Ilya

Not for a few years now. But yes, it is a beautiful city.

Wanstead :) Grew up in St Petersburg, Russia

I should probably keep this to myself, but I was not upset in the slightest by what Willian did with the FA cup photo. Something "school's out for summer" about it. Made me smile.

So apparently it's good manners to introduce oneself here. I'm Ilya. I came to the UK in '96, looked around, Chelsea was hands down the most fun team to watch back then, so I started following them. I still think of the late 90s as the good old days for the club, but you know ... we've had some OK times during Abramovich era too. I've been to Stamford Bridge a few times over the years, but not really a regular - more of a TV football fan. I could claim busyness, kids, etc - but to be honest I prefer it that way. Will no doubt be considered blasphemy by most, but I don't really like the atmosphere of 50K angry people shouting abuse at the ref. A pub, a pint and a few dozen people shouting abuse at the ref is much more enjoyable.

Is the the tradition around here? Will I get an initiation kicking?

Wait for him to punch a dinner lady at the club canteen...

... and the right of first night in SW6.

How are we ever going to develop a world-class web team if we keep sacking these guys instead of investing in their development and giving them opportunities to grow?

True. What complicates things ever so slightly is that, apparently, we gave him a 100K pw salary... :) So a middle of the table club in need of a solid CM and ability to spend 30M for one would, indeed, in theory be quite happy with Drinkwater option - but they might not want to pay him 100K. One hopes he will decide that a year of cashing in on the bench is enough and will accept less money.

It looks like Morata is probably staying. If he is - he'll probably be given a chance as a first choice striker. If he is - he will get some goals as the focal point of an attacking team that creates a lot of chances. So, based on the information I have now, voting for Morata. Even though I'd have preferred Michy or, better still, buying an actually good striker.

I hear Azpilicueta had a date-night with his missus one night last year when he could have been practising keepy-upeys. Calls himself a professional...

We have actually won Europa League and finished 3rd, I think. Does that count? So is that two? Two out of how many? How many genuine contenders for top 4 have competed in Europa League? If my memory serves me right, right up until a few years ago we've always had a fairly clear Big 4, so if you weren't one of them and played in Europa League - you probably weren't really in the running for top 4 in the first place. It all got a bit less reliable with Big 4 becoming Big 5 and then Big 6 - fairly recent development. I reckon.

This one is currently looking more likely to come in than any of the others we are linked with. So may time to start looking at the bright side? :) He's done two full seasons in the first team of a pretty big club - presumably on merit - and he isn't even 20 yet. They must have seen something that doesn't easily translate into youtube highlights. So achieved a lot for his age, still young enough to develop and get better - sounds pretty good to me. Just for a bit of a tongue in cheek slightly silly comparison - Hazard's stats looked very similar at the same stage of his career.

Apologies if this has been discussed. What is the accepted wisdom w.r.t. the logic that bookies would try to acquire as much reliable information as the can in order to set the transfer betting odds or at the very least would have someone do a little research into sources of individual rumours and assess reliability? And thus it can be useful to check current odds to see if the rumours have any legs or just some made up crap. E.g. on current odds: - Courtois: probably (very likely) gone - Willian: more likely gone than stays - Hazard: probably (very likely) stays - Morata: roughly 50:50 stay:leave - acquisitions: none of them exactly nailed on

Expectations - fun football, lots of goals. Probably just about expect top 4 - I reckon we've had peak Spurs, they'll go backwards and I don't think Arsenal will improve too much. Man united will be worse, but not so much worse that they would drop out of top 4. So yeah, top 4: us with MU, MC and Liverpool. Hopes... I mean, what the hell. It looked unlikely two years ago. Man City will be worse this year - mainly because they were so good last year. So may be with a help of an odd injury they'll be a lot worse. Liverpool may well not progress much despite spending. And Michy might turn out to be a perfect Sarriball striker. And boom! :)) Fears. None.

I'm actually feeling very positive. :) I think we gonna start playing great football under Sarri and I'm really looking forward to that. I don't remember last time I looked forward to the season quite so much. And when I say that we might lose Hazard - I don't actually think it would be the end of the world. As for the club's ambitions - sadly ambitions that are not backed up financially are not really ambitions, they are a fantasy. And we have clearly stopped spending. Again, I'm perfectly OK with that. This is not some kind of an angry rant. Just an observation.

I find this assessment a tad optimistic. He is a nice guy and isn't throwing his toys out of the pram, not publicly. And all credit to him for that. But whatever doubts he's been having re staying at Chelsea are surely still there and will likely still be there. The club has pretty much given up on serious ambitions to win the league, never mind the Champions League. It looks like we are in for a few years of Arsenal-style attitude where getting into top 4 and getting out of the group in CL constitutes a decent season. A domestic cup once every few years to spice things up. (For the record, I'm not bitter or angry about it, I was a happy Chelsea supporter before Abramovich and if Sarri turns us into a fun team - works for me. It's OK to not be able to compete financially with City.) Hazard is perfectly entitled to have higher ambitions. And both Real and Barca appear to be potentially in the market for a left-side attacker. And Hazard's market price will be a lot less prohibitive next summer.

The last few days have been a bit slow on rumours - so we gonna start one ourselves? :) News that Chelsea are in for Rabiot appearing in the Star in 5, 4, 3...

First and foremost - I think loan system works very well for that. Young players get games and develop, the club get to see what they can do. But even if we ignore that option for the sake of the argument - nothing beats an internet argument :) - and pretend that it has to be a choice between playing the team that has the biggest chance of winning next Saturday and playing a team that has a smaller chance of winning in the hope that one or two of the players might become Ronaldo a year later - my personal preference is to play as well as we can on Saturday. To be honest it's not quite so much of a binary choice. There's two domestic cups, Europa League ... there will be a lot of games. And 2nd and 3rd choice players will get games. And if CHO or Ampadu are happy enough to spend the year mostly on the bench and get a few cup games and if the manager thinks they are useful for that purpose - cool. But, again, when we play Arsenal on the second weekend of the season - I want Willian/Perdo and Rudiger/Chritinsen in the team. Not a couple of kids that might become Ronaldo 2 years from now. And Christinsen, by the way, is a perfect example of how I think it should be done. He went to a smaller club on loan, got games, proved himself - and now he is a first team regular. Good for him and good for us.

Aha. So we are talking "when/if they are actually good enough". That's fair enough. Although I rather suspect we won't agree on some of the assessments. Probably not, but that's less an argument in favour of RLC, more an argument against Bakayoko. Personally, I'd rather neither was there all that often. Absolutely not, imo. I mean, one day Hudson-Odoi might prove himself to be a better player. But on the evidence I have now - not even close. I don't get all the hate for Pedro and Willian. Yes, both a bit inconsistent, but both - in their own way - have proven to be very capable of awesomeness at the highest level. I don't want to dis any of these talented kids. But when we play Arsenal on the 18th - I sure as hell would be more comfortable with a list of 3-4 players for any of the positions he is meant to be able to play. So for me it looks like all of these guys - if we are talking purely on merit - are only may be good enough to be subs and not even 1st choice subs for their positions - 2nd choice subs. Which realistically translates into 7 minutes here, a crappy cup game there. Which, ironically, given that everyone frets so much about their development, is not necessarily better for their development, than going on loan to somewhere like Newcastle and getting proper games.

They have the option to extend by another year. Which feels weird, given they don't actually want him, increases his sale price - because he can't actually choose to leave for free next summer if they don't want him to. Still, I do not believe he will go anywhere for 80M. It will either be some mutually satisfying part-exchange or a smaller fee. No one will pay 80M for him.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/who-scored-blog/2018/jul/25/chelsea-maurizio-sarri-line-up-jorginho Seems a bit weird to read such fantasy football article in the guardian, but for what it's worth. Apparently we "could line up" with Schmeichel, Milinkovic-Savic next season. And Hazard and Willian stay. :)

I don't understand the obsession with promoting youth. Surely it's just a means to an end, no? Or is it important in itself to have the heart-warming story of academy player becoming Captain, Leader, Legend and all that? Given a reasonably gifted youngster who clearly isn't good enough to be playing for the first team yet - not by comparison with other options - are we meant to give them games at the expense of better players, i.e. make the team worse in order to ... I'm not actually sure what? A slightly increased chance of keeping them long term if they do come good? Is warming the bench better than getting games at a smaller club for a development of a promising player?

Dunno. Even accepting the narrative that for some players performance is especially sensitive to confidence levels - Morata was supposed to be doing well at the beginning of last season. I mean, if ever he was gonna be high on confidence - it's then: just got bought for big money, scoring a few goals, some important (vs Man U). Even then - did he feel, like, unstoppable? That's what comes to mind when I see comparison with Torres. Torres for a few seasons - not for us sadly - was properly scary. He could destroy anybody. Morata, even at his best, never looked like that. Never made a good defender look completely useless. His goals always felt like relief, not inevitability.

Uuuu, dwarf-porn... You're quite the connoisseur Sir...