sergio7

I always thought that there would be no way for the FA to determine who Jose said it to as such they had to drop it. He said "Filha da Puta" which is daughter of a whore. However this is regularly used for men, women or situations in general and so the offended party is unclear.

This is an interesting theory given that Willian is part of the first 15 for Brazil and Moses can't even make the England squad. Willian would arguably be the star player in practically every team in the premiership outside the top 5 or 6. As of yet Moses hasn't shown that he is good enough to be a first eleven player for Chelsea. Could he be a squad player - yes probably. However I like the fact that we are giving chances to two kids that have the potential to be better than Moses.

In terms of the bulk issue, I think you´re right and i think this is actually something that has been asked of them. Mourinho wants them bulked up. Also i think the late start to preseason means that they are not in the best shape now but i also think that this was designed and Mourinho is ok with this. I think Mourinho is going to try to target the second half of the season to make a run and to round in to form at the business end of the champions league.

Pogba Isco Matic There´s your long term midfield right there.

I would actually look to package Oscar and Fabregas together for Pogba. Maybe add in Cuadrado. Then do whatever it take to get Isco.

I don't get why so many people are up in arms over this. Many thought he wasn't good enough and didn't want him here, me included. Yes he's had a good start but let's give it a bit more time and see what happens. The premier league is different to any other league and many great players are just not cut out for it. Also, and this is a bit of a guess, isn't Willian generally regarded as the better player by both Shaktar and Brazil coaches, after all he seems to get more game time for both teams than Costa. I like Willian but if we are buying someone shouldn't it be an upgrade on him. However it must be said i was for buying Cuadrado and thought that he would be great but now and at the prices mentioned i would prefer Costa.

I want Chelsea to be pitbulls that just overrun teams based on pressure and energy. I want Stones in. Drop Terry, Cahill, Ivanovic and Fabregas. Costa Hazard Traore Willian Oscar Matic Baba Stones Zouma Azpi Abundance of pace, energy and workrate with ample skill. High press, high line, don´t allow teams out of their own third. Just wish we´d have bought Sterling....

I think that José does want to play a high line - at Real Madrid he did. The problem here is that our backline doesn´t have a lot of pace and personally i believe that Terry (and Fabregas to a lesser extent) holds us back from being a full press type of team. Azpi cannot go forward because his pace is needed to cover. Hopefully in a couple of years with Stones, Zouma, Rahman and Azpi our defence will be very quick and we will be able to play a high line.

The problem is Mourinho knows how important height is in the premier league. That´s why Ivanovic is pretty much undroppable. Matic for his height is disappointing in the air and Costa isn´t exactly world class in that area. That leaves us with our two centrebacks which is not enough. Most of the bottom sides know that the best way to score agianst the big clubs is through set pieces and you have to be able to defend them. Also Mourinho likes to use Ivanovic high up the pitch to win headers off of kicks from Courtois. I doubt very much that Mourinho will drop Ivanovic which is a shame because it probably means that we´re buying a 20 million pound left back to sit on the bench, just like Luis.

Exactly. People think it's so easy. Oh you just send a player on loan and they'll improve. Matic improved because he was taught and developed by a great coach. If Matic had gone elsewhere he wouldn't be half the player he is today. One thing to note with regards to Vitesse. Generally in Portugal the dutch league is considered a bit of a joke where tactics are poor and teams just attack each other. I honestly don't know if our players learn great things going to a league like this.

Yes behind Hazard. There seems to be this obsession with stats in the UK. On the continent it's nowhere near as important. We look at what the player does and how he plays within the team. If we're going by stats probably stewart downing would be a better player than Iniesta.

i guess i saw a different game to all of you especially the second half. This is the kind of Chelsea i want to see. High line, lots of pressure, energy, winning the ball, not allowing teams out of their own half. Obviously they only played 45 minutes so could press for longer and with greater intensity but i was gripped. Hope to see much more during the season. Also Fiorentina play decent stuff, knocking it about with confidence.

That's funny considering in the last 6 months he's been are 2nd best player. Yep better than Costa, better than Oscar better than Fabregas.

Costa

Fabregas is a great player but he is a luxury player - like Mata. You gain something by having him in the team but you also lose something. He can be marked out of a game, he is weak defensively and he is slow. He often loses the ball easily which leads to dangerous counterattacks. I'm not saying that he he doesn't contribute, he orchestrates the game and he passes like no one else on our team. However at the highest level, in the biggest games i feel he is lacking. To play him he has to be covered for - which i don't feel is right unless you're a Hazard, Messi, Ronaldo. Personally i would also like Chelsea to go back to that team that would play a high line, pressurise opponents all over the pitch and just dominate a game with immense energy. Terry and Fabregas limit our ability to do this. Having said this i love watching him play and the quality of football Chelsea played in the first half of the season was mostly down to him.

Alas, he is exactly the type of player that Mourinho loves - "my ramires" He is a great player to have in Mourinho's system where it's all about trying to make the other team make mistakes - he has the ability to press and quickly join the attack. However if you ever want to actually dominate a game and play good football Ramires will let you down. I can see Ramires staying for a few years unfortunately. In my mind we should of gone out this summer and bought a player who could give us what Mikel and Ramires give us combined. A Witsel or a Schneiderlin. As it is, if we lose Matic or Fabregas the drop in quality is immense.

I think that Terry and Fabregas hold us back. Mourinho should have got more blame for the way we exited the champions league last season. Willian is currently the 2nd or 3rd best Chelsea player Cech is overrated. His faults are glossed over. At corners he was no longer a commanding presence.

To me it seems that Brown hasn´t nailed down a position which will probably hurt him. I just don´t see him as a winger.

I disagree. I think that United looked good especially once their players settled in the second half of the season. Don´t forget they had a massive injury crisis at the start of the year that had it happened to us we wold´ve dropped points. And i disagree with the notion that they´re just throwing money around. Is that what you said when we bought Fabregas, Costa and Luis? They did just what we did. They´ve identified needs and solved them. Schneiderlin was the best midfielder in the prem last year (non Chelsea). I wanted him badly. I reckon he´ll be a really good signing. United have a quality midfield and competition for places. Arguably if it clicks their midfield is better than ours. Those discounting United are foolish. They will certainly challenge. And should teams be hit by injuries or suspensions they are in a better position to succeed than most. I hope we buy players because if we have to rely on the same 11-13 players it might backfire.

Obviously the summer is not over but more than anything it´s a shame. Maybe like one of the other posters says we´re waiting for one of the big names to become available. It just feels like a lack of ambition and contentment with a squad that actually isn´t that great. Mourinho managed to escape unscathed from a very poor elimination from Europe this year where we were soundly beaten. He hardly faced any criticism instead deflecting on to his players. Should thay go out again before the semi finals it will be on him. The team were running on fumes in the spring and we need quality players that are going to push the current starters and are going to ensure that standards don´t drop. But Mourinho has no excuses should we have to rely on Mikel, Ramires, Moses due to injuries and suspensions and then we come up short. This was a year we could of made a statement. Spent the cash and sent a message to the rest of the premier league teams that nobody was going to touch us for the next five years.

At the top level youth players are just not good enough and the competition is such that it is too much of a risk to even try them. Look around. Probably only one top team in the world can get away with bringing in youth and that's Bayern where they are just head and shoulders above everyone else and they walk the league every year. There are hardly any youth products at United, City, Real Madrid. Arsenal have a couple but Arsenal never win anything. The great La Masia has produced how many players in the last 5/6 years that are playing regularly for Barcelona. There's just too much at stake. Oh and people keep bringing up Matic. Let me tell you that there is 0% chance that Matic would have become the player he became if he had stayed at Chelsea. It took a very good coach (Jorge Jesus) who saw the potential and spent a lot of time moulding and developing him to become world class. To do that he had to be given game time which was not a problem in a league where the standard and therefore the risk isn't so high. Unfortunately there aren't many coaches like Jorge Jesus (Even Jose is not as good as him in this department) who are so adept at developing players and in terms of all our loanees, why is a coach going to go through all the trouble and spending time trying to develop a player that is not really his and will not be there the next year. Matic was taught how to be an amazing, disciplined player. Most of our players go on loan and just play but there is nobody at these clubs that is dedicated to developing and improving them so that one day they might become world class. Another problem is that since standards are higher, players only become world class later. Eden Hazard who is undoubtedly going to be one of the three best players in the world someday became world class at 22. Matic became world class at 24. You can't expect 19 year olds to be world class, but then again if they're not world class why have them in the team. The best thing to do would be to sell them on with a buy back clause at 20 or 21. This is the stage that their development might stall due to lack of playing time. Then hope somebody develops them to become world class players. Finally people keep have too high opinion of our youth players. How many times do we see people saying - why are we going to buy XXXXXXX, our youth player is better than him. This is total rubbish. None of our youth players that have gone on loan have proved to be good enough to play for Chelsea (bar maybe Traore and Bamford) If you can't be the best player on a championship team why are Chelsea going to bring you back. We certainly wouldn't buy a championship player unless he was the best player in that league. Also if you can't even get off the bench at a European team why should they be in Chelsea's team. Danny Wellbeck played better on loan for a premier league side than any of our loan players have and look at where he is now - Arsenal sub. If you want to play for Chelsea you have to prove it in the premiership or at a high European level. Otherwise you're just not good enough.

Have to hand it to United. They did exactly what chelsea did last season. Targeted certain positions and got their guys relatively early For around 70 million pound they revamped their midfield, signed a promising winger, and solved a problem area at right back. Should they get a striker and an established defender to partner Smalling they will have a great squad. Their current bench: Jones Evans Valencia Blind Fellaini Young Mata Wilson Probably better than our bench.

Manchester united's squad is starting to look formidable. They have a very good midfield now with a lot of depth. Schneiderlin is a great buy, prem proven, one of the three best prem. midfielders last year. A three of him, Schweinsteiger and Herrera is very good and if they continue to improve on their passing game Manu will be strong title contenders. City will be better with Sterling and i think more motivated to win the title, they know they have underachieved. I don't think we can afford to stand still. Hopefully signings will be made because an injury to Matic, Cesc or Hazard could possibly be the difference between champions and coming fourth. Could be we are looking at just bringing in Traore and RLC as part of the youth movement but this could backfire. For me, if we were the ones to bring in Schneiderlin and Sterling, no matter the cost, we would be pretty much guaranteed to dominate the next years. Those are the two signings who would've made a massive difference to this club (as well as Varane). Now who's out there that's available and that would strengthen us. There are just not many players out there that would improve us. We just missed out on two.

Shame. i would have loved him here. Not really bothered about the financials as there are finite players with world class potential. Sterling was one of them. For those of you that didn't want him, it is very unlikely that over the next few years we will have a winger as good as him (not named hazard) I guess we'll just go buy some 25-30 million player that will not even get into our squad....

I never understood why so many people talk about stats. It's a very British thing which quite frankly i think should come completely secondary to watching how a player performs a role and how the team as a whole perform. In Europe it's not really as important. Especially the midfielder that scores goals crap that i always hear. Yes Frank scored loads of goals and we were lucky to have him. But you know who was arguably the best attacking midfielder of the last decade. Iniesta. And we all know that he doesn't score or assist many so i guess he was never good enough for Chelsea. Willian was fabulous the second half of this season and on that form very few players would get ahead of him. It's not just about goals and assists...