NJBlue31

As much as I am against gambling in any fashion or form (growing up next to the casinos in Atlantic City, NJ has taught me better), I have a stronger gut feeling about what Pep could do for the club long term. A year ago I would have said no. I feel that team we are putting together now is just as ready as any team in Europe to be successful under a Pep guided system. Only reason it is hard for me to admit that is because RDM has done so much and could easily do more. But I see better things with Pep, with greater risk comes greater reward. I also have to look at it this way, in one year odds are both RDM and Pep Guardiola will be managing a team in the EPL, which one of those two would I rather face? RDM probably won't be at United, Spurs, Arsenal, City or Liverpool but a lower club. Pep could fall to Arsenal, Spurs, United or even City. At that point I'd much rather have Pep talking to Mata, Hazard and Torres at the 40' in a game against RDM's Aston Villa than have RDM talking to the same group against Pep Guardiola's United. Lesser of two evil's points to wanting the before rather than the latter...for me anyway. I suggest Pep to United only because of Ferie's age and health (I don't wish anything negative on him, I respect him a lot) and he [Fergie], may retire. Arsenal have also been eyeing Pep up as long as we have if not longer and City heats their locker room by burning piles of cash.

I apologize for not adding to the already back and forth opinions, I just wanted to express my excitement for next year's squad. I see a team ready to blow everybody's expectations away with a face and style different from what people have come to expect. God bless the old guard and what they have done for us over the last decade, I will never forget their contribution to the club's history, but we are on the cusp of a new Chelsea now. A more "exciting" and "attractive" one. I feel Hazard being the signing people will talk about as phenomenal in years to come, not because of how he handled it, but because of what he will emerge as in the world of football. Each passing hour the realization that this confident youngster could be thrown into the same sentence with Messi and Ronaldo as the world's best sinks in deeper. Remember when Ronaldo to Chelsea for 90m(or whatever price) was a rumor? Well we got the younger and cheaper version and I secretly laugh at the United and City fans saying they don't need him, everybody needs a Messi or Ronaldo to separate themselves as the best. I know not everybody is keen on Hulk and his price tag and all that but I see him as a fantastic signing also (hopefully we wrap that up soon). Even if he isn't the stand-out star that can single handily win games by himself more often than not, he still one of the best and youngest right wingers out there. The quick formation I think of with just those two is the already familiar 4-2-3-1. ______Cech________ Ivan_Luiz_Terry_Cole_ ___Ramirez_Lamps___ _Hulk__Hazard__Mata_ ______Torres_______ Obviously there are other players that can easily fit into that formation. Cahill with Luiz, Luiz to RB and Cahill/Ivan at CB, Mikel can flourish in CDM, KDB and Josh can fill in Lampard's shoes eventually, Marin can develop on the wings as an early season go to sub, and my latest realization is Lukaku as our new Drogba (obviously the man behind Torres on the pecking order). What really excites me about this new starting 11 is the 3 behind Torres. First off Torres had his best years when in a 4-5-1 style formation with feeders to him. Hazard's creativity addition to Mata's along with his individual goal threat should make Torres have a come back like you only read about (maybe one could describe it in similar fashion to the end of this past season for Chelsea as a whole). I haven't given up on El Nino yet, his time will come and he will be able to laugh at the media come this time next year for doubting him. A lot of people have Mata as the central playmaker on the pitch and I don't fully agree or disagree with that. I think Mata, Hazard and Hulk would all thrive if given complete permission to roam and interchange on the fly. There is no reason to doubt their ability to do so, so why not let young creators create? Hazard is initially in the middle for me because of his seemingly more natural ability to go to the right just as likely as he is to go left than Mata. All the while you have the presence of Hulk on the right being backed up by fellow Brazilian compatriots Ramirez and Luiz (that just oozes with chemistry from the start). We scored 103 goals in the EPL campaign 3 years ago with a seemingly less fluid team, no reason we can't better than with the young and motivated squad at our disposal now. While also developing our up and coming youngsters in Josh, Piazon, Marin, KDB and Lukaku...Lukaku could have a breakout season and fully claim the title as the next Drogba. Now I am being rather biased with my opinions here because of my excitement for the club next year so I wouldn't doubt if anybody has an issue, but I'd like to hear ideas. I've been drawing up ideas for other formations but I'm not ready to defend them as much as what I presented above.

I've been following this thread for the past few days now and almost threw my input once or twice, but have held off until now. First I'd like to say that for the most part everybody's opinion on the subject is completely understandable and I have found myself looking at the situation from both sides. First I'd like to say I was brought to tears on May 19th because of a RDM led Chelsea in Munich and for that I don't see how Chelsea can EVER thank him enough. His incredible and historic run will never be forgotten and the circumstances he did it in. He managed the two competitions he knew he had reasonable/realistic shot at winning perfectly, though board wasn't happy that he let the EPL slip to where it did. Looking back, the 6th place is not a big deal but the board is obligated to ask the question "what if we didn't win the CL?" No Hazard, Torres still pissed, Old Guard (as much as I love them) would maybe stick around longer...etc. You get the idea, but because RDM did win the board has the option to recruit the best young players with ease and use the win as a spring board to launch Chelsea to a team mentioned in the same sentence with Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern and few others as the best team in the world over the next 10 years (going off what countless articles claim those three latter teams are, I could argue against it obviously). I am as tired as the next Chelsea fan with the Manager problems we have had and not giving RDM makes me sick to my stomach to consider...but I found myself looking at the situation outside of the box and asking questions that can be asked, what questions haven't been asked and questions that could possibly be asked in hindsight 1,2,3 to 5 years from now. 1) If we keep RDM as manager for 1 year what will happen to Chelsea? -He has a fantastic season, makes EPL title contention (won't speculate winners just yet to keep this objective). Wins a domestic cup and gives Chelsea reputation to be fear as a huge powerhouse across Europe by being a top 4 in the CL at the least and the future looks good for years to come under RDM....Best case scenario with variables able to swing without taking away the ability to call the season a success. -The media will be happy about RDM getting a chance to prove himself with a full season and Pep will have a nice vacation in New York. -He could fall short of the above stated predictions and gets sacked....but Pep is waiting after a year off to take over. -Worse case scenario is we fall short and Pep already took a job at Liverpool, Arsenal, or United this summer and had a significantly better season and the future for whoever looks great. 2) What if we grab Pep to coach our new generation of Chelsea? -Same as the best case with RDM, the only difference would be the style in which we play. I can only assume RDM and Pep would have at the very least slightly different philosophies for the long term. -Pep repeats AVB's mistakes but with a mix of old and new and his coaching reputation gets tarnished, Chelsea looks bad again for making another big money move for a manager with a popular name while RDM bring another EPL club to prominence to add to our humiliation a more. 3)What does each bring to the table? -RDM- He loves Chelsea, he wants to prove he can do the same thing next year with a full season, he has fantastic man management, he is up there with the best tacticians in Europe, his coaching record in the EPL is more than respectable with low tier teams (he's got the tools now). -Pep- He wants to prove he can coach outside Spain so motivation to do well for the team and himself means he'll be fully invested, he is well known for youth development (we have more than a handful of fantastic youth prospects doing wonders in England with our youth team), our new generation appears to be better suited than ever for Pep's style of play just in a Chelsea style that can defend too. Pep is also a face that is liked by many neutrals and could help with a positive global reputation a little more so than RDM. As a Chelsea fan, I want what will make me proud to say so (not that I've never needed a reason before), but in 5 years I want to be able to be holding my breath watching Chelsea in another CL final and be able to say "Remember how all you other fans and the media joked about our unattractive football and our ability to keep a manager? Well look where we are now." Basically I don't mind if we have RDM or Pep as long as they bring success and anybody's guess is as good as mine as to who will be able to do that season in and season out over the next few years. If, and it would seem its a big IF, we could get Pep I see good things happening but it is a gamble. Most could probably agree that it is a larger gamble than giving RDM what he deserves which is at the least a full season in charge. Ideally the last time I want to discuss who our manager will be is in 2-3 weeks and after that I would wish more than anything that the Chelsea manager position is a non-issue for the next 20 years because we found our Fergie. If anybody has issues with my thoughts please comment, keep in mind I live in America so I may not necessarily have the correct read on the pulse of the club as others. I am not blind with my opinions and can(and will) understand and change my view. I love this club and love discussing what is best for it. I probably missed some points I wanted to put in here but that's because this took me about an hour to put together.

I really want to say that the gold patch on Barca's shirt was for the FIFA Club World Cup. I am only going off memory and what I thought I saw when I looked at in when we played them though. I'm 90% sure that the trophy on their gold patch was the World Cup trophy and had 'FIFA' underneath of it which is why I think this. Does anybody know what the Champion's patch for the CL looks like because I surprisingly don't recall seeing anything special from Barca's jersey outside that gold patch on their chest.

I've been very curious about the star also. I think it looks great above the crest and in my opinion I think it is something we should keep on all the jerseys because of how incredibly special being crowned European champions is to the club. I've been reading that Italian teams do this, German teams do that but in the end stars are symbolic to the club and there are no rules or regulations that says one team can or cannot put a star anywhere. The star, if kept, will forever remind me of the utterly incredible European campaign Chelsea had in 2012 and when the great players of our club had their backs against the wall on numerous occasions and had to stare down defeat itself and STILL came out on top. If the comeback against Napoli, the holding off of Benfica, the historic 10 man draw against "the greatest team ever" and a final where we overcame a goal in the 83rd minute to win 4-3 on penalties in Bayern's HOME stadium doesn't warrant a symbolic star...well then, I'm not sure what does. We earned it because the 11 players on the field never lost faith and I think it should be remembered for as long as Chelsea plays football. A side note too, I just purchased the 12/13 home kit from the megastore with the star and got Drogba's name on the back because despite him moving on, I will always remember what he did for our club by wearing the first jersey he won't be. My way of saying thank you.

I am new to this forum and I will not try to argue with a life-long true blue fan that I am indeed also one. I unfortunately can only admit that I have been a Chelsea fan for exactly 4 years now and until 2 days ago the reason for becoming a Chelsea fan always made who I was explaining it to raise an eyebrow. Being from the United States and it's ignorantly dumb dislike for soccer/football, I didn't know much about the European game or anything (it took me nearly a month to figure out that win=3pts tie=1 loss=0 and how a domestic champ is crowned). I did enjoy the beautiful game though and turned on the 2008 Champions League final between our beloved and ManU to watch what I heard was a big game and the moment that I decided I was going to be a Chelsea fan until die was after I saw John Terry slip, the level of heartache I felt for a player I never heard of before was incredible and thus kick-started my deep passion for the Blues. Now getting to the topic at hand, where does Chelsea rank as a club? Being from America has its pros and cons when it comes to the soccer world and because passions don't run anywhere near as deep as they do across the Atlantic or below the Gulf, I have access to mostly unbiased opinions. Chelsea is a club on the rise on the world stage and with the Champions League win we will only get bigger. Soccer is picking up over here each year and it is actually very noticeable increase. Speaking on behalf of "new fans" and "fans won-over," I can only see a rise in popularity in the coming years and am greatly looking forward to the American tour this summer. 2 years ago I watched Chelsea beat AC Milan in Baltimore in what was largely a blue 72,000 sold out stadium and I can only imagine what this summer will be like. Chelsea won the Champions League in was is already called a "Classic" and they did it by being the best team. The win against Barcelona alone is a huge step forward and a huge step away from people being able to say we buy our wins. Not a person on earth can create a valid argument against the passion, determination, and teamwork Chelsea has been putting forth since RDM took over and that is what (to me anyways) wins neutral fans to the Blue side. If nothing crazy happens internally over the next 5 years (please avoid becoming the next Leeds), then players are going to make CFC their dream destination, Battersea Station will be the premier stadium in the world, and the world should be very well on the way to being painted blue. *This is more of an opinion that statistical based response so be kind if you disagree.

Been reading Chelsea news all morning across multiple forums but I had to create an account here and now because this gave me a good laugh. Well played guy haha.