Hazardous

Courtois Ivanovic Zouma Cahill Azpilicueta Fabregas Matic Pedro Willian Hazard Costa Just Cahill in to replace Terry. I was really happy with the performance of our front 4 against West Brom. I also thought Matic put in a decent performance. Hopefully Oscar is fit enough to give us an option from the bench. I hope Baba gets a chance soon, but I don't think it will happen before the international break.

Like CFCFAN said above, it's worth emphasizing that everybody has a price. Hazard has a price, just like Ronaldo has a price, just like Craig Gardner has a price. Whenever a manager indicates otherwise by, for example, saying that a player is "not for sale," the explicit purpose is to signal to the board that the player is integral to the team. The desired effect for Martinez is not necessarily to hold on to Stones at all costs, because even Martinez would agree that there is a price at which Stones must be sold. Rather, the desired effect is to make sure that the board has a similar view to Martinez of what exactly that price is. Edit: There's another way of looking at this: Once Martinez indicates to the fans that he desparately wants Stones to stay, it becomes clear to those fans that any future sale of Stones must have been sanctioned by the board against the manager's will. This puts pressure on the board to extract a value that the fans deem to be justified or "worth it." Otherwise the board becomes unpopular. So by putting pressure on his own board, Martinez is doing exactly the rational thing. But this doesn't mean that Martinez thinks that Stones doesn't have a price.

Yeah, turned out to be a poor transfer. But we've nipped it in the bud. Let's all hope he has a good season at Juventus so that we can move him on permanently next summer.

Jeez, he makes Fabregas look like a tank!

Excellent news. I imagine that the squad can only be lifted by bringing Pedro and Baba Rahman in. Pedro should light a fire under Oscar and Willian. Apparently he's a good friend of Fabregas. Plus, he already knows Azpilicueta and Costa from international duty, so he should settle in quickly. We've got real competition for places now. I really can't complain about having Hazard, Oscar, Pedro, Willian and Fabregas available for our 3!

I can see why the reported price is so high. From an Everton perspective: You've got a buyer who badly needs an English player in order to satisfy the quota in the near future. From a Chelsea perspective: You have to factor in resale value. I think we, as fans, overlook this at times. Take a reasonable bad-case scenario in which Stones doesn't perform very well, makes a few important mistakes, and fails to establish himself in the starting line-up. How low can his value go? I would suggest that, at 21 years old, he would still be valued at something like 18M+ to domestic clubs in two or three seasons time. Suppose his performances are somewhat average and he is rotated with Cahill and Zouma over the next couple of seasons: 23-27M? Suppose he performs very well and establishes himself, his value could reach 40M in a couple of seasons time (remember that Terry was valued at 40M by City in 2009, at 28 years old). Both the downside and upside risk have to be factored into the valuation. Looking at comparable cases: Phil Jones was valued in the range 17-18M (as far as I know) at age 19, with only one real season (30 or so appearences) under his belt for Blackburn. Smalling 10M at 21 years old with just 13 appearences for Fulham. Rio Ferdinand 31M at age 24, albeit with 150+ appearences, but that was back in 2002! Factor in transfer inflation over the last few years: I'm not surprised that Everton are looking at a valuation exceeding 30M. Don't forget - Stones is under contract until 2019. Expensive, yes. Understandable? I think so.

If confirmed, Pedro should bring a lot more balance to our team. I haven't seen the stats, but it seems that most of our progressive play (i.e. non-counter attacking) ends up on our left side, with Hazard, Oscar, Azpilicueta and Costa linking up. When we do use our right side, we often see Ivanovic relatively isolated, especially with Willian's tendency to move inside. In these last two games and at times last season, Ivanovic has struggled to deliver crosses into the box or get behind the opposition left back to the byline. With Pedro, not only will we be more effective in counter-attacks, we should be much more aggressive on our right side. What's more, I think the signing puts pressure on Oscar by forcing Willian to compete for the number 10 role (in addition to right-sided forward).

I think you've got to differentiate between types of games: There's no one set up that's optimal in all scenarios. Overall, I would maintain the 4-2-3-1. For away games against the top teams, I wouldn't play Fabregas--Matic in the two again. I know Fabregas' performance has been much maligned over the last 24 hours, but I do agree that it left us unnecessarily exposed against City. So I would look to play Matic -- Ramires or Mikel -- Matic, allowing Matic to take on a slightly more progressive role. In all games right now, I would drop Ivanovic. We're only two games in to the season, so he has time to recover his form and regain his place. But his first two performances have been very poor. He hasn't executed his role either in or out of possession. Now that we have a left back who is left footed, I would switch it up. So for our next game, and other games where we are looking to have a fair bit of possession, I would change our back four to Azpi - Cahill - Terry - Baba. I would also bring Oscar straight back into the starting 11, if he's fit. My major concern is that we're playing West Brom, who score so many goals from set pieces (I think ~40% of their goals last season). This is exactly the kind of game which, last season, I would have had Ivanovic straight on the team sheet. We would be throwing Baba in at the deep end. Certaintly, I would retain Costa in the starting 11, since he offers more than Remy and Falcao on defensive set plays.

You would have thought a steward could point him in the right direction.

I wouldn't change too much. We have to improve collectively. Courtois Azpilicueta Terry Cahill Baba Matic Fabregas Hazard Oscar (if fit) Willian Costa I'm reluctant to play Baba since he'll have only had a week with the team. But Ivanovic has made a very poor start to the season, and I think we need to act. He's going to be targeted. Edit: Looking at the team I've selected, I admit that I'm extremely conservative!

Courtois is back for the next game. I don't think it's "reasonable" to drop Costa for our next game away to West Brom, or to switch 5 (or 6) players as you suggest. That seems a bit knee-jerk. Ivanovic is definitely under pressure, though. As a separate point, I think it's unlikely that Jose will select Matic--Fabregas in the two for our next big away fixture. I guess he'll opt for Matic--Zouma or Matic--Mikel.

I don't know if Spurs fans could handle the sale of Kane for £22.3M right now. Can you imagine? Announcement: We've decided to sell Kane for the same amount that Chelsea paid for Cuadrado.

He scored a nice goal today for Vitesse. I can't say much for the defending... https://vine.co/v/edLwdvWIVLb

Indeed! What a cool finisher. He's still just 19 years old, and he clearly has fantastic potential. Very exciting. But we'll probably need to find another good loan move for him this season to continue his progression. I can't see him getting the game time at Chelsea yet. I would love to see him get a loan spot in a Premier League side: somewhere like Bournemouth perhaps?

Was that the little flick at the near post? I really wanted to find a clip with the commentary!

Not my favourite, but worth a mention: Especially because of Drogba's little shift to left of the ball to make space for Alex's run-up. I love the way he just appears out of nowhere! (Couldn't find a better quality version on youtube).

On the face of it, £5M seems like a good piece of business for Southampton. With that said, I haven't watched Romeu play for a long time, so I have no idea what level he's at right now. And we were under no pressure to sell with three years left on his contract. So perhaps it's a fair valuation.

Does anybody have any ideas about what the setup will be now? Clearly, we need medical staff on the bench. Perhaps Jose wants more control over the circumstances under which the medical staff can enter the field of play, and might be using this opportunity to reorganize matchday procedures. There are Premier League rules regarding this, but there's always wiggling room within those rules. Or maybe he's just changing the matchday medical staff and leaving it at that.

Arsenal condeded only 36 goals last season. So keeping out 10 additional goals is equivalent to Arsenal conceding only 72% as many times as last season. I don't think that's conservative.

To put a positive spin on the match: Oscar performed very well, Costa started and made it through 90 minutes despite pre-match injury concerns, and Begovic put in a solid performance when called upon. We showed our characteristic resilience with 10 men. I noticed that Hazard moved into a more central position, often rotating with Oscar. We saw a bit of this in pre-season and I'm looking forward to seeing how Hazard's role develops this season. We're used to the perfect start since we so often get it. But this is one game. There's a full week to analyze the Swansea game and prepare for City. Edit: On reflection - I thought Cahill did pretty well too, given that he had little protection on the right side.

My forum name wouldn't have the same ring to it if he left.

Agree that this is a great move for Chelsea and Bamford. Let's hope that he'll get some minutes.

I see your point. But when have we been in a position where a rival club has committed to a move for one of our top players? When we moved for Rooney, we were moving for United's figurehead. This is more equivalent to United moving for Hazard, and definitely not equivalent to Arsenal moving for Cech. At what point could we have kicked up a fuss and shouted "we're not entertaining any bids!" if rival clubs don't try to buy our top players? The only example I can think of is Mata. In my view, we got a very, very good price for Mata and the club was right to sell. Edit: Wait, I can think of another example. City moved for Terry in 2009 and as the Guardian reported: "Those remarks will inevitably go down badly at Stamford Bridge at a time when Chelsea are aggressively trying to repel City's advances and have not wavered from their public stance that Terry is not available at any price."

Cech has been fantastic. The level of performance and consistency he's shown during his time here is staggering. Plus, he's a level-headed and intelligent guy; just the type I would want in the dressing room. He'll be rightly remembered as a symbol of the most successful decade (in terms of trophies) in our history. Yet, as the club recognises, the hard-headed and right move is to sell. It's not sensible to have two premium keepers on the wage bill, especially when the younger keeper is first choice. The sensible choice is to cash in on a valuable asset, who will surely depreciate in value quite rapidly as he moves into his mid-30s. Selling early in the window gives us time to make a measured decision on who to bring in as our back-up keeper, rather than having our hands forced by a late sale. Plus, whoever we choose as back-up will have time to integrate into the squad, which might not be the case if we sold Cech late in this window (or in the January window). Should it be to Arsenal? I don't think this transfer would happen under ordinary circumstances. But we've decided to reward Cech with the move he prefers (staying in the same city in a truly competitive league). And we should acknowledge that £11M is good money for a 33 year old keeper. I don't particularly like it, but I'll live with this transfer.

Absolutely. Prior to reading the interview with Mourinho, I didn't know the club had a "player support and welfare" department. I had assumed that a player's agent would be responsible for advising his or her client; but I can see how that might not be in the player's best interests.