Blue Sun Tzu

We can all moan and feel aggrieved but I am afraid this is a natural conclusion to the way this club has been run since Roman took over. Once again Kenyon and Arnesen have f**ked us in the arse, it's almost as if they are actually double agents working for all the other clubs. If Roman knows what he is doing he should fire the both of them. Will he? Will he f**k (Arnesen if particular seems to be covered in Teflon judging by his recent promotion to Director of Football, God help us). The statement given out by the club just goes to show how ridiculously incompetent the people running out club truly are. They say: "The sanctions are without precedent to this level and totally disproportionate to the alleged offence". What?! Basically that is admittance of guilt. But then why use the word alleged? If we aren't guilty why are we even fighting the sentence since none should be forthcoming. Oh and of course this is not without precedence as many people have pointed out. Jesus and to think these people are on millions. If Gael is that good, why didn't we just pay Lens? It's not as if we haven't coughed up the cash on other players (SWP, Sheva etc.). It just stinks of arrogance and incompetence. I hate to think what other skeletons are now rattling. The behaviour of our club cannot be defended. It's not as if this is an isolated case (Ashley Cole, the appointment of Arnesen, Michael Woods, Tom Taiwo, Bruma, Nielsen, Tejera, etc etc.) The only decent reaction should be to accept the ban and the fine and sort ourselves out. The only aspect that I consider to be unfair is the ban on Kakuta himself. How is this gonna help him when FIFA are supposedly protecting young players? Of course other clubs are guilty and I hope that they also get the book thrown at them. This is all typical Chelsea. Just when the knives were out for Real and Citeh instead of us. Just when we were enjoying a feelgood factor again. Top of the league, a family atmosphere, sexy football. Whereas before we were only hated in the football world now we are hated throughout the world proper.

It it stops Platini and his cronies from handicapping our chances in the competition as they did last year, I am all for it.

anyone got a stream that has sound?

Sheva on the pitch anywhere... I hate that idea!

I know which one I'd prefer...!

I guess you've got to admire the front of Carlo... with the team he has put out he will be absolutely hammered if we don't win comfortably. Have we got ourselves a new Clownio?!

You must understand that our forum is regularly infiltrated by rival fans looking to wind us up. You are welcome as long as you are genuine. incidentally latest quotes from Atletico seem to put pay to any sale... Atletico head coach Abel Resino said: "Aguero travelled with us (to Athens) to play and there is no chance of a sale. "This rubbishes all the rumours that have been in the newspapers." Club president Enrique Cerezo added: "We have not received an offer from Chelsea. "This story happens each summer but our answer is always the same - Sergio will stay with us." It could of course all be brinkmanship. We shall see.

"You Chelsea fans?" So you're not a Chelsea fan (surprise, surprise) so what's with the CFC in your name? I'm guessing that this isn't just a random act of altruism (look it up!). Why bother with all this mate? You have nothing better to do? On the other hand... if you are genuine and this turns out to be true I take it all back.

You have a point although the place he is competing for is that of defensive midfielder which is currently occupied by Essien (26) and Mikel (22) so they'll be around for a while and I can't see him dislodging either unless he is truly special. Had he been a striker or winger or creative midfielder my feelings would be different...

How I hate the "i have contacts..." type post because invariably they turn out to be nonsense. I hope that you buck the trend Liam.CFC. The press are reporting that he is in fact included in their squad.

To me it is plainly obvious that we need to splash the cash here. We desperately need a player to partner Drog who can drop into midfield making an extra man which would allow Malouda or Zhirkov to push out wide and provide width. Anelka is not that player. We desperately need a player who can provide the unpredictable, give the opposition something different to think about. A player that is statement of intent. Without this we will not be playing the sexy football that Roman craves. Aguero fits the bill perfectly. Surely Roman can see this.

Great. Another central midfielder. Just what we need. After all we only have five competing for two places.

It is fairly clear that if we use Lamps at the top of the diamond we are hampering his main strength which is running from deep and having space and time to spread the play. His assist against Villa last year aside, Lamps is not one to work in tight paces using dribbling technique to open up play. The players that we have that are suited to this are Joe and (as much as I can't stand him) Deco. So if we play one of them at the tip and drop Lamps back we left with two positions to fill. Essien in my book is pretty much undroppable and even though I think we curtail his great strengths, he has to fill the base of the diamond as it is plainly obvious that Mikel can't do this job, his passing is too slow and unvaried, his tackles iffy at best and is positionally naive. That leaves on position to fill which I guess is Malouda or Zhirkov as they are the only players adept at moving out wide and getting behind the opposition. That we don't manage to do so nearly often enough is becuase we don't have the right type of player to partner Drogba, a player that is able to drop and add an extra player to the midfield - rather as Rooney does for Man U and Van Persie does for Arsenal - that would allow Malouda or Zhirkov to provide width. Anelka is not that player. Nor is Kalou. Nor is Sturridge. We should have signed Aguero as he fits the mould perfectly. Perhaps all this talk of a diamond system is just bluff. I suppose that what Carlo ideally wants is a totally fluid midfield that can adapt to all type of midfield formation depending on how play is panning out. We shall see. At the moment though, it worries me.

... and as if by magic...! Pirlo delivers ulitmate snub

PR bullsh*t - the curse of the modern world (you can almost hear the prompts)! We won't have any clarification in an interview conducted for our official site.

In a word: yes!

Point taken - even if somewhat pejorative in tone. However, I still stand by what I feel about the possibility of Pirlo joining us. My disgruntlement has been caused by the usual anti-Chelsea press linking us to the likes of Zlatan and Pirlo and goading us over the JT to Citeh rumours. If the only talk had been about the - what I hope to be - excellent signing of Zhirkov. I reserve judgment on Sturridge and Turnbull. Likewise Ancelotti, as I think most people do, remember that in the poll on this forum he received a mere 1.46% of the vote with more people wishing for even Sven and Bilic. Also as a Chelsea fan, you must recognize that if there is a silver lining we will still tend to focus on the dark cloud!

Bet you don't see such literary and eloquent posts such as that on Man City forums eh, Bluemoon?!! Fantastic stuff once again, Dorset.

I second that. Zlatan is the most over-rated player in the world. I have never ever seen him play well, not for Inter not for Sweden. How on earth is he so rated?

I do hope that this rumour is not true. Regardless of how good a player Pirlo is, I have always said that we need to sign players the right side of 25 who have it all to prove and want to do so in a Chelsea shirt not players the wrong side of 30 who have done it all in another shirt and are just looking for a final big pay day. In addition, what is it with our obsession with midfielders? We may take the piss out of City for signing enough striker to field an entire team of forwards but we seem to do likewise with central midfielders? If Pirlo signs that would see our first team squad consisting of Lampard, Mikel, Essien, Ballack, Pirlo, Miniero and Deco (not forgeting Joe who could play centrally) to compete for two or three places depending on the formation. Of course we lose Mikel and Essien to the ACN but surely we would still have enough cover. If not it really brings into question our activity in the transfer market over the past few years not to mention the piss-poor development of the players in our reserves. As each day passes in this close-season I am getting more and more disgruntled.

Tevez is an excellent player and bound to do very well for City. Lest us not forget that he pretty much kept West Ham in the Premiership, so City will be safe next year!

That'd be us f**ked then!

I have been following the usual pre-season tittle tattle with interest (not least of course the J saga of which I am sure he will still be a Chelsea stalwart for many years to come but hat's for another thread). It seems blatantly obvious that we have problems when it comes to attracting big names. It seems that anyone who is not a Chelsea fan hates us - we are few people's second team. If you are to join Chelsea you had better get used to being booed by other teams even in internationals, been dragged through the gutter by the press and generally have the piss taken out of you. I am not sure why this is but is it thus. Can you imagine the hoopla had it been us rather than Man U that signed Owen? Of us instead of Liverpool who had signed Glen Johnson? Certainly you wouldn't have had articles praising that wily old Ferguson for the smart purchase & the Fat Waiter for his acumen in the transfer market. The press would have been on us for buying yesterday's man and re-signed the infamous bog seat nicker. So it seems that choosing Chelsea over and above the other top clubs is difficult for the few "marquee names" (surely lead signer of The Fall isn't going to come to Chelsea?!). So perhaps our signing will be a little under the radar of the press' favourite next big signing Ribery or Villa. Both in my opinion vastly overrated. Okay,I am rambling now (courtesy of `Hendricks gin, and a damned fine drink that is!). It seems to me that the most realistic targets left for us to sign are Aguero or Pato. For me it is Pato every time. I realize hat AC are unlikely to let go of their other talisman but my heart hopes deep down that we might manage to pull this off. He is 19 and - in this strange climate - curiously under-rated. I honestly believe that he will become the best player int he world over the next three years. The fact that no-one else seems to have registered their interest in for him is in out favour. Perhpas he is not rated as much as the others. `therefore should he arrive for between 35-40 million he will not be under the same kind of pressure as Ronaldo and co are at Real. Carlo obviously rates him. And vice versa. Don;t get me wrong, I would be delighted with Aguero but Pato would really excite me. Either way, I really hope that we sign a player that will get me excited becuase we haven;t had that for some time. I am sick of protecting my beloved Chelsea against the taunts (quite rightly) that we are boring with nothing special to get hearts racing. I do want a marquee name. I want that player that the opposition both on and off pitch sh*t themselves about, the player that can change a game with a bit of magic. I wish that Joe was that man but experience tells us other wise. Really should avoid posting when drunk...!

I am editing this post as I have just realized that you edited my post so that it reads as though I had made the bricklayer analogy. Be good for you to make this clear in future. I don't want other members to think I had written that. Not sure I follow your argument. How does making John a bricklayer show up how ridiculous my post is? Do my points really absurd and deserve to invite mockery? Incidentally, if the scenario was as you have chosen when editing my post , John would be in breach of contract, be taken to county court and unable to take up any new post until the matter has been resolved. Anyway, I don't want to get into this fatuous argument about football has always been a business dominated by money; Lord knows we have had many of those on here. Nor was my post about the loyalty or otherwise of players, it is that it is agents who are running the game now, aided and abetted by the red top journos. It is their job to screw as much money out of the game even when it may be to the detriment of their client. It has not always been this way. To sit back and blindly accept the situation as the norm doesn't make it okay. It is not a world in which I sit comfortably. I am sure you are familiar with that oft mis-quoted adage: it is the pursuit of money is the root of all evil (not money itself).

This whole saga shows up just how ugly the game has become and the people who are suffering are the very people without whom the game would die - the fans. Our game is now run by billionaire megalomaniacs who strings are pulled by that bane of the modern world, agents, and given voice by journalists who have had little else to write about so far in the close season. And no one is coming out smelling of roses. It seems that JT's agent is up to no good, I would imagine that for this reason he has advised John to remain quiet on the issue in order to use Citeh's interest to secure a bumper negotiation starting point to any new deal that may be offered to his client be that from either Chelsea or Citeh knowing full well that the journalist will fall on this like a pack of dogs using it to spin any kind of story in a close season that thus far has provided them with little to shout about. Real have stolen the premierships thunder when it comes to huge transfer stories, Owen to Liverpool and Zhirkov to Chelsea hardly compares. The Terry saga on the other hand is pure dynamite (and since when have journalists let the truth get in the way of a good story?). The real losers here are us as fans of Chelsea and Citeh. We wake up every morning to new rumour and hyperbole, we post madly on various forums, stoking the fire of hope and or paranoia without really knowing what is going on. We are being treated with contempt by all those involved. Of course I love John Terry. He is the symbol of our club. In an ideal world, he would have put an end to this the moment the story raised it head. I'd love to think that he wanted to but was told not to by his agent as he would be be blowing a chance of a lucrative new contract, either way. I fully expect one to be in place in a matter of days which would make JT highest paid player at Chelsea or at the very least parity with Lampard. In an ideal world, John's advisers would be telling him that money isn't everything and that he would be losing the things that money can't buy, legendary status at Chelsea, respect throughout the football world. But they don't give care that JT's reputation amongst his fans will have taken a knocking (just as Stevie me Gerrard's did when we were trying the same thing on with Liverpool all those years back), that reputation of football generally will have taken another knocking (during a very real recession all this talk of £300,000 a week is at the very best distasteful) and be seen as having totally lost touch with its fan base. They can't pocket 10% of respect or good reputation. The whole thing has left yet more bitter tastes in my mouth. When finance runs roughshod over the beautiful game it leaves no room for heroes.