Barrettinator

Why isn't there a thread on him? We've been linked with him a lot in recent months. With Costa leaving and Morata an unlikely option if Madrid continue to hold out, this could be the ideal striker. Granted he's young but he's the same age as Lukaku and Kane and even though the other two have been scoring for longer, Belotti looks the real deal. Well, Kane looks the real deal but not Lukaku imo. Belotti is good with both feet and really really good in the air for a striker who's not so tall. He has this devilish streak about him very similar to Costa except without the propensity to lash out and get a red (kind of like how Costa was in the first half of the season). Reminds me a lot of Vieri and some have even compared him to Batistuta. He's not a flat track bully either. Has scored this season against Milan, Inter, Napoli and Juventus. Oh and at the moment, he has 25 goals in 30 appearances this season. Has a bit of Suarez in him as well, I'd say. Has great link up play and a great first touch. Also very good at pressing up front, something I'm sure Conte would love. I'd be shocked if we're not actually interested in him. Good read up on him here: https://www.whoscored.com/Articles/vFdX53j1SUCLR-ZYl8QLyw/Show/Why-Andrea-Belotti-is-the-most-sought-after-striker-in-Europe Worth noting that he does have an 86m release clause but no one's really going to pay that for him. I reckon Torino would let him go for 35-40m. And if we were bold enough to spend that much on Batshuayi who had less impressive stats in a smaller league, we should be able to spend that on him.

One of the main reasons I really don't fancy him. sh*t hold up play and his moon sized ego won't let him see it. Selfish brat who thinks the whole team should suck up to him. Imagine telling an experienced CB like Williams to shush when he's trying to get your head straight. I'd lose my head if he did that to JT.

Not really. They need 2 new full backs, a defensive midfielder, a striker up front and another quality winger since Jose doesn't know what the f**k he's doing with Rashford and Martial. They're really not the 13-14 Chelsea. We could have won the title that season if Jose didn't keep banging on about how we were never gonna win it and we were a "little horse". Those stupid losses to Crystal Palace and West Brom (and 2 others I don't quite remember) could have given us the title. We were only 5 points off City. United are about 15 points of us right now.

And why exactly couldn't he keep Gary out of the squad? What exactly does he lack in your opinion that makes him not good enough? He has spent 2 seasons out on loan where he has performed brilliantly and been one of the best CBs in the Bundesliga both seasons and being 20 years old at that. Massive heaps of potential and he's already really good. But you'd rather him "fight for his place" because he hasn't got a huge price tag. This is why we keep losing our young players. His father has already made it clear he won't be coming back to Chelsea just to ride the bench for the whole season. What you're suggesting is giving him a run here and there in FA Cup games or something like that. Ridiculous. Our defense is strong as it is. Let Christensen "fight for his place" with the current defenders. Luiz at 30 is still good. If we ever need to buy another CB later on, I'm sure we can find them in the market. We're not suddenly going to collapse if we don't get VVD. On the other hand, we'd have made another utterly foolish decision of letting a quality young player go again if Christensen leaves.

One easy way to assess it is social media following, of which we have the 4th highest combined behind only Real, Barca and United. It's wise to also note that a lot of football fans in 3rd world countries don't have access to good internet hence can't be quantified in social media followings so the best way to aggregate it all would be social media, shirt sales, tv viewers, and sponsorship deals (there's a reason we've got a bigger kit deal than Arsenal, sports companies do their homework - same reason United's deal is in a different class to other English clubs). http://www.totalsportek.com/list/most-popular-football-clubs/ https://www.cobrastreaming.com/worlds-top-football-clubs-fan-base/ http://talksport.com/football/which-premier-league-football-club-has-most-fans-around-world-find-out-here-150422144147?p=0 Just about every article written on this in the last 5 years has us 2nd only behind United and generally 4th overall behind Real, Barca and United globally. Those links I provided were a quick google search. I'm sure if I search a little longer, I'll find a lot more echoing the same sentiment. Furthermore, I've spent a month in Nigeria and a couple of weeks in South Africa so I have a fairly good idea of what the football culture is like over there. Arsenal have a really strong fan base in Nigeria but it's been edged out by Chelsea recently and in South Africa we're only surpassed by United. I also spent a few years of my life living in the US was there as recently as last year so I've seen the sport grow a lot especially in the internet age and I can confidently say Chelsea have a much, much bigger fan base than Arsenal in the US. In fact, I'd say City might even have a similar fan base to Arsenal over there. It's United, Chelsea, Liverpool.....and then Arsenal there. Not sure what it's like in India but I would imagine United and Liverpool have the lead there but I very much doubt Arsenal have a larger following there than us. I stand corrected if I'm wrong. As for China, I have no clue what it's like there. Hopefully, I get to visit someday and that comes up in whatever discussion I have with locals there. Perhaps others on the forum who live outside the UK could chime in on what it's like where they're from. Also, the only Premier League fans I've seen from Australia and New Zealand turned out to be Chelsea fans. Anyway, that's my take on it.

It's Matt Law reporting this. Well.... itsf**kinghappening.gif What an insane summer it would be if we got him.

Historically, they are. They've won more major trophies than us after all. A stat which we can easily overturn within the next 3 seasons, by which time we'd also have our own 60k stadium, mind. Once we're able to overturn that, this argument will be invalid. So for now, I'll give him that. He's right. "Bigger" club isn't the same as "better" club though. So on the "better" bit, it's not even close. Right now, and for the past 13 years, we've been a better club than them. As far as global fan base, @Floyd25 is absolutely correct. Don't forget, we exploded onto the scene just as the Premier League began to truly get a global audience and was also aided by the rise of the internet globally. The only English club who've got a bigger global fan base than us is United, to be quite honest. I think we've gone ahead of Liverpool in that respect these days as well. Liverpool have a strong following in Asia but we're just behind them there so not too far behind. But then we have a much bigger fan base than Liverpool in North America and Africa. So there's that. Not sure what the scene in South America is but considering the number of South American players we've had of recent, I'd imagine there's a large Chelsea following there too.

This is a stretch. Not going to happen. Even if he doesn't move at some point, when he crosses 30, he'll begin to lose some of that electric pace and that could begin to kill his effectiveness for a top club like Chelsea. But who knows? Maybe he can have a Zola streak in his 30's.

Think early in his career he was spoiled by (as he said) players like Lampard who were really matured at a young age and he suddenly expects every player to be that way. I don't want to imagine what Jose would have done with a young Rooney compared to Fergie. He'd have sent the lad back out as quick as he came in.

I'd take him tbh. Could prove to be an absolute top drawer LWB. Just needs a run of games and a manager who believes in him to restore his confidence. I don't know if we have that run of games to afford him though.

That was another human being entirely. That man is gone and is never coming back.

I have seen him this season. Plenty times. And as I said, it has gotten better (I hardly saw him last season apart from when he played us) but still not great. That said, Costa's back to goal game isn't great either ("great" being Drogba level) but it's still serviceable and Lukaku isn't there yet. But he does have the age advantage over Costa. Even Drogba wasn't this good at 23. No one is trying to attack the lad unnecessarily. We're stating our concerns just as we would with any possible new signing. You lot keep making it look like there's a Lukaku witch hunt.

City were absolutely atrocious on the left today. I reckon Hazard would be delighted at the sight of that. He'll have a field day on Wednesday.

Stop talking like that opinion has come out of nowhere. It's very valid. Sure, he has gotten a bit better at it this season but still not at the level we'd like him to be at. It's okay to say he's young and he'll keep improving and will probably get better at it. Don't try to make him out to be some finished product that he's not.

We have the 2nd best defense in the league and aren't even far behind the #1 in Spurs with us having 23 goals conceded and 21 for them. This idea that we're leaking goals like a basket is just overreaction. Yes, we've made some silly mistakes of recent but it's nothing that can't be ironed out. Apart from 2 minutes of madness and that other Zaha chance yesterday, we were solid as usual. Calm down.

They do have it in them to pull out a win against City tomorrow. It's Arsenal. Also don't think anyone should be panicking. The whole point of building a sizable lead is to be able to afford losses like yesterday when nothing went our way despite doing (almost) everything right and have a cushion to fall back on, isn't it? As long as we beat City on Wednesday, we'll be fine.

Need to flog him to China in the summer for good. I think I'm officially done with him.

Perhaps I should have been clearer. I don't mean general inflation. Just within the sport itself. As you've mentioned, the TV deals contribute to inflating transfer fees and wages. Sometimes 1 crazy transfer can pull the rest of the market with it. Torres' 50m transfer did some damage to the market, especially considering how sh*t he was for us. Our transfers between 2003 and 2008 did some damage too, as well as City's. When Madrid signed Ronaldo and Kaka for 140m combined, no one really complained as we all knew these were 2 of the 3 best players in the world at the time and the last two ballon d'Or winners. But fast forward to 2014 and Madrid signing James Rodriguez for 70m or whatever it was did a lot of damage. And so has United's 89m signing of Pogba. You get other clubs during negotiation thinking/saying "well if player X cost that much, then this is how much my player should cost". Players use this in negotiation for their wages too. It's part of the game, unfortunately.

Some years ago $10k/week was also insane money to be paying a footballer. Factors like bigger tv deals, increased revenue and inflation push prices north. That's just time having its effect on football.

Tbh none of the top teams are at their usual level this season.

Says I "hope" to finish my contract, not I "want" to finish my contract. Keep winning. Same city. Aspirations. Yeah he definitely wants to wear royal blue. Make it happen Marina!

For me, this is my dream summer. Back from loan: Christensen Going out: Costa, Batshuayi, Matic Coming in: Sanchez, Bakayoko, Lukaku, Belotti Sidibe, Sandro/Mendy Van Dijk would be a nice signing but I absolutely do NOT want him if it means losing Christensen. I've had enough of our young players with immense talent going elsewhere to flourish. Especially as we'll be looking to re-sign Christensen again in another 3-4 years. Enough is enough. Put him in the squad. Let City have Van Dijk if they want.

I did say the lad was a family man and was pretty settled in London, didn't I? As I said, he's not going anywhere. Certainly not this summer at least.

Mate, you have to accept that there's serious money in football these days. And if there is, why should it be just the leagues and the owners profiting from it? Why not the players too? Nothing wrong with Hazard getting 300k/week if we can afford it. What are we penny pinching for? Players like Ronaldo and Messi are on something ridiculous like over 500k/week. Are you saying if we had a player of their level we shouldn't pay them what they're worth in today's market because "football is getting ridiculous"? If we want to be on the level Real/Barca/Bayern are, we're going to have to pay 2-3 players on the team in that range. You should embrace it.

I don't think Chelsea are interested in him anyway so no worries.