Castiel

Aren't any terrestrial channels showing the charity shield? I thought the BBC covered that?

Match is here for those who missed it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz5FBmRX7lw We start at around 01:22:00.

Please be true. If it is, we'd surely be in for another striker.

I don't consider him anything special but I liked him as a squad player. We could send him on and know he'd bust a nut for the cause. As Slawth said, the idea that he was an alternative to Modric is laughable, but a handy player regardless.

Lopez is going to Milan and Casillas is surely leaving. They do actually need a first choice GK and Carlo knows Cech. This could be happening.

As much as I love Cech, Courtois is our future. To get Varane out of it would be outstanding business.

I was sad to see him to tbh. He was a reliable player.

Gif: I somehow forgot this game was on, I'll have to find some highlights. But that is an outstanding goal. This is going to be a good season.

We were 4 points away from the champions without a half decent striker. Our competition had the likes of Suarez and Aguero leading their lines. We had by far the best defensive record in the league, nobody else came close to us. We also reached the CL semi-finals, much further than any other English team. We did extremely well in the matches against our direct rivals, winning home and away against both Liverpool and City. I'm confident that if we had Costa last season we'd have won the league. Jose made his frustration about the striker situation known a few times, I just hope Costa is available as often as possible if we are going into the season as is.

Saw these on Bluemoon.

Appalling behaviour. I felt really sorry for him. Bayern are a despicable club but I thought better of Pep.

If Arsenal got him they'd be serious contenders. Can't see him going to Scousehampton.

Agreed there, I don't want Schurrle to leave. As I said earlier, I'd rather we sold Willian and/or Salah or any of our other wingers bar Hazard before Schurrle. I really think he's going to come into his own this season.

I think United are in much more need of a DM and some reinforcement in defence, especially if they persist with the 3 CB system. Any team could use Reus but they've got some seriously pressing issues to address and it looks like they can't handle the problems they have, if we go by LVG's recent comments. Madrid can't spend freely and seem to be looking for a striker. I think that they're trying to sell Di Maria to finance Falcao on the books. With the options they have, they surely have no room for Reus. You never know with them though, they don't do things the rational way. Liverpool have been heavily linked, and I'm confident we'd own them in that contest. From what's happened I don't think he wants to go to Bayern. They've tried to get him before and he turned them down. He has a strong affinity for Dortmund and I don't think he wants to be the latest betrayer. Not to mention Bayern throwing a wobbly in the German media disclosing his contract details is not something you'd expect them to do if they were working on signing him. Like I said, I think they've already tried and he told them to f**k off. All of this said, there's no evidence to suggest we're even involved. But if we were to sell Schurrle to bring in Reus at a profit, well that'd be pretty amazing.

Indeed, Hazard and Reus in the same team would be unbelievable. I believe his low release clause activates next summer, so Dortmund might want to sell him for more than they'd otherwise get this summer, but so far they've proven quite stubborn allowing great players to leave for cheap (usually to Bayern). This may not be the case however as Rummenigge has been in the press recently shooting his mouth off about Reus, claiming his release clause is only 20m Euro and can be activated already. I suspect Bayern have already tried to pluck him out of Dortmund and he refused them again which is why they're now causing upset in the media by making Dortmund's contract business public. Bayern usually keep quiet until the deal is in the bag as with Lewandowski and Gotze. Dortmund have already lost too many stars, they may be completely unwilling to part with Reus this summer even if it ultimately hurts them. They have a history of this. But if his clause is already an option, it may all depend on what Reus wants (he does love Dortmund though). Whatever happens, Dortmund needs to fire whoever draws up their player contracts. If one of our rivals gets Reus for €20m, I may never get over it.

Sometimes I wonder if he even knows what he's doing.

We do have a recent history for last minute swoop deals. Jose is a master troll... I'd rather Cavani if we could unload Torres though.

This is more of a tease than a muppet signing.

Ba was literally benched out of form by FSW. He scored a brace on his first game for us, then came the consistent and pointless rotation with Torres who was a lame duck all season. After a few weeks of this Ba seemed to lose his mojo. He came here on a hot streak and we broke it. He was never going to be the long term answer, but FSW certainly made that more complicated than it needed to be. The cocaine may have had more to do with Mutu's failure than our lack of service. Sheva was simply passed his peak, as was Torres. Sheva because of age, Torres because of being played through injury. Liverpool knew they sold us a crock, he hadn't been himself for them in his last season there either. Both were Roman romance buys and they cost us dearly. We have a bit of a curse with strikers but I'd rather look at it in the sense that we're due some f**king luck. Costa will be a hit.

He prefers the left if I'm not mistaken. Not sure how good he is on the right, I suspect like Hazard he's less effective there. If we were moving for Reus/Di Maria for some reason, Willian or Salah should be the one to go. Not Schurrle. I'm thinking Atletico may be interested in him but that doesn't mean we're interested in letting him go.

So what you're saying is; this is your year?

Of all the players we have on the right, Schurrle is the last we should be selling. I'd sooner lose Willian tbh.

I think we can get by without another defender this season. Mourinho doesn't like to rotate them, and it isn't really necessary at CB unless somebody is injured. Terry will surely miss some time, but we've got Ivanovich and Zouma. At fullback we've got Dave, Luis, Ivan and Ake. Jose didn't seem to rotate much there last season either and Dave and Ivan coped very well. Since we tend to stick with a stable defensive selection unless forced by injury, I think we're fine. This may be Terry's last season with us though, in which case we'll be needing a quality CB in the next window. Since Lukaku has left our striker situation is looking tenuous once again.

Indeed we do seem to be messing around a bit in that position, it's like we make rushed purchases there in the last moment. Currently Schurrle is my favourite option and I hope he cements the spot as his own this season. Willian isn't my favourite there either. His overall work rate is excellent but I want players like Hazard on the wings. I actually prefer Willian in the middle where he can get all over the place.

So far I'm thinking: ------- Cech/Courtois ------- Dave - Cahill - Terry - Filipe ------ Matic --- Fabregas ----- Schurrle --- Oscar --- Hazard ------------- Costa ------------- I'm not sure how Fabregas will work in a midfield two though, defensively speaking. I haven't watched him consistently since he was at Arsenal but he never struck me as the type to put in the kind of graft Jose wants from that position. That said, he is used to Barca's pressing system so perhaps it could work out like that. We could certainly do it against teams parking the bus. Otherwise move him to No.10 and bring in Ramires as necessary. I prefer Schurrle over Willian on the right because he's much more threatening in attack while also working hard. He can score and provide good service from that wing, as we got to see a few times last season; I'm hoping more of this comes into play now that we've got a real outlet in the box in Costa.