Good price and even better timing.

Rightly or wrongly he was our number one target and we have wrapped up the deal hours after the league has finished. Great work for once.

Now lets hope we get the other deals done just as fast

Yes, it is beginning to look like a done deal. The £32m meets the release clause, but I'm surprised that we've managed to close a deal at that figure..if its true.
But we are going to pay him some pretty hefty wages, according to The The Telegraph...

"Chelsea have made it clear they are prepared to meet the £32million release clause in striker Costa’s Atlético contract and are willing to pay the 25-year-old £185,000 a week. Over the course of a five-year contract, Costa can earn just over £48million, which would take the entire cost of the transfer to £80million."

It sounds expensive yes.

But we may be getting rid of several huge wage bills:

£175,000 a week for Lampard
£175,000 a week for Torres
Probably over 100,000 a week for Cole

Its a deal costing us 16m a year which is not to bad if it works out (and he stays the 5 years of course).

Wages I think are about right for a player of his abilty and with the tax in this country we are always going have to pay at the higher end of the wage scale to attract the players we need.

I think the good rel/ship we have with them help with the deal, Unlike in the past we did not storming like a bull in a china shop. We have dealt with everything in a very profesional way for once.

Yes, I really thought we might have worked something out with Atletico involving Torres. Their fans would have been delighted to get a club legend back, and Fernando would surely be happier returning home. Apart from his failure to score, he's never looked happy with us.
I think the deal for Costa is fine, the media always like to quote a figure including wages, big numbers look more exciting. Even I'm quite expensive over 5 years, but nothing like £48m unfortunately.

Torres may well find himself at atletico or in italy next year

If we can't sell him he'll find himself locked in my garage until his contract runs out.

I dont think anyone wants to know what goes on in your garage.

JT gets a one new contract.

Really happy everything is being done as quickly as possible

Yes, great news.

He had a really good season, and having summer off will do him the world of good.

I wonder if they did reduce his wages with the new contract?

I hope so, free up some cash for Costa and new signings.

This is the problem with Frank. He needs to stay but on half the wages.

A lot of rumours that we might be considering bids for Lavezzi and/or Mandzukic.
Lavezzi did have a great game against us in that first leg against PSG, but I hope that's not influencing any decisions. He's not a prolific goal scorer, and at 29 his best years are probably behind him.
If we go for Mandzukic, I would presume that Lukaku will be sold ? Mandzukic is a big powerful player, and you can't fault his scoring record. But I would prefer to see Lukaku given a chance.

ba out
torres out
eto out

costa
lukkaku
mandzukic

in?

are they good deals? that would be a huge powerful strikeforce

Well, I think you could almost guarantee more goals from the new trio. Torres and Eto'o remain very good footballers, probably better than the replacements you have given. But it's not much good to us if they can't find the back of the net.

Read some good news avout JT, then i see this. It's pace and power over skill and flair everytime for Jose!
That's his way now and we have to go with that while he's here.
However, this means the previous two seasons have all been a waste, and what if Jose doesn't win the title or CL next season? We know what will happen and then we'll have another manager who'll come in and want to play a different way to Jose, so we'll be starting all over again, again. There is no pattern or consistency at all to the way the club tries to move forward!
When Rodgers leaves Liverpool they will appoint a manager who'll continue with his style of football, so too Arsenal when Wenger goes. It seems like we think it up as we go along with zero thought about 3 or 4 years time.

When building a team, it's all about getting the mix right though. We have skill and flair with Hazard, Oscar and Willian (despite what you say). We have been short of no-nonsense power up front since Drogba left.
We do need a deep lying playmaker, it did look as De Bruyne might have been a good fit, but he was disappointing in the few games he played.
I would prefer a more subtle striker like Aguero among our front players, rather than have three similar, bustling power players. But we don't know for sure how things will end up.
Who should we be looking at ? It's fine saying we're going for the wrong players, but are there many quality strikers around who we could (realistically) prise away from their current clubs ?

Yes, there is a bit of a shortage of real topless class strikers around in the mould of Aguero or a Suarez.
I guess we'll just have to accept we're having to go for players a level or two below them.

As I've said before, I like the look of Wilfried Bony. He's got a great attitude, and in my opinion he seems to have that "little bit extra" as well. But I see Swansea are saying that it would take an "astronomical" bid to land him, and that would be too much of a gamble.

Today we are linked with Roberto Firmino as a striker

Lets hope its all paper talk.

Firmino ?..I had to look him up, but it doesn't say much on his Wiki entry.
But he is considered a "Hoffenheim star"..two words you don't often see associated together.

Exactly.

It would be a step back to the signings filed under "will never be good enough"

Congratulations on your victory tonight, and on completing the double at youth level, shame that we couldn't win on home turf, but two victories in Manchester by your team, does goes to show their character.

Hopefully for you some of these players make the progression to the first team, as they deserve a chance.

Was a decent game with a lot of good football.
You do wonder though how many on either side will make thru to the first team.
Its a huge ask.

It is indeed a huge task to bridge the gap, Wilson scored two for us on his debut the other week, and Lawrence (who scored our goal tonight) made his debut in the same game, but I guess there is a long way still to go for them, what with potential incoming transfers, and the return of so many loaned out players.

It would be good though to see one, two or maybe if we are really lucky three people make the transition to the first team.

Its tough very tough.

You asking young players with little experence to walk into teams that are in dog fights for a title where one mistake can be the difference between your team winning the title and losing it (I think next season is going to be one of the tightest ever). Not only is the winning of the title on the line but the managers job.

Take yesterday, A Chelsea player came on and right away made a mistake and was robbed of the ball and Utd nearly scored. Would the current B team plan help with bridging the gap between being part of a team that is going for a youth team title and a team going for a league title? I not a big fan of the idea (rather we did more to bring more top level coaches though) but then again I can see some good points in the idea.

More Mandzukic rumblings today with David Luiz supposedly going the other way. He's always struck me as ponderous and uncreative so hope it's not true.