can't just expect/demand to be first choice for us. That isn't to say he can't earn it through his performances, but if us buying a top striker will drive him away then it's not really the club at fault. Eto'o will be gone at the end of the season, and if we were to buy a striker so would one of Torres/Ba. Lukaku is better than both of them so should have no problem establishing himself as second choice to said top striker, if not challenging for the number 1 spot. Challenging for a spot is something Lukaku will have to do eventually if he wants to be playing at a top club, would he be number 1 choice at City/United/Arsenal/Bayern/Madrid/Barcelona etc. right now?

I'm not sure if Barcelona have ever had a big man up top in recent seasons like Lukaku unless you count Zlatan being close to that. While he wouldn't be number one at all those clubs perhaps, he's better than what we already have and different sides play differently so the comparison isn't always ideal. Barcelona, last I saw, don't even play with traditional centre forwards any more.

I guess we could probably go back to playing two strikers regularly if we found a new Makelele.

Tbh we need a striker and need to flog off all the other strikers we currently have. Demba Ba doesn't mind being a backup, that's what we got him for and 3 strikers should be the optimum amount of strikers we have.

Lukaku can play 60-30 each game with the new striker we get.

Here's my theory.
United don't qualify for Champions League. Barcelona need a proper striker, so they go after Rooney, who United are forced to sell between 20-25 million as his contract will expire by the next summer.
Suarez is carrying Liverpool heavily, and so he wants to leave after 3.5 years of service so he joins Real Madrid for a fee of around £55 million.
Because Real Madrid have their man, Benzema is no longer first choice and as his Real Madrid contract expires the summer after. He then returns under Mourinho management and is bought by Chelsea for around 20-25 million.

Better yet, we go for Rooney, but at least Benzema's younger and I think he'd work with our team well (although Rooney would too).

One can tell it's a slow news day when this constitutes 'news', even for the Daily Mail.

Rubentus have been knocked out lmao. This could potentially mean any of the three things:

a) Drogba knocks Arsenal out of the CL
b) Drogba knocks us out of the CL
c) We have a greater chance of getting Pogba know that he's out of the CL