cfckeane

Rangers, as long as it's a friendly!

I for one don't understand all the Sturridge hate that's around, Torres is probably a lot of people's poster boy for Chelsea and I can understand people may feel somewhat loyal towards him but Danny is definitely to good for us to ship out. He's 22, it can be expected he's rough around the edges. That's what training is for, along with match experience. Play him upfront, then if he's a failure I'll admit I'm wrong and eat my hat. By the way people judging him based on his performance in the Olympics as a precursor to what he'll be like this season, he's just recovered from viral meningitis, and hasn't played any competitive football for about 6 weeks, I reckon by September he'll be more than a match for Torres upfront.

Agree with people who don't want Cavani, as good of a player as he is I don't see him fitting in the squad at the moment. Depending on where RDM uses Sturridge we have 3 different types of forwards, Torres who's more about intelligent runs and clinical finishing (ahem), Lukaku who's more about brute power and speed, and Studge who's game revolves on pace and trickery. I think there are enough goalscorers in our midfield at the moment to not warrant a need for another starting striker, perhaps a younger player who won't expect to be playing game in game out (like Cavani would) might be a better option.

Just as an update: Terry's defence have said that Ferdinand is not a reliable witness, and there isn't enough palpable evidence to continue the case, have therefore applied for no case to answer on Terry's behalf.

Make's me sick to see how JT is getting crucified for something that should have been dealt with months ago by the FA. Suarez admits to racially abusing Evra, 8 game ban and it's all done and dusted by Easter. The media's favourite whipping boy JT, dragged out for almost a year with every newspaper in the country declaring JT a racist and rolling his name through the mud again. Am I correct in saying that the person who originally reported the incident to the police was a journalist? Remember reading that months ago somewhere. Just want Friday to hurry up so a line can be drawn underneath it all and we can move on with pre-season.

I wouldn't want to see us go and give Newcastle anymore money, especially with their scouting team recently.

Hulk > Muller. Which is probably why we're paying shy of £40 million for him. It's been mentioned before, and I can't remember who by, sorry, but he does remind me of a Kuyt kind of player, someone who would be good to have in your squad, but not necessarily someone you want to see starting game in game out. The lack of a standout attribute of his game is probably dictating why he's valued a fair amount lower than Hulk, good at everything, amazing at nothing.

If those three develop as well as everybody hopes, we're going to have the most technically able midfield 3 in the Premiership.

I'd like to think that our scouting network in Portugal is pretty solid, with most of the acquisitions since Abramovich took over from that area actually turning out pretty good for us. Ferreira, Carvalho, Tiago, Ramires, Luiz either are of have all turned out to be pretty decent players for us, Bosingwa probably the main target for the opposite happening. As long as this isn't a luxury purchase I can't see the issue with the fee, if we've got the money to do so, and the board have set aside £30-odd million to sign him, I think we should just sit back and happily accept that the board is trying to attract players in the mould of Hulks, Hazards and who knows who else.

I think the Brazillian mentality might be something to do with settling in period, culturally the Brazillian social and professional world is a lot more laid back and casual than here in England. Maybe it'll take a few months for them to learn from role models like Frank before they start feeling settled in.

Question: Would you guys rather see players coming out to the media with stuff like this? Or would it be better for them to keep it to themselves, and get their head down in training?

Every few days I get really excited, and then my hopes and dreams are swept from under my feet. Bit like being an England fan really.

Matt Jarvis (Wolves) Shane Long (WBA) Victor Moses (Wigan) Grant Hanley (Blackburn)

Sigurdsson was a ridiculously good player for Reading in the Championship.

We do have world class players at the club, it's just we don't have the eye-catching players, like Ronaldo and Messi. I'd argue that Drogba, Lampard, Terry, Cech and Cole could all be classed as world class either currently or at some point in the recent past.... although you could also say that about Torres.

Does anyone else think Essien shops at Baby Gap for his shirts?

Don't get me wrong, I'd hate to see Chelsea fall out of the Champions League this season, I mean just the prestige alone is worth fighting for. However, would it really be such a bad thing? Yes we'd lose out financially, and yes we'd lose some appeal towards signing big name players, but looking at our grounding at the moment I don't think it'd be the end of the world like some people seem to think. We have arguably the best training facilities in the country at Cobham, our financial future is safe until Roman throws in the towel (which I sincerely doubt will happen anytime soon), we have a few younger prospects coming through and we've got a possible redevelopment of the Bridge, or a new stadium to look forward to. Call me optimistic, but if we don't qualify for the Champions League I don't think it'll ruin us forever. I hate to say it but look at Spurs this year, they've got no distractions from the Premiership and they're probably going to end up in the mix at the end of the season. Whose to say if we miss out on the Champions League that it won't allow us to regain direction of what is important, and will prevent us spreading our squad to thinly if we only end up playing 50 games a season as opposed to 70. It might also allow us to not waste so much money paying over the odds for players who are deemed "stars". It might allow us to bring in a few players who might slip under the radar if we're targeting all these sensationalist signings all the time. Signings that don't necessarily get the media into a frenzy but do prove to be good efficient purchases would do us a world of good rather than splashing money that is being reported in the media at the moment. I can't help but feel that AVB gets a bum deal on here, he's shown himself to be strong, loyal and a lot smarter than some of his peers, especially at the age of 34. His employment was a risk, and giving someone 6 months to reinvigorate one of the biggest teams in the country is personally ridiculous. If the board stands by him till the end of his contract I think it will at least give AVB the chance to get a couple of people off his back and prove to everyone why he was offered the job in the first place. 30 years ago Ken Bates brought in John Neal in much much worse circumstances, and he turned us around, AVB is admittedly shackled by the transfer window system now, but whose to say it might not happen again?

Hmm, SkyBet tonight shortened the odds on Rodwell leaving Everton. We are 1/2 favourites, Man United - 8/1, Citeh - 10/1 and Arsenal 20/1, although I definitely can't see the last one happening.

I see my Delorean worked then....

Ramires will contribute more to the team than Benayoun would have this season. For a player who has only played 8 competitive games for us, reading people's opinions on him on here, you'd think he'd be hailed as our saviour from a lifetime of sideways passing mediocrity. AVB would not let him go if he thought we'd need him this year. We now have Meireles, Lampard, Mata, Ramires, Mikel, Romeu and McEachran to fill 3 midfield slots until Essien comes back in January. As was mentioned before I'd much rather see Josh coming on midway through the second half then Benayoun. This is a massive gamble for Wenger as well, although with a midfield of Wilshere, Song, Arteta, Rosicky, Ramsey, Diaby and now Frimpong, his chances will probably be as limited as if he were here.

Jokanovic? Worst Chelsea player ever = Winston Bogarde.

Rumours on Twitter VdV wants out as well, Tottenham meltdown

I think if it had stayed 1-1 alot of people's opinions on it would've been much worse, as it would've been the main talking point of the game.

I'm worried this might happen, I think we're getting a bit desperate to offload a few players to incorporate our new signings, and if there's interest I can see him going..

He switched off, got outmuscled by Long and got bullied around by Tchoyi. I don't know if he's still lacking fitness or something but he hasn't looked as formidable as last year so far. Hopefully he'll improve in the next few weeks as on his day he's unbeatable, if he doesn't dissapear off to Turin.