Rag

I'd rather we gave our current players the chance first.

This signing isn't football related. To say it stinks is an understatement.

Cech Ivanovic - Carvalho - Terry - Cole Makelele - Mata - Lampard - Essien - Cole Drogba

It's a dead heat. United have spent less and look more likely of winning more in the future atm.

For a 31yr old player who (if you watched any of his final season for Barca) was clearly past his best, making him at the time our 5th highest earner on £6m a year. It's hardly like he set the world on fire while here

One good season and a Youtube video, hardly a great return for £17.6m. If we're basing these lists on wether a player (as an individual) deserves to called a flop, then no, Crespo doesn't deserve to be on here. If you're basing it on them being the right signing, made for the right reasons then he was a poor signing by the club. we went to Inter for Vieri and came back with a player that had never wanted to play in the EPL who then spent three and a half season back on loan to Seria A clubs with Chelsea picking up part of his salary and leaving at the end of his contract for nothing.

You don't need a crystal ball, just managers and decent scouts deciding who comes into the club. Torres had absurdly risky signing written all over him, as did Sheva, Veron and Deco. SWP was an extremely over inflated transfer that any sensible club would have walked away from, Zhirkov was signed (allegedly) because the owner took a fancy to him when there was no real place for him in the team. The signing of Benayoun was just pointless. That with the exception of Deco and SWP they were all transfers made against the desires of the managers at the time speaks volumes.

If you can't insult people on the Internet, where can you? As for Torres, for me he represents all that is currently wrong with Chelsea, he is Roman and the boards Avatar on the pitch, nothing to do with the man, just unfortunate. He did take the cheque though.

There's is a bearded Russian gangster who sits in the stands making sure people stay 'safe' as long as Torres plays. Expect to see Torres back next match.

You could say the same about the manager...

You can't score two on your debut and not get MoM so Ba for me.

Would have liked another look at Marin in a cup game, other than that, It's a strong side and depending on how well Ba settles in, has a few goals in it.

I wouldn't say I'm excited about Ba, but it's a marked improvement from the state of shock and disbelief I felt after we signed Torres. Good sign at the money, especially during silly season and despite some rumours he seems to have dealt with it all very professionally. Think hell go on to make a great second striker once we sign a second striker for him to play with.

Aye, and looking at the lists it could have been done for about, £350m less. Success does not justify a lot of frankly absurd transfers. How much could we have won and for how much if he didn't interfere.

What about a player/couch deal? There can't be many better players for the young players to learn from than Frank, not just for his football ability but he's an intelligent fella and a good role model, both as a person and what it is to be a Chelsea player. I can't help but feel RA wants the players looking up to him and no one else, Lamps has gone on record that he's willing to take a hefty pay cut, he can still do the business on the pitch better than any squad player in the team and he's always struck me as being grounded enough to be reasonable.

No Crespo? I think he has to be on here, sure he had a good enough scoring record, but he only played one and a half seasons of a five year contract and the circumstances of his signing are so typical of the RA era. Sidwell doesn't belong on the list though, he was a good bit of business, in for free and out for £5m. For me it's: Torres Shevchenko Veron Mutu Crespo Bosingwa Kezman Zhirkov Deco Benayoun Shaun Whright-Phillips SWP and Zhirkov make the list as they were just bad business, not for anything they did or didn't do. Doing that list and reading others has brought back into mind just how much the Russian has wasted through poor decision making and listening to his 'mates' the agents, there's £201m there alone and I can think of a few more deserving names that would get that figure up to £250m. Considering most of those signings were made by the board/owner against the managers desire and the cost of then sacking said managers, the figure is really closer to £350m, but yet we as fans are made to feel indebted to someone who is all said and done, an idiot with money.

Isn't Piss Poor Pizarro still cutting defences apart in the Bundasliga? One thing I've realised is you can never compare leagues, and if you can, it offers no certainties. Better to look at the team (that is desperate for a point man, someone who can hold the ball up and challenge in the air) and go from their. Higuain has been mentioned (whom would be the best bet for the money) other than that, its the likes of Cavani and Falcoa who won't be cheap. If City move for a striker in January I honestly think Dzeko would be a good buy.

Marin needs time to bed in, you can have all the top draw midfielders in the world but if you've got a striker/forward that doesn't even bother the opponents defence, they are going to be up against it, more so when you take the two best attacking mids out of the equation, that and turnbull/bertrand in defence and no wonder the team looked out of sorts. I've got nothing against any of the players who played tonight (other than Torres who I've just given up all hope on) but you cannot put five players who have barely been playing regularly together for four months on behind a striker who spends most of the match wondering around lost and expect to beat anybody.

There is no such thing as an easy match, but what you don't do is play a second string team in a home derby match when you need points to keep in touch with the leaders and away from the chasing pack.

You're right, I reckon Torres has probably got premature ejaculation down to a fine art, the amount of times he spunks it.

This result pretty much sums up Chelsea right about now. Arrogance, incompetence and pig headedness in equal measures. I'd love to sit in on a board meeting when the tactic of continually playing Torres for 90 minutes in the hope he stops playing sh*t is being discussed, it must happen every week. Even with no other strikers there were better options in the team.

Jesus wept

Don't we have a ball boy we can throw on in place of Torres? How much this team is missing Mata, it's embarrassing.

Talksport talk sh*te, it's not the first time we've been linked to Jones and nothing ever comes of it. I'm sure given our recent dealings Strurridge wouldn't have been let go unless the club had some decent options, the Ba negotiations just being one (potentially cost effective) avenue,

Wasn't negioation with Cahill 'protracted'? I'm pretty sure with all the interest in Ba's cheap release fee no agent is going to take the first offer that comes his way and Ba doesn't strike me as having any one club in mind.