So who are we linked with this week?

Glad to see the "hulk" rumors are dying down a bit. He is garbage.

The talk about resigning Nemanja Matic is hotting up - talk of £34m.

Stupid, if true.

That would be madness!

We sold him for nothing, why buy him back for £34 million?

If we cannot pay silly money for cavani, then why bother at all?

Supposed to be meeting regarding Cavani tomorrow. If Napoli aren't willing to accept anything less than the release clause we should just stick with what we have. Lewandowski's waiting for Bayern and Falcao has already gone...there's nobody else worth going after.

Aren't we still after Marco Van Ginkel?

We have an affiliation with Vitesse. Maybe that will give us some advantage over other clubs.

Could not agree more. We should not have a list of 5 or 6 players but a very short list of the positions we need. If we can not get them then we will make do with what we have. If what Jose said recently about the Sheva signing is correct we bought for buying sake and is always a mistake.

We currently have 4 of the most valuable players in Europe yes 5 would be nice but if it not the right player then we should save the cash for when the right one becomes available

Who are the four ?

Mata
Hazard
Oscar
Luiz

Tough start, Hull at home (or shouldn't I tempt fate?)

Yeah, the second game is a piece of cake, right?

United have a terrible run of fixtures to start.

This will really test what moyes and their fans are made of. We need to put them to the sword.

Playing them early could set a stall out for us, and set them on the way to mid table by xmas.

If you believe the rumours, we are going to sell two of those.
Nearly all the worst crap seems to originate from The Daily Mirror, what have we done to upset them ?

Now it seems Mata will not be getting the pay increase he was promised, because Mourinho has intervened to say he's not worth it. Have you ever heard such nonsense ?

Oh, and Luiz is keen on a move to PSG because he likes what they're doing.

Great idea, sell them both, then we can afford to bring in those two useless lumps, Matic and Gomez. We can then become the London version of Stoke.

Sorry meant we had 5

Out of the top 60 most valulable players we have

Hazzard (4) Valued at 47.2-54.8m
Mata (21) Valued at 36.7-42.6m
Andre Schurrie (34) Valued at 23.6 - 27.7M
Oscar (42) Valued at 22.4 26.00
Lukaku (60) Valued at 19.1-22.2

And yet we turned down £30m for luiz

Oscar is definitely worth £30m too.

Mind you, that list also rates Sturridge as more valuable than Lewandowski.

and puts silva and cazorla ahead of mata!

But the market is hugely inflated.

Luiz could be something special. He is one of only a couple of players I would be upset about losing (Hazzard is really the other one, Oscar I want to see for another season before I say the same about him) but if we lived in the real world and not the insane world of a world where people talk about 80-100 million for a player like Bale then I dont see Luiz being worth anywhere near 30 million. He going to be one of those players who could go either way

I think Luiz has everything in terms of technical ability, it's only his decision making that needs to improve.
I would like to see Hazard, Mata, Oscar and Luiz as our "untouchables"..along with Courtois as well, if that were possible.

Happy with our fixture list. Good spread of games. Decent home fixture to start with, then getting our trip to Old Trafford over with nice and early. Liverpool aside, a good run-in too in the latter weeks of the season.

I hope that will come with age and getting use to playing at the level Chelsea play also a manager like Jose should be able to bring that to his game.


Courtois is out of our hands, He already is amongst the best GK around and we also have one of the very best wearing the number 1 shirt at the moment. While its great for us in one way, Its going to be hard to keep him. People are going to say "play Courtois" in cup games etc, But that wont work and in fact will only mean he leaves sooner. The players have all the power nowadays and he plays against Blackpool away and is on the bench for the next league game when we play at OT and he will be signing for another team before the team coach gets back to Stamford Bridge. I knew he was going to be good but never thought he would get to the level he has so quick, If we do manage to keep him happy until Cech's time comes it will be our best signing ever

I agree with that core group of players, though with de Bruyne and Lukaku coming back, I hope they can add themselves to that list. It does illustrate our weakness in defence as I'm sure no one sees David Luiz as untouchable as a centre back. Ivanovic is probably our strongest CB despite him having a few moments of madness each season and Cole will hopefully continue to perform for another two seasons while we find a replacement. We need to be looking at our defence rather than our attack and I'm not sure if a big spend on Cavani would be as useful to the team balance and overall performance as getting a Y Toure type player in midfield to hold everything together and offer a bit more protection. Ake, Essien, Romeu, Mikel and Luiz are our current choices.

Sat Dec 21 Arsenal A

Thu Dec 26 Swansea City H

Sat Dec 28 Liverpool H

Eugh.

Mata and Luiz are going nowhere. Mata is fast becoming Chelsea's most important player and there were games last season where we looked pathetic without him on the pitch. :sleep:

Luiz is a fine CB (when he wants to be). His best performances have always come when he starts next to Terry. And why is that? Because Terry is the only one man enough to give Luiz a bollocking if wanders halfway up the pitch, thus leaving him exposed. Luiz needs discipline and there's no-one better than Mou to instill that mentality into him.

Edit - Forgot to say, just look at his performances towards the latter stages of the CL in 2012 and his performance against Fulham away last season.

The papers will never be fan of us. In the past it was due to dear old Ken Bates and after that it was due to lack of access to Roman when he bought us.

I have heard interviews with former reporters from papers like the Daily Mirror in which the reporters was told by their sport editors to only bother writting negative stories about Chelsea.

Rumours that Mikel is off to Galatasary.

David Luiz was insanely good for Brazil last night.