I agree, but it seems (or, seemed) to be the clubs plan for him. Personally, I think he's good enough for us now.

I'm also a fan of Fellaini. Either him or Modric (at no more than £20m) would complete our midfield for next season.

Hazard, possibly, having his medical today.

Now been confirmed by the club website that he has agreed terms with the club.

He is officially joining Chelsea.

I know size doesn't matter..at least that's what my wife always tells me. But if we signed Modric we would have a very small midfield. Mata, Hazard, Marin and Modric, we would only need Sleepy, Dopey and Bashful to make up the seven.

Don't worry , having a small midfield doesn't seem to have held Barca back much .

Glad that Hazard is finally official. Diddnt get to see much of him against England, but i think he looked pretty lively and im sure he will trouble premier league defences. Seemed very pacy and also had a good cross on him, something we have lacked enormously. Hope he turns out to be a brilliant signing. Will be good to see how Mata and Hazard will operate next season, Torres should start scoring freely with service from them.

I hope so!If that doesnt start him scoring dont think anything well.Quite impressed with him sat.May not been an amazing performance that it seemed everyone was expecting but in a meanliess match..meh!Wait for the real thing

I didn't think he was outstanding. The Belgian players that caught my eye were Mertens (despite the stupid push in the back on Cahill) and Fellaini.
But that doesn't bother me, even the mighty Messi has only recently started to impress for Argentina.

If rumours are correct, and Hulk is on the way, will that complete our signings of attacking players ? We have Sturridge and Lukaku (who has only just turned 19 !) and Malouda is still on the books. Then there's the excellent Ramires, and Meireles ( who improved towards the end of last season)
Do we need another established defensive midfield player, with doubts about Essien ? It's true, Mikel had probably his best period ever towards the end of the season, but are we confident he has finally turned the corner and become the player we always hoped he would be ?
Then there's the continuing problem at RB. Rumour has it we are going for Van der Wiel. But I've heard Dutch fans say that he is not even the best RB at Ajax..another Bosingwa ?

I think we should be ok going forward, i dont even think Hulk is a necessary signing, IMO, but it seems we are going to sign him.

I think we could do with another central midfielder. Lampard is getting older and probably only has 1 or 2 seasons left in him at the highest level, so we do need a long term replacement for him. Also big question marks about Essien and Merieles, so our centre of midfield is not looking the best. Although Mikel and Ramires looked class in the CL last season, so they could end up being our 2 midfielders behind the front 4. I still think we should go for Modric. He is most likely willing to leave now and Spurs will find it difficult to force him to stay for another season when he wanted to leave last summer. Although if Essien regains form when we dont really need another CM, 4 should be enough. I expect Lampard to play a lot but i dont think he will start every game anymore given than he is 34 now.

I also agree we need a RB as Bosingwa left, not sure if we need to sign a big name for the position though, we could just go for a backup to Ivanovic who will be our starting RB. But we definitely need someone to cover for him atleast. Not sure if trying to sign a big RB like Dani Alves is really needed.

That seems a fair assessment. We have enough options going foward, with or without Hulk.
But I would still love to see us sign a commanding midfield ballwinner, a Patrick Vieira "type". A big ask I know, players like that don't grow on trees.
That's why I was pleased to hear we might be interested in Fellaini, he's not quite a midfield "destroyer" but there's a lot to his game that I like.
I agree with you about the RB position, and don't want us to throw money away on another player who is great going foward but goes missing when it comes to defence. We might as well have kept Bosingwa. I was very impressed with Zabaleta at Man City, but they are certainly not going to sell.

I would be very happy with Fellaini or Modric, both would be top signings. We would have a strong belgian component to our team, with Fellaini, Hazard, Lukaku and De Bruyne! I was surprised to see the Belgians basically use Fellaini as a striker at times against England, i think that was their main problem, they seemed to lack a proper striker and i did wonder why Lukaku wasnt playing. I guess its difficult to play a striker whos been in the reserves all season though. Lukaku should go out on loan imo, another season in the reserves wont help him, and i think Torres and Sturridge will be ahead of him in the pecking order.

Yes, they certainly lacked a striker..they basically lined up 4-6-0, so it's little wonder they had loads of possession. I suppose Dembélé was meant to be considered their main striker, but he's more of an attacking midfielder in my opinion. Fellaini is very versatile, he can even play as a central defender if needed.
I thought Lukaku looked lively in the short time he was on. Ashamed to say I was ready to punch the air when it looked as if he had beat the off-side trap towards the end. Shows I'm more club than country.

Very true, although i am Scottish so i was rooting for the Belgians anyway

The good thing with our new 4231 formation is that its very adaptable, we can quite easily switch to 433 and 451 in a matter of seconds, which makes the formation a great choice imo. It also gives a lot of attacking options, and i am a great fan of using it. Its clear that we are trying to become a very attacking team, but as we saw from our last season our main strength is our defence. I hope whoever is the manager makes sure our defence is solid, and the attackers must play their part in defending at times. It will be interesting to see whether Hazard, Mata, Hulk(?) and Sturridge will put in defensive shifts. I think Mata will but Sturridge and Hazard will be poor defensively imo. The one good thing with Kalou and Malouda is that they put in good defensive shifts, even if they are not too creative going forward. For that reason alone, keeping Malouda may be a good idea.

One of the reasons I'm a bit dubious about going for Modric is that we now have two world class play-makers. An embarrassment or riches is great, but it might be difficult to keep Mata, Hazard and Modric happy. Of course you could play all three, but as I said half-jokingly in a previous post, they are all a bit small, lightweight, and not particularly fond of defending.
As Zico quite rightly pointed out, it doesn't bother Barcelona. But one of the things I admire most about them is the way they defend from the front. Once they lose possession everyone concentrates on getting that ball back, they close down the opposition and deny them space.
Torres will track back, but we don't really want him to do so, and the word defending might as well be in a foreign language as far as Sturridge is concerned. I can't see Mata or Hazard doing their bit, but to give him his due, Modric does seem willing to put in a stint.
Of course a new manager, or our current one, may be able to get our creative players into the Barca frame of mind. It's not rocket science really..lose possession of the ball and it's everyone's job to work their socks off to get it back.

Would much rather Fellani than Modric.

Community Shield - Villa Park - 12 August
Super Cup - Monte Carlo - 31 August
World Club Cup - Japan - 6-16 Dec


Busy busy busy!!

So far away

We have the Euros and pre-season matches to occupy us.

And get a manager

Not impressed at all with van der Wiel today.

Yeah he was pretty crap, but to be fair, the whole team was a bit flat today. It's only the first game so he still has time to pick up some form..........................................................................................(hopefully).

I see that the club were not successful in their bid to move to the Power Station
That's a real shame and a big blow because i have no idea where they go from here in regards to having a better stadium.

Likely our last chance to move from Stamford Bridge. No idea what will happen now.

Maybe, but I'm not impressed with what I've read about him either - he sounds just like Bosingwa


Romeu the latest player to speak about a lack of playing time

Blimey, this thread is quiet. Apologies for my absence, I mainly post on football forums at the moment.

So, rumours that RDM will get a minimum of a one year contract. I, for one, think he deserves at least that. To help us get the CL? He deserves that respect from the Club and the fans.

Torres not starting today, but I am sure he will play a part in the next 3 games, really hope he has a confidence building tournament.

Even though they didn't win, though Meireles had a pretty decent game yesterday. Thank God the hair has gone!!