maka_cdm

In essence... Batshuayi replaced with vardy Musonda replaced with mahrez/ lemar Luiz (if leaving) replaced with bonucci Kennedy replaced with sandro/ telles/ chilwell

I'd personally not mind many of the leicester players.. Mahrez, chilwell, vardy, maguire. Vardy since we need a PL ready second striker with workrate and pressing who can play on His Own.. No more false nine business. Not CL tied and english as well. Could give 2, 2.5 yrs of service by when tammy could take over. Mahrez for much needed creativity or else we are solely dependant on hazard (unless lemar/ carrascao is on board).

Bring christensen to the midfield, as starting with Both ampadu And scott is a risk, we might get runover in the midfield. Get JCS at the back. That I feel is how we should line up. Is there a CF in our U23 we can put on bench for this match? Subs eduardo, dujon, azpi, fab, Scott,pedro, U23 CF

Need to change the back line. 4 2 3 1 Bats Pedro. Haz. Musonda Baka luiz Kennedy. Rudiger. Christensen zappa Tbo Morata ampadu alonso from bench

Now with Terry in his last year and Cahill having an indifferent year we have possibly reached a state where there is no english player in our starting 11 - Not good news. We also continue to keep recruiting at youth level from Lat-am countries + first team foreign purchases. One good way to start building the english core in our squad is to link it with our youth development. We now have a U21 squad which formed the core of Eng U21, hence we should develop them to our first team/ squad players. I would love to see this team play in one of the friendlies to assess their condition- Blackman Aina- Tomori- JCS- Dasilva Chalobah RLC-Colkett Bamford- Palmer Solanke Add baker, brown, swift to that and we have a decent ENGLISH chelsea squad- Atleast 4-5 players from this group should be in our 25 for next year P.S. Other developmental 11 who need to be tested in preseason are: Collins Kalas- Miazga- Papy- Baba Moses- Hector- MvG- Kennedy Traore- Tammy

give a run at which position ? over whom ? Current Attack options (LW, RW, CAM): Hazard, Kennedy, Pedro, Willian, Traore, Oscar, RLC, Fab On Loan: Baker, Moses Moreover the chances are we may have a change in formation - 3-5-2 so the opportunities for attacking midfield is further less. Best if we sell him in La liga.

Well Roman has chosen people who helped shape a CFC squad which was successful in PL & CL for 8 yrs 2004-2012. In that period his wealth [transfer and wages] was directly responsible for bringing top players and upcoming talents to the team - Drogba, robben, ballack, essein, deco, carvalho, a.cole, ramires, luiz, mikel, mata, oscar,hazard and keeping Cech, Terry & Lamps at CFC. Only crib during this time was that the academy was not adding to the first team and Roman did get working on getting the academy in shape. Yes he did indulge in two marquee purchases - Sheva and Torres but that can be excused. So I wouldn't go ahead and say Roman or people he had placed trust in had belittled the club in any way till 2012. It is only after that things started to spiral out of control. Replacement of the old guard was done horribly. The identified guys were forced out. Drogba - Lukaku (Sold) Lampard - MvG (Loaned) A.cole - Bertrand (Sold) Jose was brought in knowing well that the old guard needs to be replaced, new core has to be built, be self sufficient in finances, style of play has to be flamboyant & youth needs to be integrated. Objectives which Jose found rather difficult to achieve in the 2.5 yr tenure. Roman even supported Jose to the point where sacking him was the only option left. Real problem seems to be lack of a director of football - someone who decides on the big picture. Emenalo has failed to demonstrate the credentials required for such a role till now, letting go of key players and replacing them with depth options. This has led to overall dilution of our squad strength - so much so that teams like newcastle, southampton and west ham seem to have similar squads. So roman just needs to get a director of football who will address the long term objectives (finance, youth etc) and work with the manager to implement the same.

If Costa & Lavezzi ( any links on this?) are in, then definitely Lukaku wouldn't want to be a third choice striker. He prefered not to be a 3rd striker behind a rusty etoo and youknowwho, no chance he would wait behind these two. So we will lose lukaku. Any options for a useful 3rd choice striker ?(Assuming torres is off as well) or do we trust in bamford till january and see later? Also if luiz is off to barca, javi martinez should definitely be tried in my opinion. Does provide necessary solidity to our midfield and can rotate with other lighter/ creative midfielders (oscar/ van ginkel/ josh) against park the bus opponents.

It is more interesting to see which members of the starting 11 will change for next season - GK Courtois In? LB New / azpi / bertie+pva / cole ? CB whether zouma / omeuro can replace Terry ? CM New / lamps + rami + mikel / luiz ? CF Costa & Lukaku ?

Certainly agree that oscar is not a replacement for mata. Mata was certainly capable of producing moments of magic a great through ball, assist etc to break down packed defences and provide other attacking midfielders scoring chances (bcoz our forward would not). I'm sure in matches against palace / sunderland he may have provided that extra quality to make the difference. He wasn't the CFC player of the year for two terms for no reason. But Jose wanted his midfield 3 to put a shift in favour of the creativity mata produces. Also not selling mata at that price would be a bad deal. In an ideal world would have loved mata to rotate with oscar but neither Mata nor Jose were very keen on the same given the circumstances - WC year & lure of regular starts at ManU, ManU offer, possible disenchant with Jose for keeping oscar in the pecking order above mata. All in all our AMs stacked more or less like this creativity: Mata > Oscar > Willian > Schurrle Workrate: Willian > Schurrle > Oscar > Mata So jose chose what he wanted. On the same lines I dont see piazon/ thorgan playing a big role at the bridge coming season. I think more likely to see traore being introduced to the 11.

I like the lineup for liverpool, but doubt if jose would give blackman a start against pool. Against atleti would prefer to replace rami with willian & schurrle/ torres on the wing and would be set.

Actually my bad, I have been trying to change the time since posting but couldn't figure out how to ... could you tell how to?

Sorry forgot about rami ... but frankly would be on the bench.. dont think he should start - his form of late has been ridiculous ( misplaced crosses, passes and bad fouls) willian would be an upgrade over him. The two strikers give different things to the side so should be Ok plus a) etoo at the bridge = good chance of goal b) Obviously a fit hazard is the first name on the teamsheet, but given his match fitness & possibility of Extra time (coz of 0-0) hazard from the bench for second half would not be bad.

Yet another "backs against the wall" performance in the first leg has given us a chance to finish this champions league SF at the bridge. With three stalwarts missing the game (terry, lamps, cech) will require tremendous focus to stay in the game and finish it when opportunities present themselves. Looking forward to the other senior pros like Cole, Cahill & Luiz to take the mantle and steer chelsea home. So what do you think mourinho would/ should start with? My opinion schwarzer azpi iva cah cole will luiz torres/Ba oscar schurrle etoo (if fit)/torres Subs Kalas ginkel Ba Hazard ake GK

But we have traditionally done well with such odds: players suspended, red cards, injuries all may lead to glory and cup success :) But without terry, lamps and cech who will captain the team at the bridge? cahill or luiz ?

May work, but would prefer van ginkel/ loftus-cheek for a deep lying playmaker, luiz in big matches, rami/chalaboah against other teams to play alongside matic. Do not see a particular need for buying another player for midfield. As for willian, I see him alternating with oscar for the no 10 role with hazard, schurrle & salah on the wings.

KDB, Oscar, Mata, Hazard, Moses and Piazon That is a set of AMs i would do with... start with haz - mata - kdb & oscar/lamp in the pivot with de rossi (prob.)/rami piazon & moses as cover for AM roles chalaboah & essien as cover for def pivot essentially kdb for yossi , piazon for marin, chalaboah for ake, essein for mikel & de rossi for luiz the midfielder.

Ogbonna would be a shrewd buy & aubemyang will be a good addition too ..but i doubt chelsea scouting team is looking for such players... strootman / fernandinho are indeed decent options but another cm decision would depend on the coach Present cm options are: luiz/obi/chalaboah - ram/ kdb/oscar, which does seem ok. If SFL stays - add him to the mix, so not much space until emenalo decides with luiz moving to cdm .... ogbonna can easily slot in aubemyang is a forward unlike any other we have and good addition if we fail to (offload torres & get falcao/ lewan in his place as our main striker). he would indeed be a better buy than schurrle in my opinion - fills a bigger need for the team at almost the same price or lower. We also get to hold onto KDB. So 20-25 M spend and get rid of dead wood - malouda, paulo,hilario, yossi, essein, kakuta. Marin & Josh - Prem League loan.

Despite the abt our former player ... I agree with the suggested team. might even try marin in place of yossi... paulo for JT Cech paulo ivan cahill bertie mikel ake moses lamps marin Torres yossi on after 60 min for lamps. Thus keeping key players fit for sunday azpi luiz JT cole (hopefully fit) ram mikel (didnt play this weekend) oscar mata haz ba

yes, possibly. Do you think club's expectations from torres and ba are the same? Please compare the amount we shelled (transfer fee) + the amount we are leaking (wages) when you talk about ba & torres. We wanted a talismanic forward to replace drogba - look what we got ??? Another point for Torres sympathisers - remember his rant after CL win !!! he complained and bi*ched about not being given the mantle ... & now after we give him what he wanted (Also bring the FSW as manager) - odd ok performances in europa league are not fans expect. For decent europa league performances we might as well bought shane long, zamora, dempsey etc... eh?

If possible i would even consider moses as a CF with Torres on bench. Other subs feruz & lalkovic, (for Oscar) saville ( paulo to LB, ivan to RB & saville at CB) mikel turnbull luiz Cech Ferreira Ivan Terry deen-conteh ake lamp oscar benayoun marin moses

you can easily play hazard as a forward in a diamond when both are available. As mentioned before we need options when going for 60 games a season ...

you can easily play hazard as a forward. I'm not asking to play this formation always .... you can try this when you are resting one of the AMs

Wouldn't complain with the above, but can do with less quid being spent. IMO one of benat / capoue would do, as both debruyne & oscar can play the cm role along with rami. we need cover for cdm (mikel/luiz). wouldnt mind ake for some league cup matches. draxler .. well would welcome a true blue winger but draxler is another no.10 and hence would prefer piazon staying than buying someone else to add to our assortment of no 10s Also with lewandowski, lukaku & Ba we can have 4-4-2 from time to time instead of obsessing with 4-2-3-1. that leaves less need for additional CAM. would love this as the first team.. Cech azpi luiz cahill cole capoue rami KDB/ Oscar mata/hazard lukaku/ba lewan Other subs: Terry ( Captain) Bertrand ( Left sided utlility player) Mikel Courtois ( Competition for Cech)

Of the lot on the "out" roster malouda, essein, kakuta, hilario, ferreira,benayoun & hutchinson have played no part this season for us. so replacing these guys with new players makes no sense ... just get rid of them. enuf. Affane, Davila, Lalkovic - these guys will continue to be on loan or decorate our reserves Issues - Turnbull & Torres. Turnbull - is English (have to keep this in mind - if we're losing lamps), but not solid enough to be backup to Cech . So do you buy someone ? Knowing that courtois will be back in a year or two... which good gk would want to join? Torres - Will RA accept his mistake and slog him off? Where do we dump him & for what? This will impact whether we will have to payoff his wages & whether we can utilize some money to get lewandowski. No other CF is required. CDM - capoue or any other proper cdm (not felliani, bender etc) to partner ramires/ kdb.