BaneIvanovic

(4-2-3-1) Chelsea XI Cech Branislav Luiz/Cahill Terry Cole Lampard Mikel Ramires Mata Hazard Nando With VdW as RB backup, Bertrand as understudy to Cole and KDB, Kakuta and Marin as squad players for the 3 attacking midfield. Hulk to come in at some point at RW and Ramires to drop into the pivot role. This is more of a realistic than fantasy XI per sé and I'd add, I'd sell Essien and get another CB (apparently been linked to Alderweireld, who'd be good) so that we have 2 options per position at the back.

Would rather that than to have the Robbie Keane sob story everytime he joins a club 'So glad I joined this club, been suppporting them since I was a wee lad, dream come true etc etc'He'll defenitely love the club as the years go by and become loved by our faithful. I hardly think the likes of Cech, Drog etc supported Chelsea but have become adored by the masses and love the club. I see this as an identical situation

Even though Hazard may prefer to play 'in the hole', he has an incredible explosivness over 10/15 yds when running at the defense and is possibly more dangerous when cutting inside on his right foot than playing centrally. Whilst I do think that him and Mata will have license to roam and will interchange during matches, Hazard will probably start at LW as he fits the bill out wide more than Mata (ie. has greater pace and better acceleration than Mata). What I love about this signing the most is the fact that Hazard oozes creativity and will lift the burden of Mata somewhat meaning our source of creativity this coming season won't be just from Mata.

Not officially but nobody's worn it/been issued since Zola left.Hazard #11 Hulk #12 Would make it #12 #11 #10 #9 as our attacking quartet

Ah, was unaware of that.Cheers.

Harping on would indicate that I have constantly mentioned Ramires playing on the wing, which is false, as I clearly mentioned it once at the end of my point about Hulk, and once only. It's a valid point too because with all this spending you do have to think where it leaves him (now as a CM, assuming we get Hulk, which is the most contested position in our side and I can't see us dropping Lampard immediately but Davey covered the Ramires point well enough).

Don't think we'll be buying Hazard, Hulk AND Falcao/Cavani, will we?

Why isn't he holding the shirt with the star above our logo, btw?

He still is, this is all an elaborate setup by the Glazers. He's flying to Manchester tonight. All of the pictures - photoshopped!

Utd fans will still find a way to think that he's not ours

His English is apparently awful (accoding to Lukaku). Would be funny to see Lukaku giving English lessons to Hazard and KDB

Yeah, we've had a footballing board in place since 07 (if my memory serves me right) that deals with transfers

Never in doubt

My French is terrible, really struggling with listening to it (whatever knowledge I had at GCSE is firmly out of the window) EDIT - They just mentioned Hazard and Chelsea, shame i've got no f**king clue what everthing was inbetween those two words :(

Err ... ok. It clearly isn't an idea of 'mine' because, funnily enough, he's been playing there since March so whosever idea it was, it was put into practise. Furthermore, he's been effective on the right so I don't see how 'it doesn't work' when the majority of Chelsea fans (or people follow football generally) would say that he's been a success on the right. Now, whether or not that's his best/natural position is a different preposition but to say he's not worked on the right and to say it's somehow my idea or something like that - even though I only brought it up once - is ludicrous.This article illustrates it best, I feel http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/apr/16/ramires-chelsea-midfielder-energy

After a couple of games at AMR, I was too sceptical about his ability to produce a final ball into the box but he can come up with the goods when needed (see Drogba goal vs Napoli and Barca) and I think playing on the right with Torres up front means he doesn't have to ping balls in and can penetrate into the box and use his speed - ie. play a box to box sort of role but on the flank.

I said, sarcastically, that he had a good game vs Mexico. The only reason I mention game changer is because you brought it up into discussion and the Messi thing was an unneccesary tangent that was needed. Hulk's relatively poor performance yesterday was generally what he's like for Brazil and the Brazilian media/journos/pundits agree that he's been fairly average for the NT (bar the Denmark game, which thus far has proven to be an anomoly). It's interesting to bring up the Robben comparison because Robben is a world class winger (the best RW in the game, imo) and he still doesn't posses a right foot and every single full back in the world knows this and forces him on the right but Robben is that good, and technically gifted that he always finds a way to get onto his left and has been doing so since his PSV days. I'd liked to have kept Robben and we've seen that he's yet to be suitably replaced since his departure but he was too injury prone for us, I guess. I find Hulk similar but quite one dimensional. Given space to run at you and shoot with his left foot it's obvious that he can be devastating but take the left hand space away (ie. don't allow him to cut inside) and he seems to run out of ideas - despite having a better weaker foot than say Robben. He will probably get goals against the weaker teams in England but it wouldn't surprise me if big teams shut him out (just like Mexico did, they marked him out of the game and in growing frustration his decision making went out of the window and didn't play sensibly). Final point - does Ramires not seem good enough for us on the right? He certainly has played well there since we changed to a 4-2-3-1 under Robbie and is a two way player which helps as the AMR has to be more disciplined and defensively aware than your traditional RW. It leaves us between a rock and a hard place if Hulk comes in terms of what to do with Rambo because I don't think we can dislodge Lampard looking at his form as a deep-lying playmaker in the last 2 months of the season.

Veering slightly off topic but Mata is probably dead certain to play in the Olympics too (has signalled his intent to do so and would most likely be in the squad). For me, I think that's a good move as I'd rather see him play competitive games than to join us in the States to play, relatively, meaningless games for commercial purposes. Fatigue won't be an issue for him either as he probably won't be starting for Spain (although, I'd make the case that he'd deserve to do so) and he may come back to us with a winners medal (or two) so it's win-win all round, imo.

You can have very good individuals on paper yet not be able to perform collectively (á la England, amongst other teams). Lucho isn't world class but if you notice the names that you've mentioned, they're all attackers/forward/forward thinking players and the only world class defensive minded player they have is Mascherano. Their attacking lineup looks outrageously good but as you move move further back you see where the problem lies.Messi can play without Xavi, in fact, Xavi is probably more reliant on Messi than vice versa.

Feel sorry for Adrián, he deserved a call-up but it's basically opened it all up for Nando to start for Spain (not to mention he's a favourite of Del Bosque's). I rate Llorente but he's the least Spanish type of player I've ever seen (from a technical standpoint). The best thing that's come from the Torres transfer, thus far, is that he's been consistently fit (something he never was at Liverpool) and the rotation has benefitted his regeneration from a fitness standpoint (hence, the improvement in his sharpness, looks like he's got his pace back etc etc)

Yes he is.Goalkeepers: Iker Casillas (Real Madrid), Jose Manuel 'Pepe' Reina (Liverpool), Victor Valdes (Barcelona). Defenders: Alvaro Arbeloa (Real Madrid), Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid), Juanfran (Atletico Madrid), Jordi Alba (Valencia), Raul Albiol (Real Madrid), Gerard Pique (Barcelona), Javi Martinez (Athletic Bilbao). Midfielders: Xavi (Barcelona), Sergio Busquets (Barcelona), Andres Iniesta (Barcelona), Xabi Alonso (Real Madrid), David Silva (Manchester City), Santi Cazorla (Malaga), Cesc Fabregas (Barcelona), Juan Mata (Chelsea) Forwards: Jesus Navas (Sevilla), Pedro (Barcelona), Fernando Llorente (Athletic Bilbao), Fernando Torres (Chelsea), Alvaro Negredo (Sevilla)

He's definitely proved to be the real deal and shown he's capable of replacing Ash within the next 2 years. PVA on the other hand, I feel will just end up going on loans and end up merely being a squad player (when he was at Wigan, there were noises made about how he had some 'attitude' problems in the sense that he came to the club with the aura about him thinking he was a starter from Day 1 etc)

He usually is. Just because doesn't play to the same role as he does for Barca and doesn't replicate the level of performance he produces at Barca doesn't mean he generally plays well for Argentina (and is usually their best player on the park). Take the Ecuador game a couple of days ago where he was, arguably, their MOTM.@Davey - That's what I'm saying, the levels of scrutiny that he comes under when he plays for Argentina is ludicrous because they think he doesn't put in the effor for the National Team (in other words why is he not as good for Argentina as he is for Barcelona) but they don't look at the fact that he turned down the chance to represent Spain at a young age in order to persue his dreams with Argentina on an international level. Is it £7m a year or 7m Euros (according to Portugal's Diário de Notícias)? Not too much difference either way, but it's still an interesting wage to be paying.

Take it with a pinch of salt as Caughtoffside just made that story up. Getting those two wouldn't strengthen our side in any way because both wouldn't start for our side (we have much better options at RB and RW than the pair).