Barrettinator

You're an incredibly silly fella to say the least and utterly disrespectful. With the nonsense you're spouting, one would think you were an opposition fan. Did you also call Chelsea fans racist every time they called Kalou or Mikel crap? What a nonce.

I don't care about who you think falls into whatever category. Just stop foolishly calling fans racists/xenophobes for no reason. You can actually disagree with Emenalo's treatment without saying that, you know. Christ.

Perez is NOT the owner of Madrid. He's merely a President who has to appease the fans to get re-elected or else he'll be replaced. Which is why I likened him to Emenalo. You haven't been on Redcafe or seen discussions among United fans on social media lately, have you? They haven't slated the Glazers in a long time. Arsenal fans slate Kroenke (and Gazidis) but only because he runs the club in an extremely stingy for-profit way that prioritizes profits over trophies. If Kroenke spent money as much as he should (considering he's wealthier than Roman if I'm not mistaken) and it was just down to footballing decisions, I guarantee you Gazidis would be getting almost 100% of the blame and you'd hardly hear Kroenke mentioned. As much as final decisions end with Roman, he still seeks football counsel from top officials like Emenalo. Which is one of the reasons Emenalo will get stick from fans. Replace Emenalo with a random Cooper or Stevens or Kolinski or whatever it might be and the reactions from fans will be the same. Which is why you sound really silly calling those fans xenophobes. No one's going to take you seriously.

You really don't realize how stupid you sound calling those fans xenophobes just because they're pointing fingers at a club official? Forget other examples, is Emenalo the first Chelsea official to get stick from Chelsea fans?

I have no interest in trying to make my point "reasonable" really. There's no reason to want to do that. Why? Because if you weren't so hung up on Emenalo, you'd see that it's a normal part of football for fans to slate higher ups at their clubs. For the umpteenth time, there's nothing special about Emenalo's case. It happens everywhere. As has been pointed out earlier, if you take the emotions of fans out of football, the sport will die. You need to realize that.

What's the point of having a back up striker who's injured for more than half of the season? We'll be just fine without Sturridge.

Are you suggesting that Emenalo is not being paid big money? You think a technical director at a club of Chelsea's stature wouldn't be paying him big money? And if you agree he's being paid big money then why can't he take blame the way players take blame? Why is he somehow immune? Have you seen the way fans of other club also point fingers at their respective technical directors? Even Madrid fans rip into Fiorentino Perez, same with Barca fans and Bartomeu. Why do you think Emenalo's case is so unique? Are you Emenalo?

Ah I see. That explains it.

But it's possible to have a midfielder who's gifted (though not quite Verratti gifted) who also has good height though. Besides, I see no reason why PSG would sell him anyway. I'm convinced our bid (if true) will be rejected swiftly.

Having those 4 strikers almost guarantees the quality at CF will drop tbh. I'd take Lacazette if he was being brought in to support another top class striker. Not to be the main man who Batshuayi supports.

Welcome :)

They should thank the stars if they get 30m for Barkley. Lad's only got 1 year on his contract, f**k off!

We've had good luck with buying players from Barca, haven't we? Pedro, Cesc, Belotti.....

All this crying about Emenalo.....wasn't Ron Gourlay always made a scapegoat before Emenalo even became Technical Director, especially after the way he fired Carlo in the tunnel at Goodison. Even Buck has gotten some stick from fans (although not recently). Liverpool fans always had a go at Damien Comolli and these days Ian Ayre is their scapegoat. Arsenal fans have ripped Ivan Gazidis to shreds several times and want him gone at the moment. United fans have torn into Woodward several times post Fergie and only really got some praise from their fan base last summer. I can go on and on. Fans of any football club always unconsciously want to have someone to blame if a team isn't doing what they like in the transfer market or when decisions are made that don't sit well with the fans. For a club like Newcastle whose owner is a lot more outspoken and at the forefront of things than most owners in England, he gets the blame from fans when things go wrong. Etc, etc, etc. Please stop this nonsense of "oh it's because he's Nigerian/African" as if we haven't had countless African and black players play for us for years. Certainly since I remember being a Chelsea fan, we've always had at least one player of African ethnicity/nationality and they weren't always good players. Leave the race/nationality nonsense out of this. That's just silly and takes away from whatever argument you're trying to make. Once again, football fans always want someone higher up to point a finger to and since we have an owner who never speaks in public, we tend to point at the top club officials who put pen to paper. I know it sounds crazy but it's a VERY normal thing in football. Now please move on for f**k's sake.

Wasn't it obvious it was a fake video? Talksport always post videos like that of foreign players and managers with deliberately funny fake translations.

A bit annoying that the kit still hasn't been revealed. Think it might have to do with Adidas milking us for all we're worth until the FA Cup final. I'd be shocked if there's no kit reveal the next day after that match.

5 years ago today.

"Stealing"? That's one way to look at it, I guess. I prefer to see it as "protecting". Neither Luiz nor Cahill would look as good as they have without this system (and Kante).

That's actually not correct. VVD's numbers were consistently superior up until his injury and I have no doubt they would have stayed superior had he played the entire season.

It's actually possible to have both VVD and Christensen in the team although Zouma would have to be the casualty, which is why I came around to the idea of VVD.

Disagree. I think he's quality and can still improve a lot under Conte. I used to be opposed to the idea but I've come around to it, considering Cahill will be 32 next season and Luiz is already 30. VVD is 25. It wouldn't hurt to have him now and have ready replacements for when Cahill and Luiz decline. Especially Cahill whom I think wouldn't have the longevity Terry has had. I think Cahill will be done by 33/34 tbh.

Which should tell you just how much the landscape has changed.

5 years ago we were saying things like "to buy Ronaldo from Madrid you'd have to absolutely bid an insane 140m". That's laughable now.

If I were Blackman, I'd laugh at that. Absolutely no reason he should be sitting on our bench when Championship teams would jump at the chance to play him week in week had. He had over 50 appearances this season if I'm not mistaken.

No one outside Italian football knew who Belotti was before this season or even Mbappe yet they both have 100m price tags now. It's how it works in football mate. 1 year is generally enough these days, especially as he had been on a bit of an upward trajectory prior to this season.