He's a good choice,unless you're playing Liverpool.

I am fed up of all these rumours, yesterday in one of the red tops, we were swooping in for Drogs...oh look, he has signed for Galatasary the very next day!

Moyes is being lined up...Benitez is going to get the sack etc etc .....

Be glad when the transfer window is shut as well!

And breathe.

I'm more interested in Everton signing an expensive new midfielder. Hoping they'll have to sell someone soon

You've already got a player with an amazing barnet.

Two would be downright greedy!!!

I was thinking exactly that!

Should have just done this in the Carling Cup who cares if we get knocked out. Much rather have gone out against Man U, saved a bit of energy and had a proper crack at the FA Cup.

By the way I think Everton have stated they don't need to sell anyone to bring in new players so no Fellaini

Would they say anything else?

Why would they admit that they need to sell to fund players - it would drive the price down.

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/...143803867.html

The 23 players out on loan at the moment and how much Chelsea paid for them

1. Michael Essien (Real Madrid) CM - £24.5m

2. Romelu Lukaku (West Brom) ST - £18m

3. Thibaut Courtois (Atletico Madrid) GK - £8m

4. Kevin De Bruyne (Werder Bremen) LM - £7m

5. Lucas Piazon (Malaga) AM - £5m

6. Ulises Davila (Sabadell) AM - £5m

7. Tomas Kalas (Vitesse Arnhem) CB - £5m

8. Wallace (Fluminense) RB - £5m

9. Matej Delac (Inter Zapresic) GK - £2m

10. Thorgen Hazard (Waregem) AM - £1.5m

11. Jeffrey Bruma (Hamburg) CB - £100,000

12. Nathaniel Chalobah (Watford) CB – Academy

13. Patrick Van Aanholt (Vitesse Arnhem) LB – Academy

14. Gael Kakuta (Vitesse Arnhem) AM – Academy

15. Josh McEachran (Middlesbrough) CM – Academy

16. Amin Affane (Roda JC) AM – Academy

17. Jhon Pirez (Leganes) ST – Academy

18. Anjur Osmanovic (Larje) CM – Academy

19. Billy Clifford (Colchester) CM – Academy

20. Sam Hutchinson (Nottingham Forest) CB – Academy

21. Kenneth Omeruo (Den Haag) CB – Academy

22. Todd Kane (Blackburn) RB – Academy

23. Sam Walker (Colchester) GK – Academy

Essien was worth every penny. Just think what the side would still be like if an injury free (peak) Essien was in midfield!

All the rest of them are looking good, Courtois is looking more and more like a bargain each week, as is De Bruyne.

We paid a HUGE amount for potential with Lukaku - a ridiculous bit of business. However he does look a handfull at WBA and he is still very young.

Hazard jr and Bruma are bargains.

At least one of those keepers should be in our squad right now, Delac at least, if not Courtois.

The club definitely has a real scattergun approach with young players. We seem to sign too many up, many of whom end up out on loan to teams where it's hard to assess whether they're good enough to bring into our squad because the standard of where they're playing isn't very high anyway. For example we paid £5m for Davila yet he's on loan at some random second division team in Spain.

I agree. For every gem like Courtois, there is a complete donkey.

Looking at the list of loanees, they are definitely worth more then we got them for (collectively) so there is, just, a light at the end of the tunnel.

Delac should be with us....he's only bench warming when he goes out on loan. Davila looks like terrible business - we signed him to be our Hernandez (poacher, not an irritating little shit), but he can't get into teams that are far inferior to us.

I don't mind loaning players out, but the way we've done it this year has screwed us right up. Why would any manager put up with it? Robbie should have put his foot down and Rafa should have demanded the available players be recalled.

It looks like we are sacrificing this season to give them more football.

As much as i would like to see Lukaku at the bridge, he would not get a look in (as we play 1 up front) and Rafa has settled with:

a) play Torres and sub him on 82 minutes for Ba
b) play Ba and sub him on 82 minutes for Torres

This has absolutely no reflection on the state of the game being played, we could be winning or losing. And you can set your clock by Rafa.

There's no use talking about us missing Essien.
Sadly, because of his injuries, he is no longer up to playing top level Premiership football.

What we badly need is not a Fellaini, but a young Essien or Roy Keane type.
With one of them and a centre forward who scores 'important goals' on a regular basis, then we would challenge for the title next season.
Without them, then we will be looking for 3rd or 4th again.

Good manager of a mid table team, but does that translate to a top 3 / champions league team?

So, with City dropping points last night, anyone hear confident of 3 points against Reading tonight?

No...me neither.....

Arsenal Liverpool is on tv and so is El Classico. Annoying to say the least.

No, not confident as is the case with all our games thesedays. Factor in that Reading gave us a really tough game earlier in the season, we definitely can't afford to take them lightly.

Surely Ba has to start, although Rafa may see Torres' goal at the weekend as justification for picking him again! I'd actually rather they both start though than having Bertrand further forward again or Marin. I was hoping for more from Marin the other day but he really looks out of his depth so far.

If we cannot play 2 strikers against reading (with hazard out) we never will.

What happened to good old 4-4-2?

Indeed, i miss the old days of having a good strike duo. What was the last decent one we had? Hasselbaink and Gudjohnsen?

Aaah those were the days.

No idea why you went after Butland when you have Courtois (sp). It seems Roman forgets about these young players he buys and farms out on loan and wants a new player for that position every transfer position. Cases in point; de Bruyne and Marin, Lukaku and Ba.

You could not be more incorrect.

Courtois is far too valuable (in terms of money and in leverage) to be back sitting on the bench at chelsea.

Butland would just have been used as a bench warmer, better than the two poor back up keepers we have.

Lukaku and de Bruyne are young players who needed a loan season to get more experience. Look how far Lukaku has come on in the six months so far at WBA.

Ba was a good buy for chelsea at 7million. A ready made premier league striker in his prime.

Rafa says Chelsea will not recall on-loan stars or add more new faces before the window slams shut. So that's it folks, until the summer.
I don't know why we were trying to sign young keeper Jack Butland, unless it was just because he represented good value for money ? We have one of the best young keepers in Europe out on loan.
In a way, I think it's probably a good thing we didn't go in for any major signings. The club needs a reconstruction and a real sense of purpose. I think Abromovich needs to sit down and carefully examine the entire set-up from top to bottom. I'm not surprised Guardiola decided against joining us, things are a mess at the moment.
Against all odds, we won the Champions League. But instead of that being the spur to greater things, we appear to be blundering around even more. There is still an abundance of talent at the club, we just need a cohesive plan for the future. No manager can do that alone, and unless we get the structure right, I can't see Mourinho wanting to return.

Ps..David Moyes as manager ? I have the utmost respect for the man, but I don't think he's the right kind of manager for Chelsea. I don't think he has the vision to take us to a new level. He would be a safe pair of hands, but if we have genuine ambitions to join football's elite that's not enough.

I miss 4-4-2. Strike partnerships are great....I hate the thought that we'll never see one again.

Who would you choose?

Please dont say Jose, can you imagine the publicity we would get the first time he pokes fergie in the eye?