Eggy McMuffin

So where were Di Maria, Ronaldo and Benzema/Higuain in the majority of games? Ozil played in the centre most games. He played wide on occasion, but generally played centrally. Deco played at the tip of a midfield diamond.

Shakhtar box-to-box midfielder who scored against us in the Champions' League.

Yeah, he's nothing like Ozil or Deco those famed tenacious bulldogs in midfield. I hate to keep picking the same things up with the same person and I in no way mean it as a slight on you, but this kind of thing just doesn't wash. This kind of opinion comes from only thinking of his Chelsea side and not paying enough attention to what he's done elsewhere. There are also other threads on this.

Milito and Jovetic are fairly similar in style and Higuain is at least similar in build. Higuain was who Mourinho went with in most of the bigger games because he offered more on the break. Started 25 and came on as a sub in 12, hardly untrusted. This myth that Mourinho has a type of player just annoys me. There are plenty of counter examples. He goes with the best players he has at his disposal and builds the side around them.

It has indeed been patchy since and there are definitely doubts about both and it's up to them to prove themselves, but there are good reasons for them being made.

He is, but is he much different to Milito or Higuain?

What makes you say that he's not the kind of player Mourinho would go for?

Everton's football has always been borne out of pragmatism with the players Moyes has been able to get on the cheap. They went for Martinez because he's used to working on the cheap, even though his style is a completely different one. Martinez may say he wants CL football, but in reality midtable is where they'll be at for this season at least and probably next season. They'll sell Baines and Fellaini and he'll bring in some players capable of playing better football, it'll take a couple of seasons, but they'll be fine. Hughes' best spell as a manager was with Blackburn where it was pumping crosses in to Santa Cruz, so it's not like he'll change it completely. They'll no doubt change a little and will probably try and play a little bit more to Charlie Adam's Hollywood passes, but again I don't' see it as being too big a worry.

The exits reason is because the ground needs to be evacuated within 5 minutes of an emergency. Also, if Craven Cottage increases by 6000, that takes it up to 30k, which they may well be able to evacuate in that time and they'd need to prove that to the council in order to get planning permission. I doubt we'd be in the same position as Arsenal if it came to a stadium move and ticket prices. I've heard rumours that we have a somewhat wealthy backer and any stadium expansion or new stadium build doesn't count under FFP. Some of the rumoured plans for Battersea looked spectacular, but unfortunately we lost out on that one. I may be mistaken, but I think it was a blind auction and we just undervalued the site, which is a shame. If we can properly expand Stamford Bridge that'd be ideal, but it depends on lots of things.

This is on at the same time as the England U21s play their first game at the European Championships. I'm afraid I'll probably be watching that instead.

I have a soft spot for Valencia (he says wearing a Valencia training vest), but other than that, not really. I have certain preferences in other leagues, like I prefer Real to Barcelona, I prefer AC Milan to Inter, Porto to Benfica, Lyon to PSG, Ajax to PSV, etc. I don't really care about those teams, I'd just rather see them win than their opposition. Chelsea always take precedence and always will. They are my club. I like Valencia enough to watch most of their games when they're on Sky and like to see them do well, but nothing really beyond that.

I'm not criticising him for making those signings, I'm saying that he's not always made great signings. For every Essien, Drogba, Carvalho, there's a Boulahrouz, Jarosik and Del Horno. I'm also not the kind of person who generally criticises the club for making signings instead of the manager. With our managerial history, it's actually necessary to have the club sign players to keep some form of coherence in our transfer policy. Also, I personally feel too much is made of players being forced on the manager. Torres was reportedly wanted by Ancelotti the summer before we signed him, we were 5 months too late, but it makes it seem far from an Abramovich whim. Shevchenko and Ballack I'm less sure of, but that's something for another day.

He makes some interesting points about some of Mourinho's signings like Boulahrouz, Jarosik and the like, but he's well off on his assessment of how FFP will affect things for us. The main reason we lost so much money in the first few seasons was that the initial spending necessary was massive. The new training ground at Cobham, restructuring of the club internally (which don't count towards FFP) and we basically bought an entirely new squad. We also didn't have the same amount of revenue in terms of advertising. Mourinho summed it up in his interview, referring to when he first arrived and we did our tour of America, just a handful of kids showed up to watch an open training session. Now we're recognised globally because of our success not just domestically, but in Europe now as well. We make so much more money in fact that we made a profit last season. We made a profit last season despite spending over £80m on transfers, roughly the same amount we spent when Mourinho first arrived plus we spent a reported £20m on managers. This season we have more sponsors, but we didn't win the Champions' League. We won the Europa instead. I think the new sponsors will probably cancel out the difference between the two and we'll break even if we spend the rumoured £100m we have to spend. I don't have any worries about FFP, but the signings we make will be interesting.

I did, I was just pointing out the mistake of whoever edited the page... or as ForeverCarefree suggested it may have been meant as a joke about JT.

Why is him signing for us a racism incident?

Assuming this is true (a dangerous assumption, because it is just Twitter), could Hulk be the backup plan to Schurrle? Both are direct goal-scorers from wide positions and although Schurrle is a bit more of a workhorse, I would guess that Mourinho believes he can make Hulk track back just as hard. I've said for a few months now that what we could do with in our attacking midfield trio is someone who offers a threat in behind the striker, like Sturridge did (but he moaned whenever he had to and was incredibly poor in the months before we sold him). I was originally saying Bale or Ronaldo, but those were just examples of the type of player I was thinking of and Schurrle and Hulk certainly do fit into that category. So if Hulk is available on a cut-price deal due to the fans being racist dickheads with fake bombs and the like, would that mean he's who we're looking at for that role. One thing that would make many of you here rejoice is that it would mean that De Bruyne would not be part of the deal, although I personally think he will be loaned out anyway. Just a thought.

I think it's kind of obvious why this story came about, isn't it? Marca is the press wing of Real Madrid football club. Real Madrid would like Mata so are trying to release some stories to sound him out about the possibility. Get the press to ask him a question or two about it and if he sounds anything less than 100% committed to staying at Chelsea for the rest of his career, Real have an in and can use it to begin negotiations. It's tapping a player up without tapping him up. There's 2 reasons it won't happen, firstly Mata is very intelligent and will no doubt be able to answer those questions in a way that shoots any rumour down. Secondly, the club has no reason to sell. It's that simple. The Torres part is just there to add credence to it.

i

I've been playing StarCraft 2 a worrying amount recently. It's great fun, but it's so much hard work to get good at it, or even half decent.

I'm not gay, but if he asked I wouldn't say no.

Now I fear that this sounds like I'm sticking up for Rafa here, but it has to be said that he's our second worst manager. Scolari made him look competent, which is an impressive feat.

Mata and Silva have never had homesickness problems so bad that they're unable to play away games for the national team.

Navas will probably be begging to go home within 6 months, he's a massive risk and isn't good enough to fully justify it. He's good, but not special. Mata would have a field day against that side. There'll be so much space in behind Toure and Fernandinho it'll almost be like cheating. I think we have the better attacking trio and goalkeeper, but they have better players almost everywhere else, they just have an unbalanced central midfield there. Given 2/3 signings and Mourinho's coaching we'll have a better side than that.

I can be quite charming, though.

Rafa Benitez and no.