BaneIvanovic

He's not an improvement on our current CB options and if it's one of those 'one for the future' signings, there are better alternatives.

Yeah, he's gone from utter sh*te to poor/mediocre at best.

Nothing special.

I agree (re: double season), but we had the machine that was Frank Lampard who would guarantee you a double digit goal tally in the league (and 20 goals a season in all comps). If you want to have title aspirtations, you need to have a striker who can provide 20 goals a season domestically and have others who will chip in with the goals. We fulfill the criteria with the latter but don't with the former, yet, and I hope that that will be resolved this summer.

In an ideal world, we could combine Ramires' dynamism and energy with Mikel's technique, strength and passing, we'd have the perfect player to play the 2 in our formation and whilst they're both good players individually, this isn't the way to use them. Schweinsteiger, Javi Martinez, Gundogan, Bender, Vidal, Alonso etc all the the types of players who would fit the bill for that description so looking for a world class player who can primarily be a deep lying playmaker but also offer so much in other aspects in the game is key. However, the problem we face is that there aren't that many players who would feasibly move. Van Ginkel may not be the answer, and I agree that we should be looking at someone who's world class now, but he's arguably been the best Dutch midfielder this season.

Van Ginkel could be the deep-lying playmaker that we've been crying out for this season in the heart of midfield. I think that whilst Bony has gotten all of the plaudits for Vitesse's success this season, Van Ginkel has been excellent this season and behind pretty much all things good at Vitesse.

Torres to have false dawn #343242394932084324804 to make people conviced that he'll still 'come good' or that he's good enough for a team aspiring to be a title challenger and/or a team with aspirations of going deep into the CL.

Nope, but we're in a wonderful 'pickle' where we have two world class keepers on our books.

Ramires isn't good enough defensively to be playing alongside someone like Modrić at the pivot (assuming we keep a 4-2-3-1)

The poor guys thought Clichy was going to be better than Ash ... I see that idea went well ...

The thing about Pirlo is that he fell victim to Milan wanting to freshen the side (ie. get in younger midfielders in Nocerino, as an example) hence why he was let to go on a free. When he played in that title winning season at Milan last year, he showed his class.Essien on the other hand barely manages to walk, which just shows how much he's eroded physically. I wouldn't mind letting him go and for him to have a 'Pirlo' season but I don't think something like that will be happening. We should cut our losses here as he isn't Chelsea standard (or an elite European club standard for that matter) and we should take what we can gat (ie. hope a wealthy side wants him as his reputation can still garner some interest/value)

I'd rather sell him for £5-7m and get his wages off our books than keep him (especially as I can see us giving him an extension on his contract if we don't sell him this summer). I don't think he'll be returning to what he once was, or near to it for that matter, on the strength that he's lost the legs and mobility which made him what he was and on top of that he's 29.

No he isn't (to both statements)

He's not shown anything close enough to justifying why he should stay at the club. I was willing to give him time before passing my judgement on him but enough time has passed for him to play himself into the team post injury and he's been pure sh*t. He doesn't offer anything more to our team that the other CMs at the club can't so he's basically become irrelevant, which is tragic as he used to be a beast and feared but he is definitely a shadow of himself and it's painful to watch him play - he can't run, he can't pass, he can't shoot and isn't as physical as he once was.

Naturally, he's a striker or a second striker (ie. á la Rooney) and that's how he was played at Partizan but he can operate on both flanks equally well due to the fact that he's a relatively complete player.

We can't utilize Meireles in the same way he was at Liverpool/Portugal/Under AVB. He's a box-to-box midfielder but it doesn't work in a system with two pivots and there are also better CMs ahead of him. That being said, I'd like to keep him as he still has something to offer to our side and is a very good squad player and the players I'd be looking to get rid of at the start of this transfer window are Malouda, Essien and Yossi.

The Italian media are reporting that we're bidding 30M Euros, which is where I guess the British media are getting the story from. Hopefully, it's true and it's done and dusted quickly.

Depends on what's average about the fullback. There are plenty of sh*t/mediocre/average fullbacks who are very quick (eg. Bosingwa was quick but nothing else and I mean the 36 y.o Levante CB Ballesteros put the burners on Ronaldo this season but he isn't quicker than him per sé) but I get what you're trying to say. I'm not saying he's Theo Walcott but he is quick and would be a welcome addition.

Eh? Navas is raaaaaaaaaapid.Re-Hulk, imo, the physicality aspect of his game is overplayed

Zola by the proverbial country mile. Best player I've seen in a Chelsea shirt. When you were buying a ticket to a Chelsea game when Zola was playing, you knew it was worth every penny.

Iniesta's probably been the player of the tournament so far. Phenomenal player and a joy to watch.Spain were rather sh*te today but luckily for them France were on a mission to out do them in that department

Iniesta's been saving their arses this tournament .. their success is more to do with the quality of players they have as opposed to the success/non-success of the false 9 experiment My reference to being diabolical was aimed at him using a false 9, nothing to do with what he's achieved in his career. Anyone with two eyes can see he's trying to shoehorn in as many Barca midfielders as he can, and it's working but it can only go upto a certain point - playing with a striker gives them many more options than playing wihtout one

Danny Simpson is an awful excuse of a player, was easily Newcastle's worst player this season.

Tbf to him, VdB's tactics/selections have been diabolical so far. His persistance with the 'false 9' despite the fact that they don't possess Messi and it clearly doesn't work for them, is quite astounding.

The guy only tweets the stuff he reads from the papers, tbf. No 'insider' knowledge on the subject