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Back in 2005 both Jamie Carragher and Rafa Benitez came out and said Steven Gerrard made the right decision in turning down a move to Chelsea to remain with Liverpool for the rest his Premier League career, but 12 years on chances are they will think differently if asked about Ross Barkley biting this particular bullet. Scouse centre backs and their cult hero managers may view things differently to the rest of us (special nights and all that) but even they cannot fail to see this was a career-making offer the Evertonian couldn't refuse. The fact that Stevie G chose instead to stay true to one club and wallow in title-free splendid isolation for the rest of his days says more about his lack of nerve back then and everything about Barkley's ambition now. Chelsea's reputed long-held belief in and pursuance of him is also the clearest indicator yet of the club's chosen path post-Conte-driven success and pre-Abramovich-driven Stamford Bridge renovation, that fast-approaching nomadic state during which we will need to be as penny-pinching as Arsenal were immediately after their Highbury move, but hopefully without displaying the same haughty martyrdom that accompanied it back then, a state of mind that has only served to undermine their title ambitions ever since. Remember, Chelsea bid £32m for Gerrard all those years ago and initially offered a mere £35m for Barkley this time around, so our move for him made obvious financial sense and with Antonio Conte also said to be an admirer there were no negatives other than there being nothing not to like. The boss has subsequently shown signs of distancing himself from this comment and perhaps all other deals, but there is no denying the transfer coup when measured against the outlandish sums spent in recent weeks on players of relatively similar age and ability. Moreover, continuing the comparison with his Liverpudlian counterpart, Barkley is thought to fit perfectly into Antonio's preferred 3-5-2 and 3-4-3 formations, much in the same way as Gerrard would have slotted into Jose's 4-3-3 alongside Lamps and Makelele. In the end it was 'The Bison' who played the hoped-for Gerrard role, replacing Tiago in what was a typical Mourinho power-based decision. It goes without saying that Conte would have done exactly the same thing, preferring muscle in midfield himself, and now there is every likelihood we will see Barkley, Kante, Drinkwater, Bakayoko and the one exception to this rule, Cesc, fight it out for three places every week. Like it or not (and, by the look on his face of late, he doesn't) it is clear that the boss sees these players in these formations as the only way forward and is content/resigned to work with them in a somewhat make-do-and-mend attempt at counteracting Pep Guardiola's all-conquering system. As we all know, it will take a shock of seismic proportions to stop Manchester City walking away with the Premier League title this season and, if every fawning pundit in the land is proved right for just once their life, the Champions League trophy and World Club Cup will not be far behind. Antonio's doing his hamstrung best, Jose's being well funded to do his worst, Arsene's done his usual, Klopp's pressing for all he is worth and Potch has strutted his Spursy stuff, yet to no avail. Guardiola is The Man, we are now told in one never-ending stream of print and podcasts, and his team is The Team, not only of the season so far, but also of the rest of it, the next, the one after that, on and on until he tires of world domination and books in for another of those New York sabbaticals. But to be fair, anyone who has watched City play of late could not fail to be impressed and they are undoubtedly the best team we have come up against other than the singularly inspired Roma outfit in that group stage game at the Bridge. Their points record also speaks for itself, so why should there be any doubting their credentials when it comes to predicting an unprecedented decade of domination? Well, have the last few months really been so spellbinding in terms of the football played and the tactics deployed? Has the aesthetic difference been so stark, between Pep's boxing clever style and Antonio's 3-5-2 formative overhaul of last season as to warrant so much effusive praise being heaped upon the Catalan? I think not, though others will disagree and it is, of course, a contentious subject for debate. However, perhaps the more pressing matter for Chelsea fans is not the prospect of City domination, but the ways and means of our suppressing it [ahead of our rivals] should the nightmare become reality. Options are limited, due in no small part to our impending stadium renovation, but nevertheless the first to be considered has to be matching fire with fire, finance with finance. Of course, option A - Financial Doping of the Wenger kind is no longer as effective as it once was, even though it now appears to be the acceptable face of capitalism in some quarters, those Abu Dhabi boys having used it to the fullest effect to get them where they are today while receiving nowhere near the amount of criticism levelled at us in the past. Still, moaning about it does not help the situation, which is summed up by realistic acceptance of the fact that City will outbid any other English club in the transfer market if and when it wants to and the rest of us must put up with what amounts to the second rate from now on. That said, Virgil van Dijk isn't second rate and he chose Liverpool ahead of City, but at a hefty price. Alexis Sanchez is also no second-rater, but in the end his agent drove too hard a bargain for everyone bar United, a club Arsene Wenger has grown to respect as being more like his own, apparently. Turning a blind eye to the hypocrisy of placing clubs with 60/75K capacity stadia on self-sufficient moral high ground whilst at the same time looking down on the rest as either financial dopers or no-hopers, the Frenchman appears only too pleased to do Sanchez business with an Ed Woodward who noodley-doodles all the day in preference to taking twice as much from the coffers of cash rich but classless Man City. Quite frankly, mock though the media may do at our links to Carroll, Crouch, Dzeko et al, Chelsea is better off out of all this tawdry, grossly inflated, double-standard dealing, both literally and metaphorically. A second, far more radical, option B would be to Give the Head Coach Increased Powers, lock, stock and barrel, including sole responsibility for everything on the transfer front. This radical change in policy would find favour with all those fans who continually criticise the board for every failure in the transfer market, but would Conte really want the increased workload and in this day and age isn't the whole concept of giving your manager a free rein an impractical proposition unless you have unlimited funding and can afford to make the occasional £50m mistake? Consider too that a once reined-in Conte may still simply go for highly experienced players rather than make greater use of the Academy, an acceptable strategy for many and not necessarily a bad thing if it meant continued success while we were away from the Bridge, but it is also worth recalling at this point that when Jose had much less on his plate and much greater clout over transfer dealings he chose to sign off on the permanent departures of Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku and Mohamed Salah. Suffice to say, this option is fraught with danger and perhaps we would do well to remember the time Chelsea paid £13.2m to bring Andre Villas-Boas to Stamford Bridge to enact his Barcelona-lite ideas that had previously worked for him at Porto - in just over a year AVB was gone, the club having spent an unprecedented amount of time, effort and compensation to achieve very little, the remit being to drastically overhaul the club in a way many feel Conte should be empowered to do now. The onus would be on the Italian to deliver within budget, which in itself might be off-putting, but Conte has recently indicated he accepts the current Mancunian duopoly when it comes to the marketplace, stressing the need to overcome it in the only way possible... work, work and more work. Encouragingly, he has stated he is prepared to do this with the players at his disposal, even going so far as to say that he is happy with the current crop and his presence at both FA Youth Cup and Chekatrade Trophy games is also a sign that he feels there may be more where Andreas Christensen and Ethan Ampadu came from. It is because of this work ethic and an acceptance that, albeit grudgingly, living within our means and making the most use of our own resources is a necessity proving to be the mother of a new invention, a third way emerges which is arguably the only realistic one if the club does not want to forever follow in the footsteps of the North West Wastrels. So, what was already a remarkably fallow field of options is narrowed to just one, option C - An Academy Pipeline Fuelling The First Team Squad and supplemented by the purchase of players on the manager's wish list, over time and whenever financially viable. With a core of Academy players graduating each year, not only becoming part of the first team squad but being regularly used, we would in one fell swoop reduce the need to buy to merely satisfy squad depth requirements. No more short term fixes, the Drinkwaters, the Zappacostas, the hulking centre forwards Plan B-ing their place in the squad when Tammy Abraham does the job just as well, if not better, it would be a clear policy change and a pathway for Academy players. And to answer those sceptics who believe that the quality simply isn't there to call on, I would ask them to take a quick look at these recent Development Squad teams and their achievements:- FA Youth Cup - Chelsea 4 Sc**thorpe United 0 (Man City go out 6-5 on penalties and Man Utd go out 3-1 on penalties) Chelsea team (4-diamond-2) Jamie Cumming, Reece James (c), Marc Guehi, Ethan Ampadu, Juan Castillo, Conor Gallagher, Tariq Uwakwe, Billy Gilmour, George McEachran, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Martell Taylor-Crossdale. FA Youth Cup - Chelsea 7 West Brom 0 Chelsea team (4-2-3-1) Jamie Cumming; Tariq Lamptey, Marc Guehi, Jon Panzo, Juan Castillo; Conor Gallagher (c), George McEachran; Tariq Uwakwe, Tino Anjorin, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Daishawn Redan. Checkatrade Trophy - last 32 MK Dons 0 Chelsea 4 (Man City went out 4-3 on penalties to Chesterfield and Man Utd did not put a team in) Chelsea team (3-4-3) Eduardo; Reece James, Ethan Ampadu, Jake Clarke-Salter (c), Dujon Sterling, Trevoh Chalobah, Kyle Scott, Kenedy, Charly Musonda, Michy Batshuayi, Callum Hudson-Odoi. Checkatrade Trophy - Quarter finals Chelsea 3 v Oxford Utd 0 Chelsea team (3-4-2-1) Marcin Bulka; Dujon Sterling, Reece James, Ethan Ampadu, Trevoh Chalobah, Juan Castillo, Kyle Scott, Ruben Sammut (c), Harvey St Clair, Callum Hudson-Odoi; Daishawn Redan Some names appear repeatedly, others forever to be referred to as World Cup winners and six of them, Ethan Ampadu, Reece James, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Dujon Sterling, Kyle Scott and Trevoh Chalobah, having all been involved with the first team squad already. The link established, these players train exclusively to mesh with the playing style of the first team and here is the first core of graduates ready and waiting to fulfil their roles at the highest level next season. This half-dozen includes 17/20yr-olds, but age should not be a factor any more (the Oxford United team average age was 28yrs, Chelsea's was 18yrs) just bring them in and concentrate all financial resources set aside for transfers on world class players in the next age bracket of 21/25yr-olds. The loanees could also play their part, Tammy Abraham having already been mentioned and guaranteed to return to stake his claim alongside the likes of Charly Musonda, Kenedy and Jake Clarke-Salter. The mantra should be 'if you are good enough, you are old enough' and in this new environment no position, save that of a Hazard, a Kante or Courtois, would be safe from the threat of a young usurper like Callum Hudson-Odoi or, as has already occurred, Ethan Ampadu Over the next few months Chelsea's priorities under Antonio Conte are the duel challenges of Barcelona in the Champions League and the need to consolidate our position in the top four of the Premier League. Failure on the first is acceptable and to a certain extent anticipated, but to end up fifth or lower in the league would signal the end for Antonio, a situation that may be more of an inevitable and acceptable way out for the Italian (who would obviously cite a falling out with the board as a major factor) than a failure on his part to shape our future after winning the title in his first season. The man may well be jockeying for position right through to the summer, and who can blame him given the club's record on managerial appointments over the last decade, but if he genuinely wants to stay, to work and work with this squad, he does have this third option. Giving a longer rein to the kids means a longer reign for Conte and the Abramovich hobby horse is there for someone, at some stage, to ride for all it is worth rather than be continually confined to the stables. Imagine a Premier League five years from now in which the same top six clubs are fighting for the title with squads assembled at vast expense and there in amongst them is Chelsea, primarily an in-house creation constructed at half the cost, containing younger, hungrier players, all of them on long term Mino Raiola and Jorge Mendes-free contracts, the Academy pipeline fuelling the system and setting an example for the rest to follow. It could happen, it should happen... and if Antonio doesn't want to spearhead it, then Roman should bring in someone who will.

A shocking comment. Roman has done absolute wonders for our club from the moment he stepped through the door. As JT rightly pointed out in his leaving speech on the pitch last year, Roman cares for and loves this club. If you don't appreciate what he's done I would suggest going and supporting City for the time being, then if someone richer comes along after that, you should swap and support them!

I find it hard to believe the board asked Conte who he wants and he said Carroll. I suspect they offered him a list of sh*t choices and Carroll was one of the least sh*t to choose from.

Conte has made it clear a million times to those d**khead journalists that keep asking him conference after conference about the transfer market and he ALWAYS gave them the same answer which is ... "I give the Chelsea Board my personal wish-list of players for the January Transfer Window, then they make the final decision. It's not entirely up to me. I'm not in control" This isn't the first time he's given this same answer. It's probably the 10th time already. How on earth is Conte's statement suddenly pissing off the Chelsea Hierarchy ?? If ACTUAL NEWS doesn't appear in REAL TIME this is what happens. They create gossip. Make up their own stories. It's their job, it's their agenda. It's a 24 hour job.

I'm not sure the managerial merry go round is as laughable as you suggest. Real Madrid are on their 10th manager since Roman took over, but does anyone ever say they are a laughable club because of this? They also may be looking for another manager soon if Zidane carries on this poor run. The longevity of Wenger and Fergie make us look bad in comparison, but short managerial reigns really are mostly the new norm. I disagree Roman is "laughable" because he sacks managers. Also, laughable transfer windows? Most transfer windows, Roman has funded squad improvements and for that we should be grateful. This has resulted in the success we never thought we would have. You can count on one hand the amount of transfer windows Roman has perhaps failed to improve the squad. You could question how we spend it, but money has always been available. He must have been through around 30 transfer windows as owner now.

And they have won.........?

I'd be f**king miserable too if I were the manager and asked in the summer for a second striker and left back to give us any chance of doing anything after Christmas. Then only to get told at the end of August to wait and see what happens in January. With 5 days to go before the window closes again all he's got is "Here you go, not what you asked for but another injury prone midfielder. And while we're at it, what do you reckon of Andy Carroll?". This Palmieri/Dzeko transfer better follow through. If I was Roman, and Conte manages to get us to finish second in the Prem and get over Barca in the CL, I'd walk into that boardroom in May, take a dump on the middle of the table, and tell all the board members that "It's simple. You have two choices. Eat up, or piss off". Then I'd pull out the cheque book, print my autograph on the first 6 pages, hand them to Antonio and say "Don't spend it all at once .... you got till the end of August". He makes a few mistakes with tactics, etc. So what? He's doing the best he's got with a bare bones team on four fronts. He won us the prem last year. It is not his competency that should questioned.

Roman enquired about Tottenham via Zahavi, Daniel Levy confirmed this. Sven Goran Ericsson advised him that we were better value in terms of cost and Jesper Gronkjaer getting us into the CL swayed it in our favour. We were not Roman's first choice. Roman has done great things for Chelsea but has also made many mistakes. As Ewell26 said in the club investment thread the decisions and actions of the board are the decisions and actions of Roman and that has been laughable at times with our never ending managerial merry go round and, in recent times, our transfer dealings. I have no doubt Roman has built up a strong attachment to OUR club over the years with us, but IMO I do doubt that his passion is as strong as it was in his early years. And nothing lasts forever. The goalposts have moved. Wealthier owners have taken over top clubs and relegated us to the second tier of the transfer market. I feel this a reality many Chelsea fans still have to accept and as that reality affects our ability to bring in the top stars it will be harder to compete with those clubs on a level playing field.

it's funny how when he has a good game, there's a sentence or two on his performance, but when he has a bad game there's page after page of pointing out his flaws and poor performance. i swear some people feed on negativity.

A point worth making is that the bloke is 3 billion worse off since the onset of the global financial crisis. Compared with the nation state wealth of Man City, he's a comparative financial small fry. How Man Utd can continue spending at this rate is another question

Exactly. Please people give Conte SOME credit. Does anyone honestly think that Conte went to the powers that be and told them he wanted Andy Carroll?!!

Apparently Carrol was Conte’s suggestion, the only reason his not a Chelsea player is because of the injury, somebody was looking after Chelsea that day.

I posted this a while ago btw...

I actually thought he was pretty decent yesterday, and i have been one of his biggest critics. I thought he did what he was mostly signed to do. Break up play, get us out of tight situations and occasionally burst forward with power. Also, that pass into Hazard in the second half was spot on. If Hazard didn't lose his balance and scores from it, everybody would be praising that pass.

This is just becoming a joke seriously. I love Conte and I love Roman. Roman has earned the right to be given some slack for things being how they are. As a business man first and foremost before a football fan, he had and still has his motivations for buying a football club. His club has won almost every if not all competitive trophies before them in a 14 year ownership period that he has overseen with expenses well beyond north of a billion quid. Critics say his reign has been disastrous and i laugh, they criticise the rate of manager in and outs and i laugh even harder. On a global scale are Real Madrid derided as a joke club or useless or badly run or whatever label of the day is favoured when describing Chelsea? With their 14 managers since Roman took over here. Is Barcelona derided with their 7 managers in the same time? Or Juventus with their 9, Inter with their 12, Napoli with their 8. Or closer to home are Tottenham or Liverpool with their 10 or 6 respectively. Man city with their 7 or Newcastle with their 13. Even Man Utd after departure of Fergie now on their 3rd. We are on our tenth manager and whilst not the best or worst on the scale of comparisons, i'm just trying to describe the nature of the beast we are dealing with. Managerial changes happen, more often than people want to make you believe, and its not unique to a particular club, league or country (internationals) so don't let them deceive you. Managerial stability is great but way over-rated. It only happens in 2 situations. A club cannot afford it or the club is winning things. Of course we will leave Arsenal out of this discussion as trying to resolve their grouping still comes up with "error, cannot compute". Don't let the media narrative about our club fool you. 21 years I've been following Chelsea now, it has never changed. There have been times of calm and a bit of goodwill but never sustained. Roman coming just made it worse. I love Conte who, I would agree with some people saying, has earned the right to criticise our transfer activity and get the players bought for him he wants, but only to a certain extent. My counter argument to that is Conte knew what he signed up to. He was appointed as a first team coach not a manager and this was made very publicly clear when he signed the dotted lines. If the board accedes to his transfer requests it is because they want to work with him and him going about things the way he has will not do him any favours. Like someone said in an earlier post I saw on here, (can't remember who that reasonable person is now) they were keen to open up contract talks and offer an extension to his contract which is a sign of belief and willingness to keep him as long as the contract extension would stipulate but the man came back and said no to an extension and only took an increased package. Fair enough, after all he over achieved already. But that does not mean he should make transfer demands that totally go against the clubs recruitment policies (no matter how crap those policies may be). First of all being at odds with their policies would make them unhappy and feel he isn't sharing whatever vision they have. Secondly, as a man that has made it clear that he didn't want to commit to the club in the long term, with his transfer requests being out of their long term scope, do we really expect anything less than what is currently playing out? I know if a member of my team tells me he wasn't thinking long term with the organisation (and more specifically i know it could be in 2 years or less), I wouldn't be giving him the big ticket - long term projects to handle. He may be involved due to his level of skill and impact on the team but i'll make sure my own wider team goals will be put first. Player performances are always affected by managerial uncertainty. Positively or negatively. He laid his bed, he should lie in it. Plus his moaning doesn't help the players mental state when they go into games. Now for the fans, who am I to criticise his or her opinion. Football is an emotional sport. Everyone has their thoughts and feelings. The passion that drives fans is same everywhere and people react differently to same situations due to personality types. We are all commentators in the sport we love. Just keep your chin up, and know players and managers come and go, but Chelsea stays.

The first time I took a girlfriend was Sunday Nov 92 - Leeds at home. She normally worked Saturdays being a retail worker and so a Sunday seemed a good fit. I thought about going to the Middle of the Shed yet then thought it could get a bit boisterous in there with pushing and shoving so decided to shell out a bit more and pay for the West Stand. For a long period it was disappointing as there were no goals yet there were loads of insults being thrown by the guys behind us and the Away End. My girlfriend was also from Doncaster. Townsend scored near the end of the match and the ground came to life. I asked her afterwards if she enjoyed it and she said it was boring until then end, she paused and then added she was terrified to say anything in the ground in case the guys behind though she was from Leeds! Sunday, 29th November 1992

Well...they've got Firminio, Danny Ings and Solanke I'd say they need another centre forward.

Just get both deals done Chels for f**k sake.

this is getting out of hand...we can't beat arsenal anymore, conte fights with the board, tottenham got lucas moura, arsenal will get aubameyang, manU sanchez, city walk the league, hazard and tibo didn't sign their contracts (imo they won't anyway with this current mess)....and on top of that we are after joke players like carroll, crouch, barnes, now giroud....this is so depressing...

Remember when we signed world class talent? Those were the days.

Maybe Jenas was talking about himself ?

there's a possibility he did, he wanted to sign llorente last season so he's obviously after that kind of player. Plus Carroll is the complete opposite to the players we were told the board wanted to sign, young and with a possible sell on value. he did sign bendnter for juventus remember.

I'd take Giroud as a backup striker, he always seemed to be underrated at Arsenal. Still, it pisses me off seemingly how incompetent the board can be at times.

Don't be so downhearted just. The goalposts moved ages ago. Manyoo have always been ahead with transfer £cash£, but unable to push forward and attract the top draw players. Citeh were struggling until this season, when Pep finally started to get the players in he wanted (keeper, fullbacks,forwards). Liverpool, Le arse and Spuds don't outspend us and also don't attract the top draw players. Take Pep away from Citeh and their unlimited fortunes, and things would be very different.

Well, coming from one of the laziest midfielders I've ever set my eyes on, that's rich.

There is clearly only one man for the job. Fits the bill perfectly, he is both hilarious and too old:

Marina: "£44m..." Roma: "Ok" Marina: "£43m...." Roma: "Ok" Marina ".......... £42m" Roma: "No" Marina "........ £41m"

Oh mama this forum will soon be getting it's own tv station to compete with Arsenal' s. I hope Antonio is here for another 5 years.

Have been avoiding this thread for a day but it looks safe now. Shame to lose to that lot again but I thought we did okay. Antonio is very aware of our faults as a squad and in my view sets us up accordingly. The setup also made sense away from home in a second leg. If we look past the result, they created virtually nothing and needed two massive deflections to win. We could have played that match 100 times and those two deflections would have never happened again. We created a good chance and scored. In a normal setting that would have been enough. That said, it is always challenging to me that we don't have more going forward when chasing the game. We didn't really seem to do much different. Elneny man marked Hazard, Willian went off and we were cooked. Why Musonda wasn't on the bench I'm not sure. Equally why Antonio chose the subs the way we did I'm not sure. Surely it would have made more sense to put Michy on instead of Barkley and move Pedro to wing back rather than taking him off and subbing on Zappacosta. Anyway Antonio gets paid the big bucks to make these calls so I'll trust him, but we did seem a bit limp going forward which isn't ideal.

Unfortunately Antonio sounds like a man resigned to his fate, hate to say it, but he’ll be gone the day after the season ends.

Christensen is regularly starting ahead of two £30m defenders.

No, you're not. There is every indication it is that simple. He keeps saying the same things, they're just looking for a slip-up and I wouldn't be surprised if repeating the story is a way for them to make it seem like it's an issue he keeps bringing up because he's so frustrated. In reality, they're asking him the questions but we never see the questions written in the articles do we? I don't buy the narrative that we aren't backing him with signings or that the board have sacked him already and are just waiting for the right time to announce it. If he wasn't getting the players he wanted, granted they may not have all been first choice, then why do we keep signing players from Italy who have very specific qualities about them that Conte seems to be after? Is it the club who want a big target man to play up front? By the same token, if the club are ready to sack him why would they be spending anything on players this January when a new manager is going to come in and change things around anyway? While I'm sure there are frustrations on both sides and neither is happy with being 3rd or losing to Arsenal, this whole thing is overblown. The media need something to talk about, it's not good for them when the 6 biggest clubs in the country are at a stable point with no managerial controversy, so they make it appear.

Needs to stop f**king moaning about transfers and his lack of involvement in them to the press. His press conferences have a constant negativity around them and it's got like Jose was in his second spell again. It's boring and the fans don't want to keep hearing it. Get your head down and get on with trying to win games rather than taking pot shots at your employer.

One of the saddest days I can recall as a supporter.

Dzeko please.

it's frustrating because the lwb cover is needed and we've sent kenedy on loan. we have lost one player, but still haven't gotten in another one. whoever is dealing with all this needs to answer to roman because it's tarnishing the club and making a mockery of the situation, which won't help our situation in acquiring new players now or in the future because they won't know what the situation is, what they're signing up for, who will be in charge and so forth. can we not just go a season without the club turning into a circus.

First time I took a bird to Chelsea was in the Cup v Leicester - 97. We were in the West Stand seats, cracking atmosphere- gotta say the forum is named after the most iconic part of the ground, but Gate 13 and the West Stand plus benches were where it was happening from bout 83 on. Back on track, the roof almost came off when Lebouf scored the winning penalty- the sort I was with had a ball. Just after that we had to change the famous Lebouf song, cause he complained in the programme. " He's here, he's there, were not aloud to swear, Frank Lebouf!" Happy days

Ineptitude Incompetence In-f**king-trouble

If we didn't sack the managers we wouldn't have won those things. The only way we went wrong with Scolari and AVB was appointing them in the first place, imagine if we stuck by them out of some sort of misguided sense of stability, no Hiddink mark one, no Munich (which in turn would have meant no Hazard), two less FA Cups, not really worth thinking about!!

@Ernie_blue Conte wanted Llorente because they've won Serie A together in Juventus the same way Conte wanted Arturo Vidal. He's worked with both players and knows their strengths and weaknesses very well. The Andy Caroll story was pure gossip mate. David Moyes (West Ham Manager) confirmed he's never been contacted by Chelsea.

I'd take Giroud, too. Think he is better than he gets credit for

Well maybe Roman and the Board have worked it out....that you can only motivate the same players for 2 or 3 years and as many of the contracts are 3-5 years as the manager reaches year 2 the players now need a different motivator, a different voice...roll on 3 more plus years and many of the players that were signed 5 years previously have been moved on...bring in a new 'motivator' and the success cycle starts again....SAF aside, where are the teams that have medium to long term managers, what success do they have? Relatively little compared to our model....not sure why you wouldn't want to keep a successful manager? I would imagine that there are only so many drills and training you can do before it becomes repetitive, so the players get tired and bored of the same voice and doing the same drills, fresh blood brings new ideas, new voices....this is of course my view on it.

Not going to be too hard on him after just 60 minutes when he is clearly trying to come back from a long lay off. However, when I've seen Barkley for Everton and out on loan and even for England, you get the impression he is another SWP, Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain etc................In other words, he will sometimes produce a worldie or do something where you thnk, "WOW", but week in, week out, he isn't all that. At school he was probably the best kid in the playground and got used to going past the other kids for fun. And that's what he still tries now and 1 in every 20 attempts it will come off. I do hope that he will improve our squad once fully fit, but I seriously think he will be added to the list of "luxury players". Hope I'm proved wrong.

We have seen how good he can be. A defender can look good/poor based on a lot of things. GC did not look great in bolton and i remember the hue and cry then. If Luiz is a goner (as it seems to be), I would definitely have Zouma as my 5th choice CB, specially with GC coming towards the end too. No point in buying a 30/40mil defender specially when we need that money to buy world class players for wingers/forwards. PS - If conte is not going to be here next year, and we are going to shift to a back 4, I would say zouma should definitely stay. CBs - Zouma, AC, GC, AR RBs - Azpi, Zappa LBs - ?/Alonso

Concerning that we're again signing someone returning from injury, how long before they're match fit? Barkley, Bakayoko and Morata all signed this season and unable to play immediately due to injury. All well and good signing players but they're no use to you in the immediate if they're not fit enough to play.

Courtois Azpi-Christensen-Rudiger Moses-Kante-Drinkwater-Alonso Barkley-Hazard-Willian Might be a bit too soon for Barkley but give him his chance early I say, nothing to lose at this point because I really can't be bothered watching another 0-0.