1 hour ago, Nibs said:

When Costa is the beast of a player he was early on in the season, then fair enough. But the Costa we have had since the turn of the year - sorry, I would swap Lukaku for him all day long. 

Have to admit to doing an about turn on Lukaku and more than once. Thought he was decent and was gutted when Jose got rid of him. Then thought it was a good decision as I thought he might not be top level and looked lazy and cumbersome at times. Although he still has bad games, I haven't seen him look anything as bad as Costa did against Utd the other night. At 23, he should continue to improve and he could well go on to eclipse Costa. Think he will benefit from playing with the likes of Hazard, Fabregas and Pedro and even try playing him and Bats together. He also misses very few games (injury or suspension).

So I would be all for replacing Costa with Lukaku in the summer. 

Can't agree.

Costa for me is a far superior player than Lukaku. He is going through a poor spell just now but is still scoring goals, no player is on top form the whole season. Hazard was getting it tight for a few weeks for not scoring or assisting. Costa will be back and no doubt fire us to the title, not many strikers in world football better than him this season.

I pray we keep him and avoid brining Lukaku back, I don't think he has what it takes to lead the line at a big club.

With lukaku, I dint want us spending above 50m for him. It'll be torres and pogba. I don't  think he'd be able to live up the price tag. 

I think there is a lot of upside in replacing Costa with Lukaku this summer. First of all a lot younger and also someone we could rely on staying here for many years if we do sign him. Unlike Costa who might throw his toys out at any given moment. No surprise his form fell of a cliff after he got that great offer from China and tried to force a move there in january for example.

Also just as good of a goalscorer in the league and with Harry Kane out for a period i think he's on his way to the golden boot this season. Thats impressive for a team like Everton.
 

Said it several times before and will say it again, just not Chelsea calibre, especially mentally. He might score in all the thrashing a but we can never expect him to single handedly pull out wins when we play poorly like Costa has done. The main advantage Costa has over Lukaku is his humility. Look at the difference in their celebrations. Costa's is just passion and joy whereas Lukaku's are "of course, what else would you expect of me". I know who I'd rather have in my team.

35 minutes ago, Chelsbear said:

Can't agree.

Costa for me is a far superior player than Lukaku. He is going through a poor spell just now but is still scoring goals, no player is on top form the whole season. Hazard was getting it tight for a few weeks for not scoring or assisting. Costa will be back and no doubt fire us to the title, not many strikers in world football better than him this season.

I pray we keep him and avoid brining Lukaku back, I don't think he has what it takes to lead the line at a big club.

We'll have to agree to disagree and to be honest, a while back I would have totally agreed with your stance. But I think Lukaku is improving all the time. I wouldn't agree that Costa is FAR superior. At this stage he will have the edge due to his experience and playing more against top sides in the CL etc but Lukaku will gain that with us and I have seen BOTH totally destroy defences.

Since January and the penalty miss against Liverpool, I don't like what I've seen from Costa. Sure it might just be a blip but his display and whole persona in the last couple of games has been dreadful.

 

1 hour ago, Ernie_blue said:

Benzema is top draw, IMO better than Costa. I think he would flourish at a club where he is the main man. Problem at Real is Ronaldo now isn't the same player so Benzema seems to be scapegoat and generally always has been. Put on the wing, played with Ronaldo up front. Zidane tinkers more than Ranieri. He seems to do better when Ronaldo isn't there. 

If there was any chance of getting him i would in a flash. 

I don't massively rate Benzema myself. Isn't he going to prison anyway? 

We HAVE to bring him back. In less than a year of working with a proper coach at club level, and possibly with Henry at international level, he has improved dramatically.

People slate him for being a flat track bully while forgetting being a flat track bully is what has us 10 points clear at the top of the league!! 2.8 points a game against the sides from 7th-20th.

I think it is more likely than not that Costa will move in the summer. If he does I would replace him with Lukaku AND Llorente.

Also let's not forget that even if Costa were to stay, he's had a lot of recovery time between games this season and been almost injury-free. However, in recent years he's ALWAYS had injury (specifically groin) problems when european football has been in his schedule. So really, we need Lukaku no matter what.

45 minutes ago, Bobbywoodhogan said:

I don't massively rate Benzema myself. Isn't he going to prison anyway? 

Oh yeah the whole blackmailing scandal. That seems like ages ago now. Has it's even gone to court yet?

Benzema is probably the filthiest player in top football today. Shady as hell and by all accounts a pretty disgusting guy.

Thankfully he'll never come near Chelsea.

I like Lukaku, I think it's got to the point now where Lukuka will match Costa for goals in a season. That's even him being at Everton and Costa in a better team. I believe Conte will help Lukaku develop into an even better player.

I still think Costa would of gone last summer if we signed another forward. I think the same will happen again this summer. Maybe Batman will be offered in exchange to cover some of the fee.

I really like Morata and I do think either Benzema or Morata could be tempted away. Depends who Zidane prefers. I like Lacazette, Icardi, Belotti aswell but they are a little bit of risk.

40 minutes ago, Ernie_blue said:

Oh yeah the whole blackmailing scandal. That seems like ages ago now. Has it's even gone to court yet?

I'm not sure it's all gone a bit quiet 

4 hours ago, Nibs said:

When Costa is the beast of a player he was early on in the season, then fair enough. But the Costa we have had since the turn of the year - sorry, I would swap Lukaku for him all day long. 

Have to admit to doing an about turn on Lukaku and more than once. Thought he was decent and was gutted when Jose got rid of him. Then thought it was a good decision as I thought he might not be top level and looked lazy and cumbersome at times. Although he still has bad games, I haven't seen him look anything as bad as Costa did against Utd the other night. At 23, he should continue to improve and he could well go on to eclipse Costa. Think he will benefit from playing with the likes of Hazard, Fabregas and Pedro and even try playing him and Bats together. He also misses very few games (injury or suspension).

So I would be all for replacing Costa with Lukaku in the summer. 

Against us?

6 minutes ago, Argo said:

Against us?

Still wouldn't say he was as bad or as petulant as Costa was on Monday night. The whole Everton team were poor against us and we were on fire that day.

Don't forget last seasons FA cup tie where Lukaku completely bossed our defence and scored both their goals in the 2-0 (a match in which Costa was dismissed!!)

 

Would rather throw 85 mill at Spuds for Kane, or better yet 150 mill for Kane and Ali 

31 minutes ago, barak81 said:

Would rather throw 85 mill at Spuds for Kane, or better yet 150 mill for Kane and Ali 

But Barak, we have every chance of getting Lukaku - we have ZERO chance of getting Kane (or Ali)!

6 minutes ago, Nibs said:

But Barak, we have every chance of getting Lukaku - we have ZERO chance of getting Kane (or Ali)!

Would it not just be worthit for the sh*ts and giggles of it, at the very least it may distract and turn a couple of heads 

Kane and Alli are not coming to Chelsea at any point.

Lukaku we might lure but we need Costa out. I agree with most here Costa is probably off after this season so everything points to this signing.

In many ways Costa is better not least because of his experience. Luk has no or little european football under his belt. Luk is also a bit of an arsehole.. However I think he is an good option.

4 hours ago, ashwin said:

Said it several times before and will say it again, just not Chelsea calibre, especially mentally. He might score in all the thrashing a but we can never expect him to single handedly pull out wins when we play poorly like Costa has done. The main advantage Costa has over Lukaku is his humility. Look at the difference in their celebrations. Costa's is just passion and joy whereas Lukaku's are "of course, what else would you expect of me". I know who I'd rather have in my team.

I don't think the way a player celebrates means anything. Henry used to celebrate like a big head too and he's one of the best strikers the Premier League has ever seen. Ronaldo is the same now too.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/03/15/chelsea-considering-100m-bid-everton-duoromelu-lukaku-ross-barkley/

Matt Law writing we are considering both Lukaku and Ross Barkley.
He also says Lukaku prefers us as his next destination.

Ross Barkley is interesting too. In 2017 he's been very good but he's never really reached his full potential yet. Too me he looks like a player for 3-5-2 though so that might be a hint as to what Conte wants to do over the summer. In a midfield two he isn't a good fit.

I don't see where Ross Barkley would fit into our system 

15 minutes ago, Bobbywoodhogan said:

I don't see where Ross Barkley would fit into our system 

And too inconsistent.

5 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

I don't think the way a player celebrates means anything. Henry used to celebrate like a big head too and he's one of the best strikers the Premier League has ever seen. Ronaldo is the same now too.

Yes but that's Ronaldo, he IS one of the (if not the) best in the world. Henry had muted celebrations which were never as arrogant as Lukaku. And he is one of the greatest Prem strikers ever.

Lukaku's head is too big to allow him to achieve what they have. He has the physical and technical ability certainly but is too full of himself.

In my opinion :)

Icardi? Belotti? Haven't seen them play but have obviously heard good things. 

I guess any move for a big name striker will probably be dependent on Costa,  as much as I would love to have 2 top strikers at the club.

If Costa wants to leave I think we should try and use him to get griezmann, then replace him with a the best we get.

Hazard and griezmann supporting any of lukaku, aubemayang, morata, Icardi, or lacazette would strengthen us to compete with the best in Europe.  

Costa has proved he can do it in the big games...I like Lukaku and we treated him like sh*t first time around...but he rarely scores against the best sides...remember a stat recently that he's got something like three goals in last 30 league games against the top four or six

Edited March 15, 20179 yr by The Brit