Blue_Fox

Really there's only Marin, Moses, Hazard, Mata, Oscar (and he'll be moved into deep midfield once he beefs up a bit as a long term replacement for Lampard) competing for 3 slots. Malouda, Benayoun are all but out the door, Sturridge is still proving himself and consequently that means there's a vacancy for an attacking mid, not to mention an established striker. Hulk is perfect.

Create one, score one. Then again I could be talking about one of two players. I voted for Torres though. One or two instances of cocky skill that havn't been since since Ronaldo was in this league.

Why is everyone settling for third? This is the second best squad in the Premier League, Manchester United are weak, Arsenal will do their usual collapse if a slight breeze brings the scent of the trophy towards them, no-one else will come close. Not saying aiming for third is irrational, I'm just interested to know the reasons for this uncharacteristic restraint from fans?

Fee and terms were agreed months ago, it's a case of Arsene keeping his finger over the trigger while he runs the rule over Diaby and Song (if Song stays).

I was referring to what you said about the "having to sell". They don't have to sell anyone, they have enough money to throw all their forgotten men into the reserves to rot. If another Hazard comes along they'll leap in for them without a moment's hesitation.

Not as much as people think. The likes of Tevez/Bridge/K Toure/Adebayor whose wages people think are holding them down under FFP, actually don't count because they were signed before June 2010. It's more trying to not draw attention to themselves anymore, and stop other clubs thinking they can still screw them over with player prices once FFP really kicks in.

The boy will be back on the market before too long. He was swept off his feet by grandiose promises and a greedy agent to a team he'd never visited. He wasn't seen as intelligent enough to fit into Abramovich's vision of a Chelsea team this summer, but in a few years' time once he's woken up to the quality of the French league, he may well have developed into the kind of player that would fit into any team.

M'VIla is Arsenal's to lose.

What’s your source? I read in many places Chelsea broke even after the Champions League victory. Best mention I can find off the bat ishttp://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/may/28/eden-hazard-roman-abramovich-chelsea (last paragraph) Seems like a long-term solution is what you guys are after, some Champions League games are sold out so it would be difficult for the club to base long-term special youth prices on the 1 or 2 Champions League matches per season that don’t sell. Well, like you mentioned demand curve economics dictates that you make more money by not completely selling out every game. You have be a little under without p1ssing your fans off too much by leaving too many empty seats. Doesn’t stop the club’s board feeling they could do with a new stadium. They’re also not in the top 5 of expensive/cheap tickets regardless so it’s not that big a talking point anyway. So it’s not purely regional then? And Abramovich is American? Seems he‘s closer to being like Manchester City‘s Qatari owners, whose club have the cheapest tickets in the league. Manchester United offered some of the cheapest tickets in the league before they were taken over by the Glazers, who raised their prices 30% about 2 seconds after stepping off their boat. You think they should make a bid, then say to the prospective sellers, “hold on a second, we just need to risk making ourselves look like jackasses by attempting to buy back our land so afford to move forward with this bidâ€, then possibly losing another vote? Well, we didn’t did we? Neither did the equivalent happen to Arsenal, to Manchester City, will happen to Tottenham, to QPR… etc, and you say trust Abramovich? Having a defining stake, because right now the situation is ludicrous. Like I’ve mentioned, if I was trying to infiltrate and sway opinions from within why would I do so straight upon entering from a noob account, draw attention to myself by proclaiming myself a “Leicester†fan... bit on the conspicuous side. If you’re still super paranoid get a mod to check the location of my IP. Hardly working from some office at Stamford Bridge…

At the moment. Bring him to European Champions and watch his appeal soar

He's called "Hulk". I expect the money he generates from increased Asian(/USA) interest over the years will fund many won games. Because "Keisuke" doesn't have worldwide appeal. And he's not good enough for Chelsea. Modric? Oscar is Roman's Modric.

No worries, you don't, just learn basic communication and you'll do fine. Chelsea broke even last year didn't they? So the club would be less inclined to consider lower prices for young fans if there are 10,000 spare seats than if there are none? QPR are looking to move into a bigger stadium, and if it's purely regional why is there such a big difference between the Manchester clubs, or the Liverpool clubs? The sale of SB alone is said to account for £750m, the likelihood is Roman will put fair bit of his own money into it too, and yes, there would be loans but not on the scale of Arsenal's. Another difference being that if Chelsea ran into trouble with the loans Roman would likely dip his fingers into his back pocket again. Arsenal don't have the luxury of that backing. It's difficult to make a reliable bid when you can't guarantee when or if a large amount of the money, which you plan to generate from sale of your current ground, will be available to you, nor does it provide much incentive to go full steam ahead towards a move when in 100 years time you could still be arguing the same argument as now. After 2020 it means there was no possible solution found and the only way the club could move forward is building more than 3 miles outside the area (they'd still try and avoid it). It's like not wanting to leave Earth, but evacuating might be the only thing you can do if it's about to crash into the Sun. To avoid situations like this. The principle of Chelsea moving to a bigger stadium. Indeed, short-term we messed up the stadium building costs - almost half the price of Torres - compared to our income (are you worried Roman Abramovich would let the same thing happen to you?). Long-term it is the reason why we were able to claw ourselves back into being favourites this year to go back into the Premiership.

He's someone you pay £25m for the player, and an extra £10m for the name. Financially he's a gold mine, particularly with the Club World Cup in Japan coming up.Even taking this into account though, you're being a little harsh. He has played his way into being the current hottest property in Portuguese football, the danger man of what would still be a talented Porto if he left, one of the three chosen overage players in the next World Cup favourite's Olympics squad. Judge on a few speculation-filled days of football if you like but he was proven long before this summer.

Then you should have said “I disagree†earlier and said why, rather than just repeating what I had tried to rebuff and ignoring what I said. It’s how a discussion works, get it? I think Davey Baby gave a good explanation of why prices won’t go up simply because the stadium is more modern. I have provided evidence of how stadiums with satisfactorily adequate capacity tend to have more reasonable prices (yes, with the exception of Arsenal’s debt-riddled stadium - incidentally, you’re telling me one of the ways they are looking to pay off the debt isn’t increasing stadium prices?). Others have said that special low prices for youngsters would be nice, am I to understand you think there is more chance of this in a stadium where there is constant pressure on prices due to demand not met rather than in a larger stadium where pressure is less. And no, no board is ever going to agree to fans dictating stadium prices in writing, like you say later, no-one knows what the future holds and they’re the ones who have to balance the books. There can’t be any concrete proposals without the club having control over SB. Allegedly. And there’s a whole lot of paranoia that seems to run hand in hand with members of CPO, as shown by Zola’s post. I like Chelsea. I made the thread originally because I was just curious as to why such an apparently logical move was causing such disagreement, so I thought there might be some steadfast reason for opposition. It seems not. Mid-table Premiership finances, awesome atmosphere, good views from all seats, better access to facilities, opposing fan’s envy, safer, better exits etc etc even p1ssing in toilets that don’t feel like a prison is nice. Filbert Street was our dump, but all dumps need to be flushed eventually. Disgusting, doesn’t altogether contradict my impression of members of the hysterical “SAVE THE BRIDGE†camp though.

Already explained the dangers of overbearing “sentiments†in my first post. Proves a lot in terms of how demand for seats is met by supply of seats is reflected in price.I already explained why Arsenal’s new stadium situation is not comparable to the Chelsea’s potential stadium in my post at the bottom of the first page. HA Already explained in my first post and in my profile. You think after all this he’ll up and leave before the new stadium is completed? You’d rather wait it out until potentially less trustworthy owners come in and recreate the current land situation, when it’s unlikely you’ll be in anywhere near as strong a position financially to build a magnificent new stadium, or they’ll care as much about the club or be easier to negotiate with than Roman?

Which is partly why a move is needed? Like it's been said before, it comes down to whether you trust Abramovich and the board these days. If you think Abramovich is going to sh*t all over the legacy he's built up over the past few years and this board are as incompetent as the board that nearly sent the club under all those years ago, then I guess don't sell. And never leave your house again lest lightning strike a tree and it falls on you. It's simple economics. If you want evidence:http://money.aol.co.uk/2012/06/08/the-premier-league-season-ticket-index-2012-13/ May just be season tickets but looking at the five most expensive, I see the worst club is paying off its debts, the other 4 are all clubs that have outgrown their current stadiums and are looking to move. The cheapest 5 are clubs that either already have large stadiums with no debts attached or have stadiums that already satisfy modest support. Manchester United were also notoriously cheap before the Glazers came in and saddled them with debt. Seems a little “sad†yourself that you’re trying to start a slanging match to be honest. No I’m not thinking of making Chelsea my first team, no Leicester are not a boring side to support right now as you imply. Is that enough of a response or do I need to say “you’re a glory hunter†and then we’ll fill up 5 pages of pointless back and forth nonsense?

I understand what you mean, although it does seem a bit of a petty reason to base voting "no" on and contradicts what you say about "not wanting a penny". Wasn't having your names "remembered" on a walkway or something similar offered? Don't you think that would be easier to achieve in a larger stadium where the club can better afford to lower certain prices? Arsenal is a completely different scenario. They have borrowed large amounts of money to pay for the stadium, and consequently have had to raise ticket prices in order to pay off these debts. Chelsea's would rely much less on loans, having the backing of Abramovich and the sale of the highly lucrative Stamford Bridge land, so more likely simple economics will come into play and ticket prices will fall as demand is satisfied more.

The defensive situation of the squad confuses me a little. Assumably there is one RB coming, so technically the squad has 4 CBs, and will have 2 RBs. However, one of the CBs still plays RB better than either of the two actual RBs, so really there are 3 CBs and 3 RBs. This can't be right long term?

You're being a bit overly downbeat. The Americans arn't stupid enough to not take the friendly results with a pinch of salt. They saw Chelsea beat Seattle in a high scoring game, score a dramatic late equaliser against PSG, and lose dramatically do their "All-Star" team in a high scoring game, AC Milan didn't exactly play brilliantly enough to make them all jump ship to the fanclub of a team that doesn't even speak their language. Commercially it was a very good trip. Don't you know anything about Americans?

There are no problems with players taking their opponents on if it is the correct thing to do. No matter how you try to dress it up, showboating and risking giving the ball away is another matter entirely. I saw Neymar try to take on the entire opposing defence when passing would have opened up the opportunity much better too many times to accept that his tendencies are positive for the team. The thing about being physically inferior is you have to have the perfect attitude to go with it, and push back with twice the effort of the stronger player who is trying to bully you. We know Messi, Mata, Silva etc have this, but whether Neymar does is long debated point. Maybe he can do this in a one-off match, but week after week? Something about him reminds me of Robinho. Perhaps I should have been clearer with what I meant by "false no9". By this I meant that he is up front on his own, whilst very rarely actually being in the typical centre forward position, more dropping back to playmake most of the time. The examples you have given involves Rooney, who has a much more typical forward approach than Neymar and certainly hogs the penalty box more, Van Persie, who is definitely not a "false no9", and Suarez, the only legitimate example, but who mostly plays alongside another forward, and when he doesn't his (lack of) goalscoring speaks for itself.

Apologies, I didn't know Mike Carefree meant, and therefore I thought your post was mocking Leicester as opposed to correcting him. hehe. If I was doing that then I'd like to think I'd be a bit cleverer than calling myself the "Fox", then kicking down the door and yelling about a stadium.

Seemed like almost every time he got the ball he went on a little run as opposed to passing it off to someone in a better position. You just have to look at the width of his arms to know he is weak, he strikes me as (an allbeit better) Robinho v2, and would suffer in the Premier League for the same reasons. Agreed it's a bit of a non-point though, Barcelona have earmarked him as a young David Villa, I don't think Abramovich would lavish another £40m on him in what would be a luxury signing (false no9s don't work in the Premier League and there is already Hazard, Marin etc queuing up for the left forward spot), and he has already turned down the only other club that would want him at his price, Manchester City.

Neymar wouldn't fit in. He struck me as selfish a majority of the time, seems to have an ego, and is too lightweight for the Premier League. He's as good as a Barcelona player.

Was I supposed to pretend? The problem is you tend to have to move fast when purchasing locations in London, having to wait to wrangle back control of Stamford Bridge from CPO before making a bid for a location is detrimental, as is the likelihood of a failed vote by CPO. Whether or not you believe the club may be moved to somewhere daft like Stratford comes down to whether not not you trust Abramovich. Of all the clubs that have built and moved into new stadiums recently, I don't know any of those where the new location of the move has been controversial. I don't see a particular reason why Chelsea would be the first to scheme this.

Come September 1st I'm 100% sure this transfer will have gone through. Chelsea are the only club willing to pay the money to bring him here, with PSG apparently already finished in their shopping for strikers and with Hulk himself knocking them back, so Abramovich is willing to bide his time. Even more so with Hulk wanting to leave Porto (it doesn't hurt that right now he is experiencing the upgrade in stadia UK is on Portugal and having seen Brazil's brightest young star already walk through those bright Blue doors). Porto likewise are willing to bide their time, they have him down on a long contract and are under no financial obligation to sell him. They are resigned to letting him go, but in no hurry. I think the key is that Ambramovich really, really wants him. He sees him as not just a perfect fit for the Chelsea squad, but also the focal point for his financial assault on Asia later this year. The interest in "Hulk" as he powers around the World Club Cup final in Japan will not do too badly for Chelsea's Asian support at all. There is a stalemate at fee, and it may go down to the wire, but one way or another one party will budge before the end of the transfer window; the forces putting this move together are too great.