Samdwich

oh f**k off

His evolution is pretty interesting isn't it. If I had to guess, I'd say that he's just adapted to Madrid where his team-mates dominate the game and he's just become crazy efficient at taking advantage and scoring goals. It's more useful for Madrid as they dominate 36/38 of the league games a season and most of their CL/Cup games too. Shame cause he used to really dominate games before moving to madrid.

I rate Morata but he isn't an upgrade in the short-medium term imo. Higuain isn't better than Costa (much less dynamic) and will cost just as much/more. Benzema I'd take, and Aubameyang but not sure we'd get them - same with Lewa. Lukaku we wouldn't be able to get for 50m

Wouldn't mind selling him if we make a tidy profit and get a good replacement like Kante.

with who?

I was at the match supporting Argyle - one of my best mates is from Plymouth so a couple of us went with him. Shocking football on show, particularly from Argyle. Great atmosphere though, think they had something like 34,000 fans which is incredible for league 2! Incredible achievement from Wimbledon though. Slowly climbing up the leagues

Interesting. Did you also watch Courtois whilst he was with Atletico? Was his training more intense?

I think the Jose situation was more complicated than just league position. He'd created a toxic atmosphere and had to go regardless of league position, imo. Agree with your general sentiment about Roman being less trigger happy now though. Perhaps wishful thinking, but I can't believe he's not learnt from past mistakes - particularly Ancelotti.

Typically I'd have agreed with this - he's always been very selfish etc. but I feel that he's actually matured in the past couple of seasons. Struck me near the start of the game when he took a shot and wasted an opportunity, he then apologised to Marcelo for not passing to him. This is something you would never have seen from him 5 years ago. Was fairly ineffectual but he did actually make some good runs and tried to influence the game. Gotta question his fitness. As for the pens - I too remember the incident but what would it have changed if he'd scored first and his team-mates had gone on to miss anyway? The reason he didn't take one is because it wouldn't have mattered. Thinking about it, who else in the world would you rather take the 5th, decisive, penalty in the CL final? I'm pretty f**king glad we had Drogba taking the 5th one rather than the first. You want the players that won't shirk away from the pressure/occasion and that's what he was. Still incredibly cringeworthy that he's getting the attention for "scoring the winning penalty" when Modric, Bale and Ramos were fantastic and Ramos scored in his 2nd CL final

Part of me hopes he doesn't do spectacularly at the Euros so that he can continue flying under the radar for next season. Why the Courtois hate? Just don't rate him as a keeper?

Despite Torres still being horrendous (won the penalty because he wasn't anticipating the ball, reacted slowly and gave Pepe an opening), seeing him cry breaks me. Feel for Atletico and Simeone. Despite the horrendous first half they were the better team out there. But on some level I'm glad they didn't win cause I don't like their dirty play, even though it didn't come out too much tonight. I know RM have Pepe/Ramos, but that's a case of two dickheads whereas at Atleti is seems like a systematic thing. Happy for Zidane, despite his obvious tactical failings in that game.

Leading on from what g3.7 said in the Conte thread about patterns of play being drilled into the players. I feel that this will greatly help Willian. He's obviously got the technical ability to make things happen, just seems to lack the initiative. If attacking patterns are drilled into him I can see his productivity going up a lot. He did look great under Lucescu at Shakhtar where he'd clearly carefully choreographed their attacks.

Good. Our players have appeared completely clueless in the final third far too often in recent years. No more of the "just give it to Hazard" sh*t. I like the way Conte set up his Juve side. The way they dismantled us a few seasons ago was very impressive, they knew exactly what they were doing at all times. Looking forward to our team playing with that sort of purpose again.

You gotta wonder why KDB was so often on the bench for Chelsea, if he were class like people said then he should be starting every game. You gotta wonder why Gotze is so often on the bench for Bayern, if he is class like people say then he should be starting every game. James/Isco at Real also come to mind.

Minimum expectation is top 4, because that's how highly I regard Conte. Would not at all be surprised if we won a cup, and wouldn't be particularly surprised if he leads us to the title. That said, I don't think these are the only things he should be judged on and I won't consider it a failure if we don't make top 4 but there is clear evidence of progress.

I love how many fans have backed Jose's terrible management of Mata, KDB and Lukaku with the lazy "didn't want to fight for his spot" narrative regardless of the lack of opportunity they were afforded. Instead of trusting him to play in 13/14, we kept Torres and Ba and brought in Eto ahead of him. None of them were any good that season. Then next season we brought in Costa, Drogba and Remy instead of even giving him the chance to be second choice behind Costa with substantial game time. It's not refusing to fight for his spot, it's refusing to be mugged off. I think Lukaku is a very good player but isn't yet better than Costa. His touch isn't consistent and causes him to lose chances fairly regularly and that would only be exacerbated in a system where he's expected to play short neat link up play with the rest of our attackers. He's also generally fairly inconsistent - he missed a hatful of chances against Utd in the FA cup semi. Granted, most other strikers wouldn't have gotten into the same positions he did for the chances but as I've alluded to in other posts, I don't think our fans would forgive him for missing them. See: Sturridge and the way he was crucified for getting into good positions and forcing decent saves but not quite scoring when we played him as a CF. Given a chance and some patience he's proved his ability at Liverpool. Seems like Didi has spoilt us for strikers and anything but the finished article that lives up to his standards is crucified. Anyway, I'd pay up to £35m for him but no more. Would probably rather we went in for Morata for the same/lower fee.

I find these rumours of all our players following Mourinho a bit far-fetched. Firstly, it's obvious to me that even if there were no uprising, mutiny, revolt or anything of the sort, the relationship between Jose and the players had become strained to an extent. If I were a player and my manager had fired the club doctor that had been treating me for years and I had a good relationship with over something as stupid and petty as he did, I'd definitely lose respect for him. Between that and his treatment of some players like Mata, KDB and RLC, the players have seen his bad/petulant side and I can't imagine them queueing up to work with him again. Think if anyone goes it'll be Willian. Mou had faith in him and played him over Mata who is clearly a superior footballer and I'm sure that has resulted in some loyalty. I like Willian but he's a lot more dispensable than Hazard.

Robbie was fantastic at it. Hiddink was always good with the media, and Carlo was great but for the language barrier. AVB on the other hand

I don't think he's a particularly strong personality, and there are many complaints from fans about non-footballing people in the club hierarchy. Despite his obvious decline as a manager, he's still got excellent footballing pedigree and can provide valuable advice imo.

I don't think Morata is better than Costa right now but he's 23 and will only get better. Wouldn't be surprised if he outperforms Costa next season - not taking anything away from Diego, I still think he's fantastic. I just think that in the next 2 years or so, Morata will surpass him as he clearly has a huge amount of potential and has a much bigger frame allowing him to bully defenders more than Diego can. I've no idea how Conte will have us setting up but Morata and Costa up top would be fantastic.

I don't recall Abramovich or the board repeatedly declaring their love for him, though. So Mourinho tends to anger opposition fans and take shots at his opponents in the media, I wonder what the dynamic will be with him at another PL club. What kind of remarks will he make about Chelsea, our personnel and our fans? And how will our fans react.

Huge fan of this guy. In the past year he has scored 2 in CL semis, a CL final, Coppa Italia final and 3 in the derby with Inter. Big game player. Would be very pleased if we went in for him.

We'd get him for cut price. I think he just needs the right conditions, I've not seen him played in a position where he can dictate like he did when he was here. Would love him back but it's dependent on Conte's plans and I'm not sure he'll fit. Would love it though as I feel he'll be happy to come despite no CL. Now Mourinho is all but confirmed at Manure, how many here still think he "loves Chelsea" or that he "didn't want the Utd job" or any of the other stuff? imo everything he says is self serving sh*t. He's going to win some silverware in the first few years, but he's not going to last more than 3 years.

Interesting point about what is defined as a "title" (before the thread descended into puerile bickering). When talking about a title, does everyone else tend to mean just league titles? Van Gaal has just been referring to the FA cup as a title, and I'm sure I've seen things like "Ryan Giggs, 23 major titles" etc. and I've always just taken it as major honours. As for Jose - no, I don't miss him. Between him and FSW, I have felt my passion for football wane. Even when we were winning, there's just something about the decisions he'd made, set up the team, press conferences etc. which just tired and frustrated me. Grateful for the success he's brought, but glad that this chapter is shut and looking forward to the future.

We need to find the gems that are good, but can be taken to the next level rather than the finished article. Best example I can think of is Liverpool signing Suarez with no CL