Okay, say events at Stamford Bridge took place 10 years later than they did. Imagine we were a mid table team until the late 2000s, early 2010s.

June 2013: Roman Abramovich has just purchased fourth-placed Chelsea, which had beaten Liverpool 2-1 on the final day of the 2012-13 season. If we had gone about spending the same way we did back at the start of the 2003-04 season, what would our team look like for our first Champions League game against Slovan Bratislava, the Slovak champion of 2012-13. (MSK Zilina won in 2002-03 and we faced it first)

June 6: Veteran right back Paulo Ferreira leaves. (Albert Ferrer)

July 1: Chelsea makes the acquisition of two goalkeepers. Ben Wilson joins from Sunderland and Christian Pugioni from Chievo. (Jurgen Macho and Marco Ambrosio)

July 15: West Ham United's young right back Leo Chambers joins Chelsea. (Glen Johnson)

July 16: Chelsea then signs Asier Illaramendi from Real Madrid. (Geremi)

July 21: After months of speculation, Southampton left back Luke Shaw completes his move to Chelsea (Wayne Bridge). On the same day, the Blues break their transfer record for Blackburn Rovers winger Fabio Nunes, paying £17 million (Damien Duff).

August 6: With preparations for the season well and truly underway, Chelsea signs another West Ham player, this time midfielder Mohamed Diamé (Joe Cole). Again, the Blues strike twice on the same day, completing a deal for Manchester United midfielder Anderson (Juan Sebastian Veron).

August 12: Parma striker Antonio Cassano joins Chelsea (Adrian Mutu). Tomorrow is the first game of the Abramovich era, with Chelsea travelling to Slovakia.

August 13: Manager Javier Aguirre, who Chelsea had appointed in 2010 from Atletico Madrid (Claudio Ranieri) names his starting 11 for the game against Bratislava:

Petr Cech (Cudicini...just imagine he isn't as good as he is and we could afford him)

Leo Chambers

John Terry (Desailly)

Nathan Aké (Terry...haha)

Luke Shaw

Anderson

Illaramendi

Lampard (himself)

Lucas Piazon (Forssell)

Demba Ba (Gudjohnsen)

Chelsea marches on to a 2-0 win thanks to a goal from Demba Ba and a freak own goal from Milos Josmiov (Michal Drahno).

Meanwhile, the search for talent continues:

August 25: Bordeaux midfielder Gregory Sertic joins the club and is immediately loaned to Portsmouth (Alexei Smertin).

August 26: Chelsea buys big, signing Internazionale striker Rodrigo Palacio (Hernan Crespo).

August 29: Veteran goalkeeper Brad Friedel signs for the club, leaving Tottenham Hotspur, with the Blues paying £500,000. (Neil Sullivan)

August 31: A massive signing from Real Madrid sees defensive midfielder Xabi Alonso join Chelsea on transfer deadline day (Claude Makelele).

In between transfers, Chelsea had made an impressive start to the campaign, beating Liverpool 2-1 at Anfield. Anderson scored on his debut before a controversial Luis Suarez penalty gave the Reds an equaliser (Owen's infamous retaken penalty). Former Leeds striker Jermaine Beckford found a way through for Chelsea late on to win the game.

Chelsea makes one addition during the winter transfer window, signing promising Charlton Athletic midfielder Dale Stephens (Scott Parker).

Edited December 19, 201312 yr by BellettiBullet

Those drugs your on must be good ;-)

This whole thing only took me 10 minutes to write. Not much research was needed at all. So the theory "too much time on his hands" can't be used here...and there's no drugs, I'm just crazy. My favourite player of all-time is Juliano Belletti after all ;)

Yep. Clinically insane. That's the term. 😄

Belletti...

It's a clever post relating the players we bought to the equivalent players now but I don't think we would be going for those targets now.

Yeah, guess, we'll never know.

No I think we would know, I think if you plot the history of what would have been, keep in mind that most of the people on this site wouldn't have heard of Chelsea yet.  Then keep in mind that the SoBar would be the SoBar, therefore Bob would have fallen over when he left the pub before the game against Ipswich (they would have come good there's no doubt about that) on 13/02/2012.  His fall delaying the arrival of the Ipswich team bus meaning the game eventually got cancelled because the snow came down with 10 minutes to play.  That was the day the young right back you mentioned above was due to make his debut, but being a Chelsea fan he refused to play for West Ham until he knew the outcome of our match...........................................

 

What the fuk are you on about?

I could ask you the same question. I didn't get any of that...

That was sort of the point!

10 years back we were never a mid table team and 10 years furthur back we were still not a mid table team but at the start of the next 10 we were worse than mid table! i can still remember  boro putting us down in a play of! but i can remember shrooming in my youth and the summer of 90s happy pills but they still didn't make me think cobblers!!

If I was not so sober I would think I was Drunk reading that, the mind boggles!.

10 years back we were never a mid table team and 10 years furthur back we were still not a mid table team but at the start of the next 10 we were worse than mid table! i can still remember  boro putting us down in a play of! but i can remember shrooming in my youth and the summer of 90s happy pills but they still didn't make me think cobblers!!

I never said we were mid-table 10 years ago. Until the late 1990s we were. Under Hoddle, we never finished better than 11th. When Gullit came, things got better and under Vialli, we were around the top four, which was what I meant during the timeline. Sorry if I didn't word it properly.

If I was not so sober I would think I was Drunk reading that, the mind boggles!.

Haha. It's just a bit of fun. Thought I'd write something different since I'm new to the site.

No I think we would know, I think if you plot the history of what would have been, keep in mind that most of the people on this site wouldn't have heard of Chelsea yet.  Then keep in mind that the SoBar would be the SoBar, therefore Bob would have fallen over when he left the pub before the game against Ipswich (they would have come good there's no doubt about that) on 13/02/2012.  His fall delaying the arrival of the Ipswich team bus meaning the game eventually got cancelled because the snow came down with 10 minutes to play.  That was the day the young right back you mentioned above was due to make his debut, but being a Chelsea fan he refused to play for West Ham until he knew the outcome of our match...........................................

 

What the fuk are you on about?

That was sort of the point!

Yeah but what I wrote didn't make people think they were dyslexic though. Right..? Guys..? ;)

Yeah but what I wrote didn't make people think they were dyslexic though. Right..? Guys..? ;)

 

I'd quit while I was (barely) ahead if I was you mate.....

I'd quit while I was (barely) ahead if I was you mate.....

Settle down, BT. Was obviously joking.