I disagree. You're certainly better than Hull.

Why is Lukaku coming out and saying he doesn't want to go out on loan? Surely all this was settled before. Didn't Jose even confirm that Lukaku was staying at Chelsea this season a while ago?

Just seems a bit odd that he's come out and said he doesn't want to go out on loan, as if he thinks he will possibly do so.

It depends on if we sign another top striker and keep torres and ba at the same time.

4 strikers with 1 position is too much.

AS it looks like we are not getting Cavani, then i will be happy with the three strikers we have.

If we sign a striker like Benteke, i believe that would be a massive mistake. Its the very top, or nothing that we need.

More then likely because he would have been asked by the moronic media. They are unable to come up with new and intellegent questions so ask the same dumb ones.

"Are you glad to be working under Jose" "Do you think Chelsea should challenge for the title this year" etc etc

What do they expect a player to say? "Nope Jose is a complete and utter tosser and he has not a clue when it comes to being a manager?" Or "Naaaa i think we will be lucky to stay up this season"

They stick to the same old rubbish so that the idiots who read and actually belive what the papers say can understand.

Jose could make him Capt and the media would still ask "do you want to stay and try and get into the Chelsea team or go another season on loan", Jesus I think Roman could sack Jose and make him manager and they would still ask the question

First friendly tomorrow. Confirmed line-up for the first half....

Petr Cech; Ashley Cole, John Terry, Tomas Kalas, Wallace; Frank Lampard, Michael Essien; Andre Schurrle, Kevin de Bruyne, Lucas Piazon; Romelu Lukaku

Second half....

Jamal Blackman; Ryan Bertrand, Nathaniel Chalobah, Gary Cahill, Branislav Ivanovic; Ramires, Marco van Ginkel; Victor Moses, Eden Hazard, Kevin de Bruyne; Demba Ba


Should get a decent look at a few unknowns tomorrow then.

Those look two decent 11s. Will be good to see how the new guys and ex-loanees fit in. Will also be good to see what sort of state Essien is in.

How about a 3rd team?

Schwarzer

Apzi
Luiz
Kalas
Wallace

Chalobah
McEachran
Oscar
Mata

Torres

It's only got 10 players and Kalas, Wallace and Chalobah are in the other two teams. Other than that, very good.

lol

fair enough, the first two teams were good without luiz, schwarzer,mata and oscar and torres!


anyway, how do we feel about rooney?

That's another good team including the duplicates . From those numbers we'll be loaning out a few before the end of the window. I don't think McEachran, Chalobah, Piazon and Wallace will make the final squad.

He's not really the sort of forward we need, in my opinion. Still think we should be looking at Jackson Martinez, although I have no idea how much it would cost to prise him away from Porto, assuming he would be interested in joining us.

I'd exchange him for Torres in a heartbeat. If Torres stays, I can't see a place for him because of the wages, but also because I can't see them playing together with our midfield.
Actually, if we got Rooney, it might be Mata who takes the hit as he'd probably play just behind the main striker

I'd rather he stayed where he was and disrupted the Utd squad.

Not interested in Rooney. The 3 I wanted are all done now, so I'd rather we stick with what we have up-front and concentrate on DM and CB.


Quote from Jose - "I don't want to win the Europa League. It would be a big disappointment for me. I don't want my players to feel the Europa League is our competition. / The most important thing in football is to be the best team in the season and try to win your domestic league, In our case, it's the most important league in Europe, so we have to try and be the best team and win the Premier League."

He's so

I'm sure that you would. Fortunately, that's never going to happen. We already have Welbeck, thanks.

Everyone connected to Chelsea, especially the players and fans, should have felt this way all along.

It really shouldn't need Mourinho to tell you this (not you personally NinjyBear, all Chelsea fans).

JM saying that winning the league is the priority really is stating the obvious. As for the Europa League, of course we don't set out to win it at the start of the season, but if we do end up back in it, only a fool would write it off.

You're right. A club like Chelsea should be aiming to win the league, every season. And if you're in the Europa League, then you may as well try to win it.

However, Chelsea fans talking about 'sacrificing the league', to win the Champions League, or 'winning back-to-back European titles', when one of those titles is the Europa League, is not what I think that you should be wanting to hear.

The Premier League AND the Champions League should be the aim, for a club like Chelsea. No, you're unlikely to win both, very often, but that should be the target.

Fulham and Middlesbrough have both reached the Europa League final, in recent (-ish) years. That's not Chelsea's level.

I'm not trying to denigrate either trophy success, I'm just saying that I think that Mourinho will change the overall mindset of the club (in a good way).

When Mourinho was here before he had the players going out to win everything (one game at a time) and that mentality spread to the fans. Its stuck with most of us, but others started to buy into the transition/tiredness excuses that AVB and Benitez both used regularly. In his first days back Jose came right out and - correctly - stated that players wouldn't feel tiredness if they were playing well and winning. Now, also correctly, saying that a league win is the best way to measure how good a team is.....it's great to hear. Talking about 5-year projects and 'necessary squad rotation' is hardly going to install a winning mentality. The level of determination and desire to win that Jose brings is more important than any signing we could make this summer IMO.


It is stating the obvious, that's why it's so great.

Read a comment earlier regarding the Europa League - the only thing worse than winning it is not winning it.
It's very true for the top clubs. It should never be an option but, when it is, you have to go for it. I was happy for the players when Ivanovic scored the winner, but the celebrations after felt a bit...off.

When certain other teams' record includes the "charity/ community shield" in a list of "trophies" won by them, it shows them up when Chelsea win and rightfully celebrate winning the UEFA/EUROPA Cup.

Make no mistake, it is a valuable and important trophy. We remain the only team to ever hold the champions league and the uefa cup at the same time. It was fantastic.

And let us put this one to bed again, as it seems forum members still misrepresent what some fans are saying. No one says Chelsea sacrificed winning the Premier League for the Champions League.

What happened, is that once it was clear we were not going to win the Premier League, the team prioritized the Champions League and picked the teams accordingly. It proved a great tactic as the record books show.

The trouble we have with keeping with the 3 we got is the 3 we have.

One untested at the level we need playing at from day one, Another one out of form/low on confidance/too much pressure/lost it etc etc and the third is a bench player. Rooney offers us a number of plus points, He a great player,He is English,He can play a number of roles,Proven winner (and is hungry to win more),Would send out a message to the other 2 clubs going for the league and would bring in money from shirt sales etc,Plus he is use to our league, Also I think we could get him at a sensible price (unlike the other strikers on our shopping list).

Have not been the biggest drum beater about us splashing out on a striker for buying sake but the Rooney deal could be a very good one for us.

I think he would buy into Jose's mindset from day one, He a skillful player although at the same time can smash a few doors down (something we will need come xmas time) when clubs would have seen enough of how we are set up and worked out how to line up against us.

I agree. My only concern would be questions about his fitness and recent form, otherwise he seems a perfect "fit" for Chelsea.
He can play as a lone target man, or as a secondary striker. But would we get the Rooney of a couple of seasons ago, or has he already started to decline ?

BBC Breaking News, Chelsea offer for Rooney rejected by Man Utd, Cash plus either Mata or Luiz.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23342660

Are we THAT desperate for Rooney we would trade in Juan Mata?? I bloody hope not!

From the BBC

"Chelsea are understood to have offered £10m in cash plus a player, thought to be either Juan Mata or David Luiz, in part exchange for the 27-year-old. "

This is absolute madness.

So we have Juan Mata, been brilliant, player of the year past two seasona, adapted to the Premier League brilliantly and a vital player to the team....and we swap him with Rooney....and we may have another Torres situation...where it just doesn't click. Let alone give Juan to a rival???

MADNESS!!!