Jonty

JT at 34 playing every second of a championship winning teams campaign. Rio sitting on the bench of a team being relegated, propping up the table. Life is good.

It doesn't look like enough signatures on there for it to be the whole squad, i'm going to need to see evidence that Mikel has signed it before I make a bid.

On a more respectful note, today would have been George Best's 69th birthday, the best player to grace these shores?

Let's keep in mind this guy started in a World Cup Final. Although, for just 30 million pounds more, we can have a player whose biggest game in his career to date was spent watching Slippy G give the ball to Demba Ba.

Hart Clyne - Cahill - Jagielka - Bertrand Henderson - Wilshere Sterling - Barkley - Walcott Rooney Depressing that that is our strongest XI. edit: And can someone please tell me how Andros Townsend is STILL an England player?

From memory he has frequently complained every time Barca get knocked out of the CL, about other teams playing styles and even about the quality of pitches. A sore loser and a sh*t person, but a great player.

yes he may have won multiple la liga's, champions leagues and a world cup, but has he ever won a midweek game at the Brittania?

ah you're right, time does fly.

6 players for 3 positions (you forgot KDB) where frequent rotation is used vs 2 players for 1 position where we never rotate unless necessary, it's pretty even. Either way this is well off topic now, and as I said i'd prefer Griezmann over Sterling if they came at a similar price anyway.

Right, we chose to buy a reserve left back (keeping in mind we already had Bertrand at the time) instead of Griezmann who went for only 9 million quid more.

At least Real will win the Europa.

If we wanted him we should have bought him for half that amount like Atletico did last season. That being said, if they were available at the same price, i'd take Griezmann over Sterling. Either way anything over 30 million needs to be for world class talent, players that can individually win games and who stand up in the big moments. There's a reason that only Eden Hazard and Diego Costa have earned such large fees (and Torres who was that good at a time). Is Raheem Sterling that man? There's no evidence for that being the case other than a season spend riding the coattails of one of the worlds greatest players followed by a season being outshone by someone not deemed as good as Oscar by his country, who is usually identified as our own weak link.

Yes

At the least it looks like Cech and Drogba are leaving come the season end, possibly also Mikel, so theres no issue with squad room. Marco Reus would be available and probably cheaper as one example, that being said we have Cuadrado and Salah and surely 1 of them will play themselves into form given a run of games and a proper pre-season. Either way 30-35 million on Sterling is a robbery and i'd rather we dedicate that money to better targets.

(apologies that I keep replying to posts made a few pages ago, I don't check this thread frequently enough) I think the best way you can compare value for money is by looking at what we personally pay, as that for me is the most important standard. Sterling would most likely be the 2nd most expensive Chelsea player of all time (if his fee exceeds 32 million). If we use 30-35 million as a reasonable expectation for the price, that puts him in the same bracket as Diego Costa and Eden Hazard, and 10-12 million more than Willian, Mata and Oscar. It also makes him 10-12 million more than what we sold Schurrle for, just below what we sold Juan Mata for (the reigning two-time player of the year), 5-7m more than what we sold the hottest young striker in Europe for (Lukaku), and double what we sold KDB for, all of these fees being incurred in the last 18 months. Is that value for money? no. Can we do better in terms of value for money? Quite obviously.

I'm surprised at those figures myself, Liverpool and Arsenal fans outnumber Chels where I live 4:1.

Praying that Newcastle go down now.

Great news, only real sour point of the suspension (because for the most part it was just hilarious) was that he'd miss the start of next season, but now that that is cleared up it's business as usual, back to the celebrations!

If he came through the youth team he wouldn't be costing us an arm and a leg. His price is far more of an issue than quality for me, or should I say value for money.

Yet he hasn't gotten a single red card this season; less than Fabregas, Matic, Ivanovic and Dave.

LvG lost that game because, just like every other manager of a big team we've faced in the league this season, they got outwitted and out-thought by the greatest manager in the world.

Already spotted in Nice apparently, guess he just wanted an early holiday

The best part of that is that he calls him Jamy not once but twice.