Dixon does write some amusing stuff.
He's a strange type of Chelsea supporter, thats for sure

We must have been watching different games in the World Cup, I thought Oscar was one of the few Brazilian players to come out of that debacle with any credit. But Scolari was worse than useless as a manager. If you look around the world at the talent Brazil had (and still have) at their disposal, a decent manager should have been able to build a formidable squad. Not necessarily to win the whole thing, but at least go pretty close.
I mean, picking Fred as their CF ? Rickie Lambert or Charlie Austin could have done a better job, they might as well have started with 10 men.

I completely disagree with you about the skill levels of Willian and Oscar, neither would look out of place in any of the top teams in Europe.
Where I do agree with you (to a certain extent) is in having those two, together with Fabregas, in the same team. As you say, we do need more firepower and can't continue to rely solely on Costa and Hazard to come up with the goods.
We haven't replaced Lampard, perhaps we never will. But we do need someone in midfield who can at least get into double figures in terms of goals. That doesn't mean I want to see the back of Willian, Oscar or Fabregas. I'm happy with each of them when they're on form. But there are other players around who are past their best or who clearly aren't going to make the grade. Move those on first and bring in a more attacking midfield player or winger with an eye for goal, that's what I'd like to see.

Did you see willian play after the shackles were off and we had won the league - he was out best attacking player in the last few games!

Year 1 we added key players to the first team the likes of Costa,Matic,Cesc. Players who we needed to stand any chance of competing for a title. That went so well we won the title.

Now we in to year two, This is the time to start looking at the squad (while of course paying attention to the first team), We have added today a experienced third striker today but we also need to add a 2nd choice keeper. Those two roles are more important then getting rid of Oscar and Willian. If we looking to go further in the cups we need a better squad to give us more options during games and to give key players a rest. With Utd on the verge of a comeback a squad is going to be vital and its something we have really dropped the ball on during the recent years.

Then when we get in years 3 4 and 5 we start looking at other stuff.

Are players like Willian perfect fits? No of course not but as has been proven (and not a matter of opinion etc) they can do a very good job.

As with anything you create or build its only as good as its foundations. At the moment we are at that stage.

We didn't lay any foundations down during the first 10 years of Roman's ownership lets not go down that route again. Becoming a top European team is not something you can rush and nor should we.

Laying the foundations down from a playing side is one thing, Next is the ground, Then its the youth set up (something we working towards at the moment), Sensible transfers (incoming and outgoing) are all more important then replacing players like Willian

Yes, and remember how he played against us over two legs when he was with Shakhtar. We got through but Willian was outstanding, particularly in the first leg.
His natural game is much more expansive than we generally see, but he has the discipline to follow instructions and do what's best for the team.

Falcao deal finally done. Still some wide discrepancies in the various figures being quoted, but I'm glad all the talk is over. Final cost could be anywhere between £10m (not so bad I suppose) and £18m (bloody expensive) with the loan fee.
I'm try to feel excited about the arrival of Falcao (it's Falcao for heaven's sake !) but find it impossible. Just imagine if it was 2013 and this news was coming through !

He is our 3rd choice striker.

I am not expecting him to come in and score loads of goals. Its highly unlikely no matter how well he plays he will get the chance to score that many.

At the end of the day if he finds decent form we win, If he scores the same the same number of goals that he did for Utd then he has done the same as the player he replaced at Chelsea (with I think a similar number of games) which is not really a massive downer.

It's a crap signing but as it's been on the cards for ages I was resigned to it weeks ago. Says it all really when the prospect of signing Begovic as a back-up keeper seems like more of a coup than this.

Hopefully Bamford will get a decent loan and perform well and be ready next season so we are looking for a striker for only one season. Do we buy a Striker and give them a three year contact when we only need them for one? Transfer would likely cost us 11m-15m and that's if we could get a experienced striker. Drogba came to us because it was Chelsea Falcao coming to us because he has something to prove. Why would anyone else come to us?

It would be a hard sell to any player.

Yes, I agree with all of that. My only worry is that it upsets Remy, a couple of clubs were circling prepared to pay our original valuation of £15m. Now we have said he's not for sale, hopefully that will be the end of those rumours. Decent strikers are thin on the ground right now, even with a sizeable amount of money to spend.
I also hope Mourinho has assured Remy that he will get a fair chance this season. I don't want to see Jose wet nursing Falcao because it's some pet project of his. He should be picked on merit and nothing else.

The thing is if, as you say, it's not the end of the world if Falcao doesn't score any more goals than Drogba managed last season, then why not just give Bamford the opportunity now of being part of the squad and easing him in? I doubt he would've contributed any less than Falcao will end up doing, and at least we'd find out if he's actually likely to make the grade here. Look at Spurs with Harry Kane, sometimes you've got to give these young players a chance.

Personally though I think we needed an upgrade on Drogba, especially considering Costa's ongoing hamstring problems. All we've done is swap one past it striker for another. Let's hope Remy sticks around.

Agreed. I hope we don't see a repeat of the Torres / Ba situation where Torres always seemed to be favoured over Ba even when doing nothing to warrant it.

Remy should be confident enough in his performances last season would have kept him as "2nd" striker. He would have known someone was coming in and someone of a certain level. There would have been no point bringing in a young signing as we might have as well as promoted Bamford instead of buying in. He hopefully is smart enough to know that at Chelsea battling with players of the level of Costa and Falcao for a start is path of the course of playing at this level?

While I agree we should not wet nurse Falcao we should not do the same to Remy.

Day one Costa is slightly in front to be first choice, While yes Remy might have a very slim advantage in that he knows the team,Knows how to care out Jose's orders he is going to have to perform better then last season, Last season his rival had not played Premiership football for two seasons his rival last season played premiership football so will be that tiny bit closer to him then Drogba was, granted its not much of a advantage but it is there.

This signing has been on the cards before Jose's comments about him so don't see them making a major difference to Remy. To Falcao maybe but it Remy should treat them as talking up a player we already knew we was going to sign and towing the club line.

Of course if someone comes in with a silly bid for Remy we would have to look at it (talking 30m+) as while yes they are thin on the ground we still cannot turn down silly money for players, The books still need to be balanced.

Remy hopefully will think I saw off one of the biggest legends of Chelsea now I will see off someone who until a couple of seasons ago was one of the best strikers in Europe. That's the mentality any player who signs for Chelsea has to have

It's a difficult one. From the little I've seen, Bamford is still quite a way short of being ready to step up. Against that, his scoring record at lower levels has been impressive.
But I wonder how many minutes Jose would have been prepared to give Bamford ? I think he would have spent the vast majority of his time sitting on the bench, that's even if he made it that far.
A year on loan in the top flight will tell us all we need to know about Bamford. My own feeling is that he hasn't quite got the all round game skills to reach the level required to be a number 1 at a club like Chelsea. But I would love to be proved wrong.

Putting Bamford on the bench now would finish him.

Watched him last season and while he played well he was missing that "experience" needed to play for a big team, Performing for Chelsea is very different then performing for Spurs.

Watched the play off final and while yes he was not 100% he just did not perform when it mattered. It was not what he did that was the problem for me it what he didn't do. To often for me he was waiting for something to happen instead of making something happen, Couple of times he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, Not in some massive way but that small difference that is between success and failure. Playing for Chelsea that will be the difference between winning a title and losing it. He needs to play more games that matter and not play those games coming off the bench.

Yes, I basically agree..again. It was Mourinho singling out Falcao for comments that slightly bothered me. In Remy's shoes I'm not sure I'd like my boss giving such a vote of confidence to someone who was joining the club as a my direct rival.
But Jose is a master of man-management, so hopefully he's whispered a few sweet nothings in Remy's ear as well. I was actually a bit "meh" about Remy to start with, but he's grown on me. I rate him higher than most that are realistically available at the moment, so I really hope he stays.

it was notable that a couple of days ago, the news was that remy is not going anywhere. THEN the falcao news comes out.

The correct way to do things

If you look again you'll see that I was talking about our Mo Farrah wannabe.

Mo Farrah? Another champion

At this level you can't possibly plan for 5 years ahead!
By then, I expect Jose and most of this team to have moved on.
What all the top teams do is look at the upcoming season with the aim to win the big ones and along the way keep an eye out for players who they think will improve their team/squad for the following season.
Indeed, Real Madrid, the biggest, most successful club in world football, seem to take it season by season.

Yes, If you're a club going nowhere or in serious decline, then yes, a 3-5 year plan is a good idea with youth development, scouting and finding the best people to work behind the scenes.

But that says everything about Willian!
Even with the pressure off and playing his best, there was still no end product!
In the final 3rd of the pitch he's about as threatening as a Labrador puppy and about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

I know that, but I'm not convinced loaning players out repeatedly is necessarily the best way to go. We're not exactly going to be loaning him to a big rival like United or City, so at best it would be to a mid-table PL club. He might do well for one of those but is it really going to tell us if he's good enough to play for us unless we have a proper look at him ourselves?

When did they win the title last?

It don't need to be a team that wins or attempts to win things.

Even a "bottom" 4 where one goal can make a difference would do. That's why I wanted him to go up in the play off's.

He needs to learn how to deal with pressure, being 3rd choice striker at Chelsea and on a loan deal comes with massive pressure, being a youth player and 3rd choice is going to be make that a cake walk, we cannot afford to see how he handles it playing at Chelsea we have to see how it does it at other clubs like we did we Mata

The bit in bold I wouldn't have so much issue with if we'd just signed a credible 3rd striker, but as it is we've brought in someone that not only looks a shadow of the player he was due to his injury but also has a huge question mark hanging over him on whether he can even cut it in the Premier League (last season's evidence points to the answer being probably not). You could just as easily question whether we can afford to take a gamble on Falcao.