Wayne is so very very family oriented... he loves his Grannies

Not sure I can even see his family settled in London.
They are all very Northern.

Looks like Chalobah is heading to Fulham on loan. Very good move IMO. He needs a step-up and Fulham are a stable club in need of younger players.

It appears that PSG have made their first move in the Cavani transfer story. Sky reporting they have made a £43m bid for him.

If De Laurentiis is to be believed, that won't be enough. It's the clause or nothing according to them.

We also appear to have made an approach for him.

http://www1.skysports.com/football/n...-Saint-Germain

The Rooney story continues to develop:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/foo...ne-Rooney.html

And we have a new link: Stephan El Shaarawy.

http://www.express.co.uk/sport/footb...y-on-wish-list

I like his hair, but I'm not sure it justifies another left-winger-type.


van Ginkel has had discussions with Mourinho and will decide soon. He's concerned about how much football he will have before the World Cup, so remains to be seen whether he will sign now. I think it'll end up as another sign now, come later......

Who is Van Ginkel anyway?

El Shaarawy is highly rated but not sure hes what we really want. Seems more of a winger/attacking midfielder and we have plenty of those. just bloody sign an out and out goal scorer please.

absolutely

stop spending 10, 20 million on players we dont need. save up and spend big on the two players we do need.

cavani please

But those are rare and we just can not go out and sign one just because we want one plus Clubs dont want to sell out and out goal scorers so the talks take time and with at least 2/3 clubs who could outbid us we have to tread more slowly while looking for those type of players and can not even then be sure of getting one

We are short on bodies so instead of sitting on our arses dancing to one or two clubs tune while they dangle maybe just maybe selling their player to us we need to be bringing players in. I dont want the club spending all their time just bringing in this fabled man of legend who will score us 100 goals a season and come the end of the window we end up with Andy Carroll becuase nobody else was around and no other new players as we will be in the same boat as we was last year, Playing 2/3 games a week and running players into the ground. Lets get some players in or we going to be very short on numbers again and in a season where we have to be challenging for the title (above everything else) we can not afford that

No doubt we would have loaned him out if we did sign him....

A rather interesting statistic.

As of now, we have the youngest squad in the premiership at 24.5 years.

(even with lampard at 35, terry 32, cole 32)

After winning the CL we had one of the oldest squads. It has been quite a season of change and in that time we secured 3rd place and won the UEFA/Europa cup.

I say well done to all concerned. This team could be together for 10 years.

I wish lampard was 25 again, what a team it would be.

Deal agreed for Marco Van Ginkel.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23148099

http://www1.skysports.com/football/n...-deal-in-place

£8m for the 20 yr old and current Dutch young player of the year.

Where will he fit into the team, or will he be on loan?

We are reportedly in for Daniele de Rossi. at £10m. Is this the end of Mikkel now?

(lets hope)

Nothing against the signing but I do hope that when the season starts we will have at least one CM that other teams are afraid of. Can't see this guy making too big an impact.


I await Butterflies' report on how this signing impacts our position as the hottest club the in league

The actual transfer fee is €5million, I've heard... Pretty good deal, considering Ajax was offering more cash for him and Van Ginkel wanted to go there.

Vitesse's sugar daddy is very close to RA, hence the loans in and preferential treatment.

Anyway, let's hope that he does get a loan deal, as he's an excellent prospect and needs time on the pitch to develop. It would be a shame if he missed out on a place for Rio.

Ask and you shall receive!

From what I've read he sounds like he could become a very good player. I don't think he'll go out on loan as he's already expressed desire to play first-team football with us before signing.

As a club, the future looks very bright. I'd love to see how our wage bill contrasts from 5 years ago. We are spending our money more smartly and as codeblue pointed out, the average age of our squad has reduced significantly. If Mourinho has convinced him to join, then I trust his judgement. Even though he's not necessarily a big name, there's no reason why he can't become an integral part of our plans next season. Look at what Klopp has done with Borussia Dortmund. How many people had the likes of Gundogan on their radar 2 years ago? Not many I would imagine.

Now onto more pressing issues; Van Ginkel's kinda cute . He does look a bit young though...!

I'm hoping he doesn't get loaned out, we've done that too often in my opinion, and we rarely see any benefit. Even if Lukaku proves a success this season it won't be because we loaned him out to WBA, we just didn't have the bottle to risk giving him more games when Torres was failing, week after week.

Van Ginkel has already broken into the Dutch senior squad, admittedly its only been one appearance from the bench so far, but he has ambitions to gain a permanent place for the World Cup.
He's not going to be the answer to our defensive midfield problems, but from what I've read he could already be a useful option in that area.

Let's start playing these youngsters, selectively of course. The great players of the past often broke into top flight football in their late teens, and Van Ginkel is 20. If they're good enough, they're old enough.

Taken from TheSun (Sorry )

JOSE MOURINHO has turned to the Dutch Justin Bieber to boost Chelsea’s chances of returning to the Premier League No 1 spot. The Holland midfielder, 20, is dubbed ‘Bieber’ back home due to a likeness with the US singer.




Today's bullshit - Ba has had talks with Anjhi, Mikel is free to leave (not for free) now we have van Ginkel and..........we're signing Hannibal Suarez!

if we get cavani, ba can go

Eww.

I can never look at Van Ginkel the same way again because of you! The word 'Bieber' should never ever be used to reference any of our wonderful, charming and talented players!

I never knew Bieber was from the US. The things you learn from The Sun eh?



Ba is a capable striker, he just needs to get a run of games going. He's scored some cracking goals for us - the talent is definitely there. If there's one striker who should be out the door, it's Torres not Ba.

He's Canadian....they take these things very seriously I have heard if you say that!

Agreed. Ba was in the running for the golden boot at the start of last season before his move to us. He's also probably on half the wages Torres gets. If anyone needs shifting it's Torres

That'll teach me not to trust the Sun again.


We've done everything we can to get Torres back to his best but it hasn't worked. He's had every excuse in the book now; the players around him are sh*t, we don't play enough through balls, Drogba is shadowing Torres, he needs more confidence blah blah blah. The bottom line is Torres will never get back to his best. We've shown so much support to Torres, yet when we have a PL proven striker in Ba our support goes out the window. It's absolutely bewildering. Ba is strong, he can occupy defenders and his all round movement is 100 times better than Torres. It was always going to be hard for any striker to get a decent goal tally with Benitez's stupid rotation policy. He kept making comments like Torres was tired but he didn't let Ba play in the PL! I can't even...the good thing with Mou is that he will not be afraid of benching the 50mil sulk if he under performs in the future.

That's whats put me off big purchases, including Cavani. With the price tag and weekly wages going out, they have to play, no matter how rubbish they are. Sturridge didn't get a chance as a striker for 2 years, but shone the minute he left. Ba was also on a hiding to nothing and went from one of the top PL scorers to not getting a run of 3 starts to his name after joining us. Lukaku and Piazon were both shipped off (best thing for them). Drogba moved on. And still it was always some excuse with Torres.
I think Jose will pick his team and play them on merit and Torres will either earn a start or sit on the bench a lot as I don't think anyone else really wants him.

Sturridge had his chances and didnt take them.

He was as greedy a player i have ever seen in a blue shirt. Even though he started well at a new club, i only regret selling him to them, rather than selling him at all.

We cannot keep Cavani, Ba, Torres and Lukaku happy, we would have to get rid/ loan out one.

I cannot see Torres leaving (wages, status etc) and i certainly do not want to see Lukaku loaned or sold (he has far too much potential for that) so i suggested Ba for those reasons.

Not that i dont think he is good. If we had three strikers and no Cavani next season, it wouldnt be terrible.

Sturridge wasn't really given many chances in his natural position, as a striker through the middle. We tried to play him as a winger/striker to make use of his pace.
He was greedy. I'll give you that. But most strikers are, it seems to go with the territory. Hasselbaink rarely looked for a pass if there was a chance to go for goal, nor did Drogba.

What annoys me about Torres is that he could still contribute so much more, even if he's not scoring prolifically. We've seen him do it on occasion when he's in the mood. He has lost a yard or two of pace, but he's still got a lovely touch and with his intelligence and experience he could be creating openings for others.