You should perhaps expect a partisan opinion in the Chelsea thread?

I think city will remain very strong.

Arsenal will have their usual season.
Spurs are going backwards
Everton have reached their peak
Liverpool will suffer from teams parking the bus and playing for draws, and expectation, and more games to be played in the euro cups
United have a huge rebuilding programme. Bringing in lots of news players and a manager who has never played in the pl will see them struggle again.

That's not bitter, that's my measured opinion.

Your posts are never measured, just bitter. Have a look through your posting history for proof.

I think they should have tried to tempt Conte, away from Juventus. The best young manager in the world imho.

Thank you for your interest.

Perhaps you can now get back on topic, supporting Chelsea?

Have a word with yourself.

I ask again, please worry about supporting Chelsea in the supporters thread.

It may come as a shock, but yes, I am bias towards Chelsea as you may be, being a fellow Chelsea supporter. There is nothing wrong with that.

But I do feel United will struggle with van gaal and that Liverpool will struggle too with other teams parking the bus and playing for a draw.

Really looking forward to watching Chelsea next season, cannot wait for it to start.

Do you think Costa would be a good fit for us?

With Liverpool having one of the best young up and coming managers in the League and few decent adjustments over the summer, I see no reason for them to fall away, He's a quick learner Rodgers, stuttery first season finishing strong, then title challenging in his second season with a squad most would have laughed at for even putting the phrase 'title challengers' next to Liverpool

Man Utd have just appointed one of the best managers currently in World Football imo

Van Gaal major titles
Ajax: Three Dutch league titles, Champions League, Uefa Cup, Uefa Super Cup
Barcelona: Two Spanish league titles, Copa del Rey and Uefa Super Cup
AZ Alkmaar: Dutch league title
Bayern Munich: German league title and DFB Pokal

No experience in the EPL mind, but he's got experience working with the biggest of players and winning the biggest of trophies in Club Football (the CL), United fans should be delighted with his appointment and I'm sure most are, With their recourses squad along with a Summer Window and a Proven winner of a manager to drive them, you'd at least half expect them to do much better next season

Nothings guaranteed in football but When you look at their directions, it kind of hard to say these teams will struggle next season, they might, but the arrows aren't pointing to it

Your more hoping they struggle more than anything (understandable)

Too early to say about any of them in my opinion. I'll wait until all these anticipated big transfer deals are completed before giving any predictions.
Man Utd ? The Glazers haven't exactly thrown money around in the transfer market before, they always appeared to be more interested in milking the club for all it was worth to protect their other interests. But perhaps things are about to change ?
You can be sure Man City will stay in contention, and providing Roman continues to trust Jose, we should be challenging them.
Arsenal and Liverpool will need to spend. Wenger has to come to terms with the fact that there are very few bargains out there any more. You usually get what you pay for, but it's ironic that his first really major signing for years (Ozil) was a bit of a flop.
Liverpool have to strengthen at the back and in defensive midfield. That won't come cheap if they are looking at signing quality.
I can't see Spurs doing much, they misspent the Bale money and Levy won't throw a lot more in the pot.
Everton were outstanding on a tight budget, but it's hard to see them pulling that off again.

Im not sure about Rodgers as a manager. It is not that long since he was a person of ridicule, sleeping with LFC employees and doing *that* documentary.

But giving him the benefit of the doubt, he will not finish top 2 next season, no way. The reason is quite simple and all successful teams suffer from it. This season mid/ lower table teams were willing to try and get three points from them. It played to their strengths.

Next season, no club bar the top 4 will expect to get a win against LFC, so they will all see a point as an excellent result against them. The bus will be parked every game, and clubs will try and pinch a goal.

Their midfield and defence needs a HUGE cash injection, which they do not have unless they sell their star player.

Ashley has hinted that he is leaving us on his twitter account.

Lets hope he is talked 'round

Could we go another season with azpi at LB?

I don't think it's a case of him being talked around unless of course he going to turn up every week when not being paid.

Dave had a great season at LB and was one of our best and most consistent players.

As an LFC fan i must admit this. LFC made 99m from their league campaign and FSG are given Brendan another 60m on top. So we dont need to sell our best player as the moneys there. I'll ignore the rest of your post quite frankly its not worth it.

Sorry for encrouching on your thread. Get back to discussing Chelsea now.

My guess is that we have offered him another one year extension, but he's not happy with the terms and wants to move on. Sad, but it's unlikely he would have got back to being our first choice LB, so it's understandable.
I hope he goes to New York Red Bulls, as was hinted a few months ago. Wouldn't really like to see him join another PL club.

i will take a bet with you - LFC will not spend £159 million on transfer fees this summer without selling Suarez.

And now back to supporting chelsea.

I dont think he will join a PL club.

He could go to Spain, Italy or the USA.

There are suggestions calling him the best England player ever - its hard to disagree with.

I never said they'd spend it all just that it is there to spend. Suarez wont have to leave for us to spend money. We wont spend it all but you think we havent got any to spend without selling Suarez. I was just saying differently.

No more to add. Said what i wanted to. Bye bye.

I think its unlikely we bothered doing that.

As we saw during the games he did play for us this season he has not lost a step even with not playing and if the current FA buzz word was not "age" he would on on the plane to the WC and as a senior player he would have rightly looking at the higher end of the wage scale, He is very different to Lamp's and JT, Lamps can still do a job and JT had a great season but injures and his style of defending will mean he only got a season or so left BUT looking at Ash he could still play week in week out for 90+plus minutes for any top club in any league.

Dave had a fantastic season and considering he was replacing someone I have regarded as one of (if not) the best and most consistant players of the last few years moreso.

I just dont see the value in giving Ash a bumper contract when we have someone of roughly the same abilty. Plus I think we need to be fair to Ash, For all the rubbish in the media about him, He is a really nice guy and just wants to play football and win things. If he cannot do that at Chelsea and since he has been a major part of us winning everything we could have won the least few years I think he deserves to go and find that, If it's at another english club so be it. He is going to get some really good offers and what ever one he takes good luck to him

I do think Jose was telling the truth when he said he would like him to stay though. So it wouldn't surprise me if we had given Ashley the opportunity to take another season at a good salary. It would make a lot of sense to keep him even on top wages. There's always the chance of injuries, and Azpil may need to move to RB allowing Ivanovic to cover at CB.
The back four looked like something we could ignore for a while with Zouma and Kalas coming through, now we will presumably be looking for cover. Perhaps we'll give Ryan Bertrand another chance ?

Would he take another season when clubs are offering 2? I also dont think he would take a good salary when top ones are being offered. On last season and what we have seen of him this season and knowing Jose's training I would still say he one of the the best players around.

With FFP and the players we need to bring in during this window its going to be IMO very hard to justify paying top money when we have a player doing just as good as a job for half the money, While yes we might get injuries etc its just not something I feel we can do when the wages are needed more urgently in other places on the pitch. Players like Hazzard and Oscar will be chased and I would rather we put Ash's money in their pockets then his.

Yes, but given the chance of keeping Cole for a couple of seasons, or bringing in some unknown, I'd go for Ashley. But I get your point, and we couldn't guarantee him too many starts with Azpil playing so well.

As you said previously, I wish him well wherever he decides to go. It annoys me when opposing fans sneer and call him "Cashley". He's only had two clubs, playing 156 games for Arsenal and 229 games for us. That's hardly being a footballing mercenary.
From memory, he was being under-paid at Arsenal compared with lesser players at thei club, so who can blame him for seeking a move. Arsenal didn't do too badly out of the part-exchange deal, William Gallas was a fine player (despite the falling-out we had with him at the end) who went on to become their captain.

Of course they do, He dared to want to earn as much money as possible. Never mind the fact that if they was promised a certain wage then found out they was being offered less and then was being paid less then the people they worked with they would be just as annoyed. Its just the normal bitterness when it comes from people not seeing being a footballer is just a job like many others.

If he accepted a unknown's wages I would keep him but I dont think he would take much less then he is now (and rightly so)

It's a shame about Ash leaving, but we wouldn't be able to justify keeping him with his wages when Azpi has had the season he has had and is on much less money. Our top earners now are JT, Frank, A Cole, Torres and Hazard. I'd expect all of them except Hazard to have moved on in the next 2/3 years. Mata was only on 70k a week despite being player of the season for two years before leaving so despite our reputation we seem to have been getting in line with FFP and becoming more streamlined for a while.

Looks like Kalas is heading to Germany on loan next season.

There *must* be a Premiership team who'd want him? Did they not see his performance against Liverpool??

I dont think there are enough good enough teams in the Premership at the moment for us to consider a loan to. He needs to go to a team with a top class and stable set up. Everton would normally be my choice but we cannot say for sure the manager is staying, There is no point loaning him to City or Utd or Arsenal as I doubt he would get any more games then he would at Chelsea. Germany is a very good league, Stable and close enough to the premership to get him use to the type of football he will need to play

A universe where PSG are f**king idiots, it would seem.