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It was the Summer of 04


njegos

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I will never forget the Summer (Or was it Winter?) of 2004. I was a 15 year old kid living in Australia who hadnt had a chance to watch Chelsea play since 2001. I hadnt had a chance because Cable TV had bought the rights to the EPL and my dad was too stingy to fork out the $30 a month to allow me the opportunity. That all changed when we moved to a nicer area and he had an interest in the upcoming European Championships in Portugal. We bought a new couch, a new tv and for three weeks awoke at 3 am to watch the football. And what a tournament it turned out to be!! The stubborn Greeks who stunned all before them. The amazing Czechs who showed Europe how Football should be played. The Portuguese and Dutch with their mix of past and future World Class Legends. And the surprising exits of Italy, Germany and Spain in the group stages.

I totally forgot that club football exisited for these three weeks until i kept hearing the commentators speak about where players would be returning. It seemed that every team had a tremendous young talent that was leaving to a big European Club. Ide hear the Commentators talk about big Swede Ibrahimovic's pre contract with Juventus. Ide also be constantly reminded of the rumors linking 18 year old Rooney to Manchester United to join the even classier teeanger from Portugal, Christiano Ronaldo. However, one team kept getting brought up much more then others. The team I hadnt seen play since 2001, and who it seemed was buying the cream of the crop from this European Championship. This team was the mighty Chelsea! Unlike now where we seem to buy every Tom, Dick and Harry; The Summer of 2004 saw us buy three players who 12 months earlier most of the World hadnt heard of.

1) Arjen Robben (PSV and Holland) : Was a teenage sensation in the Dutch League but many people thought we didnt need him at Chelsea because we already had Damien Duff. He rocked up to EURO2004 and was alongside Ronaldo the best winger in the tournament.

2) Petr Cech (Rennes and Czech Republic) : Was a starting goalkeeper at 18 in the French League and an under 21s European Champion with the Czechs when he impressed us all as the best of his position at the tournament. Just like with Robben, people asked why we needed him when we had Cudicini? His performances answered all queries.

3) Ricardo Carvalho (Porto and Portugal) : Was the best Centre Back in Europe for Porto when they won the Champions League, and the best Centre Back at the Championships where Portugal reached the final.

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All three of these players played instrumental roles in Chelsea becoming a force in International Football, and all three players had seldom been heard of by our fans before they arrived. This had nothing to do with their ability, more with the average football supporters inabilty to look past the big names and search for the diamonds in the rough that could work to a teams strength. Whoever did the scouting that Summer has obviously been missing from Chelsea for the last few years because our purchases have been dire. We have not replaced veteran players with future stars, we have not invested in youth, and worst of all we have deliberately not brought in players to challenge for positions (Cech v Cudicini, Robben v Duff) as not to upset our established premodonnas.

Were in dire need of Transfer Plan Revolution. Who agrees?

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Not replaced veterans with future stars? Missed is signing Luis, ramires, courtois, piazon then. Missed us signing our best young prospects to long term contracts. Missed all the young players we are rumoured to be after.

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Agree with your sentiments to a degree njegos. But the question is whether they are out there. I think we've certainly bought someone who will equal Carvalho in his prime, and Courtois' reputation seems to suggest we have a quality player there too. We also shouldn't forget Matej Delac, who despite sitting on the bench at Vitesse last season is also highly rated.

The question is finding those creative forwards. Now others may disagree, but I think the period we played in 2004-05 primarily with Robben, Duff and Gudjohnsen as the front three is arguably the best football we've played here in my time and that includes the run-in two seasons ago where if we scored 5 we had a bad day. The interchanging between those three as well as Joe Cole was simply mesmerising to watch when it really got going. The first 30 minutes in THAT CL tie against Barca was as close to perfect as you'll ever see.

There are a lot of good wide men out there, but if we are to believe what filters down to us, there doesn't seem to be a real emphasis on wingplay at the club. There seems to be a bit of a focus on this tippy-tappy crap where possession is valued too much to take a man on and risk losing possession. I've said it many times before that I'd much prefer to watch Germany or the Dutch with their flying wingers and interchanging forwards than watch Spain or Barca play 8 million 1m passes. How people think that is football purity is beyond me. [/rant]

I actually think that even if we bought a bit of a rough diamond of an out and out dribbling winger even to just bring off the bench, it would preferable to what we have. I mentioned in the Alexis Sanchez thread about a young lad from Gladbach called Marco Reus who I think would be cheap and would tick all the boxes I'd require. But such a signing looks a forlorn hope at this stage.

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There are a lot of good wide men out there, but if we are to believe what filters down to us, there doesn't seem to be a real emphasis on wingplay at the club. There seems to be a bit of a focus on this tippy-tappy crap where possession is valued too much to take a man on and risk losing possession. I've said it many times before that I'd much prefer to watch Germany or the Dutch with their flying wingers and interchanging forwards than watch Spain or Barca play 8 million 1m passes. How people think that is football purity is beyond me. [/rant]

Exactly! As I've said on here many times- Barcelona are nowhere near as entertaining as they were under Rjikaard.

However, while they have lost some of their flair, they are the closest to technical and tactical perfection in recent history. They dominate games virtually from start to finish and consistently force their opponents, no matter the stature of club, to play to their liking, stopping other teams from keeping their gameplan. Since Guardiola took over only Real Madrid and Chelsea have halted the Barca machine for any considerable amount of time, and even when we played them it was more a case of matching them rather than outplaying them.

That said if you are trying to equate Barcelona's possession game with ours you'd be wrong. Barcelona score goals and create chances- lots of them- and not all of them down to individual brilliance. Xavi, Iniesta and Messi provide some amazing passes but what really drives the Barcelona and Spain team is the quality of movement off the ball. Currently they have taken the best of the Dutch (movement, skill, counter-attack) and Spanish (passing, valuing possession) schools of tactics. They "make the field small" when they lose the ball, putting heavy pressure on their opposition, and "make the field huge" when they have the ball, which is tactics 101 in any Dutch manual.

Now if you recall back to 2004 Jose Mourinho stated many times in his interview that he learned this same idea from Bobby Robson and Louis van Gaal and it was something he tried very hard to instil in the team. When we lost Robben and Duff lost his form, however, we only had one side of the equation- the defensive side- and we lost the ability to "make the field wider". We haven't regained that since.

In my opinion what makes Barcelona seem "superhuman" is that they have a system that gets an extra 5-10% out of some already very individually talented players, and that is precisely why they seem so hard to beat. Man for man they are comparable to Real Madrid, Chelsea, even City and United, but their system just gets that little bit extra out of their players.

AVB has been making all the right noises about this and that is why I have a lot of faith in him, even if we don't dip into the transfer market as the press claim we have to do.

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Most of what you say is true SC.

I still believe that the system won't turn Kalou into Robben or Sturridge into Duff. Although the fact that these players almost always attempt to play in front of the defence, coming inside, rather than attempting to get around the outside hasn't been helped by the system we've played particularly the past two seasons.

The big pitch idea can only be accomplished by purchases, as I said even if it gives us the option of stretching the play off the bench would be fine with me. There are plenty of players who fit the criteria required, particularly in Germany who don't play for big clubs and are attainable. This is a club with a fine tradition of flying wingers and I for one would love to see a return to that rather than forcing strikers into wide positions.

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Most of what you say is true SC.

I still believe that the system won't turn Kalou into Robben or Sturridge into Duff. Although the fact that these players almost always attempt to play in front of the defence, coming inside, rather than attempting to get around the outside hasn't been helped by the system we've played particularly the past two seasons.

The big pitch idea can only be accomplished by purchases, as I said even if it gives us the option of stretching the play off the bench would be fine with me. There are plenty of players who fit the criteria required, particularly in Germany who don't play for big clubs and are attainable. This is a club with a fine tradition of flying wingers and I for one would love to see a return to that rather than forcing strikers into wide positions.

Yeah, again, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Especially on the winger, I mean look at Porto; Gustavo Varela failed in Spain and was a converted fullback. He wasn't a particularly good dribbler or crosser but because he was lightning fast and would attack his man, he tended to be overmarked, leaving oodles of space for Falcao and Hulk.

Adam Johnson rumours sound promising, but I would even take Jesper Gronkjaer at the moment! As you say, we just need someone with the right skill set and a decent amount of quality, not necessarily a world beater but someone who will offer just something different. I thought Gokhan Tore or Gael Kakuta could fill that void in the squad, but Tore's gone (will be a world-class player in 2 years time, watch) and Kakuta is much better centrally.

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Yeah, again, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Especially on the winger, I mean look at Porto; Gustavo Varela failed in Spain and was a converted fullback. He wasn't a particularly good dribbler or crosser but because he was lightning fast and would attack his man, he tended to be overmarked, leaving oodles of space for Falcao and Hulk.

Adam Johnson rumours sound promising, but I would even take Jesper Gronkjaer at the moment! As you say, we just need someone with the right skill set and a decent amount of quality, not necessarily a world beater but someone who will offer just something different. I thought Gokhan Tore or Gael Kakuta could fill that void in the squad, but Tore's gone (will be a world-class player in 2 years time, watch) and Kakuta is much better centrally.

Its gonna be interesting to see what happens with Kakuta under AVB. He seems to be the kind of player AVB could make good use of, looking at the type of players he had at Porto. Obviously he will get a few weeks off after this tournament he`s at so I dont expect we will see him a the start of the season.

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I do agree we're lacking width and it's whats been costing us all these years.

Looking at our transfer record from the past few seasons; the only wingers (using that term very broadly) we've brought in have been Kalou, Malouda, Quaresma, and Zhirkov. None of them, with the exception of Malouda, have set the world alight playing out wide. I think we may have missed a trick with Gervinho, he is the quickest footballer I've ever seen, can finish and is a good dribbler to boot.

Of the current crop of names we're being linked with, I'd rather not see this De Bruyne sign for us. He's a bit unproven for me; the safer bet would be Eden Hazard but will Lille be willing to let him go having already lost one of their prize assets in Gervinho?

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I do agree we're lacking width and it's whats been costing us all these years.

Looking at our transfer record from the past few seasons; the only wingers (using that term very broadly) we've brought in have been Kalou, Malouda, Quaresma, and Zhirkov. None of them, with the exception of Malouda, have set the world alight playing out wide. I think we may have missed a trick with Gervinho, he is the quickest footballer I've ever seen, can finish and is a good dribbler to boot.

Of the current crop of names we're being linked with, I'd rather not see this De Bruyne sign for us. He's a bit unproven for me; the safer bet would be Eden Hazard but will Lille be willing to let him go having already lost one of their prize assets in Gervinho?

when at porto, quaresma was amazing with the ball at his feet, we never gave him the playing time or confidence for him to show his true potential in a chelsea shirt.

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when at porto, quaresma was amazing with the ball at his feet, we never gave him the playing time or confidence for him to show his true potential in a chelsea shirt.

He had enough chances to show us just how average he was though. And I think the way his career has gone since leaving us shows we got it right in not keeping him.

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Chelsea Megastore Away Shirt
Chelsea Megastore Away Shirt

Chelsea Megastore Away Shirt

I seem to remember him only starting one or two games. Was reasonable in his play from what I saw. I don't think Guus was a fan of his attitude though so we just kept him in the reserves. He would have played a big role if Scolari hadn't have been sacked.

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