Two years + later, I'm just tired of pandering to Torres and trying to create the perfect circumstances for him to grace us with a performance. I have no interest in his potential anymore and don't care if he can recapture his form or not. Just bored with his drama. Ba and Lukaku deserve a chance as striker, just like Sturridge did and never got. Torres has had his and fluffed it.
He'll need to earn another chance as he should be on the bottom of the striking pecking order on performance. Ancelotti, AVB. Di Matteo, Rafa have not been able to coax any real value from him and I can't see Jose carrying him, so he can sink or swim on his own without any preferential treatment. He's getting paid regardless and we should be focusing on what's best for our club and results rather than getting distracted by a non performer.

Serves you right for saying your supporting Mad Marion against the lovely () Sabine Lisicki today



Speaking of the Canadian Mario van Ginkel, didn't he have a tour of Stamford Bridge some time last year? Is he....one of us?

How can you not like Marion? She's so endearing off the court. Lisicki has the best years ahead of her yet and if she stays injury free, she could become a potential no.1 player in the future. With Marion it's a different story. Plus, I didn't like how the crowd were against Marion in her match against Sloane Stephens so I kinda fell in love with her even more after that.

Anyway here are a few bits of Marco van Ginkel:

First interview with Chelsea TV

http://www.chelseafc.com/news-article/article/3229543

Welcome Marco!

OK you two. Let's just be happy with the fact that we've signed a young, talented Dutch midfielder who can add depth and contribute to the squad.

I'm happy with the signings we've made so far. Schurrle and Van Ginkel are two highly rated prospects who can certainly add to the talent in strikers and midfielders respectively.

With regards to the whole Cavani/Lewandowski/Rooney/El Sharaawy and whichever other strikers we seem to be linked to. The only reason we should be signing one of them is if we decide to let Torres go to another club.

We play with one up front. If we sign someone like one of the above, we'll have them plus Torres/Ba/Lukaku and Schurrle who can play as a striker.

Lukaku and Schurrle should be playing so that means one of them will likely end up playing striker. If we sign someone Lukaku and Schurrle will get less playing time and won't develop as they potentially could.

Torres, despite his poor form, will still expect to start as the Number 1 striker. If we sell him to another club that leaves a space for another striker to come in and share responsibility with the others. If not, there's too many vying for limited places.

It would be great to have Cavani or Lewandowski here as they are top strikers, however I would be more than happy for the club to sign a talented striker for around £15-20m if Torres goes and have them share the striking role. If we aren't selling Torres then to be honest it's fine how it is currently.

Also now that MVG has signed for us, he has to be playing in our first team. There's a reason he's been called up to the Dutch first team and to keep his progression going and for him to get to the World Cup, he has to play regularly for the club.

Can't see Van Ginkel playing that much this season, despite this apparent claim that he's been assured regular games. If he does then Lamps, Ramires, De Bruyne etc aren't going to be too happy, plus it would curtail the chances of Luiz playing in midfield again. We've now got too many midfielders in my opinion, what we really need is a quality defensive one as we all know.

Bartoli's not a player I've ever paid much attention to tbh. Lisicki is, and I'm absolutely gutted for her It really was horrible viewing.

Very graceful at the end though - some of the other ladies (Rad) could learn a lot from her.



We have a lot of CM's now....still don't see a quality pairing.

Just send him out on loan to Ajax surely?

If we did loan him there's be no point in sending him back to Holland. Hardly the most competitive league around.

Agreed. You'd think there'd be a few PL teams that would be happy to have him on loan. As long as we have a recall clause if he ends up not getting enough games, or if we need him back.

In a world cup year I don't think van Ginkel would have joined us if he didn't think he'd play quite a bit. As a DM he's only really competing with Mikel (who might be leaving), Ake, Essien and to some extent Ramires since Romeu might also be off on loan. The other central midfield spot coud go to Lampard, de Bruyne or Ramires (he seems almost too versatile for his own good and is under appreciated) . I don't see Luiz wanting to spend too much time playing in midfield as Brazil will use him as a CB next year. If he's good enough, he's old enough. Hope he does well.

He's not a DM though, is he? I haven't seen him play, but by all accounts he's more of a box-to-box midfielder so wouldn't make a good combo with Lamps/Ramires/De Bruyne - they'd be the players he'd be competing with for a place in the team. Possibly even Oscar too, as he can be played deeper now as we've signed Schurrle.

I thought he was more defensive and the goals were an occasional bonus. I hope so for his sake as if he's competing with the other group with Oscar thrown in, he'd be better off staying where he is for another year.

Continued here: Chelsea Supporters Thread (Part 4)