Can't say I see what all the fuss is with KDB tbh. I think the fee overinflates his worth. Time will tell.

Mata was a loss imo.

Mata at the time was rightly or wrongly (and either is irelevent) not near the first team. Of course we could have jsut kept him as a bench player or just incase the current system did not work but I think like the sale of Cech (and if JT is still not playing when the next window opens) we have to be fair to the player. Sometimes we have look beyond the club's needs.

Utd at the time (and still holds true today) was a far better fit for him. We got a decent price for him and I think thats more then we could hope for. It would have been a shame to engage in some nasty prolonged transfer saga that becomes nasty on both sides.

Not sure about that. I was thrilled we signed Mata but I don't think, looking back, much forethought went into the signing beyond a manager being under pressure to turn things around. When you spend best part of £40m on a player and play him in his best position barely a handful of times then you've got to question the wisdom of the purchase.

Mata has the most goals and assists over the last five years in the Premier League, one ahead of Silva, so he has not done too badly in that time frame.

Mata is a luxury player, but can be effective. I think United should drop rooney and play mata at the weekend!

That's more due to the manager then being a better fit.

He was the type of high profile signing needed at the time.

He was the type of player they needed.

He was already premiership ready etc.

It ticked an awful lot of boxes for the club at the time

Also for the player he was signing for a big club and even if he thought the manager was not good enough that would have gone one of two ways he would have turned out good enough or he be sacked and someone better bought in.

Plus London to Manchester is a relative easy move

Apparently Marco Amelia has been training with us, as JM is after an out-of-contract GK for cover. Courtois' recovery is supposed to be going well with him expected back in December.

Mata was a great player for us and I would of rather he stayed.
He wanted to go, United made an exceptional offer and I think all parties were happy.
We won the league the following season so it didn't hinder Chelsea's progress.
He's doing well now for United so good for him. He's one of the good guys in football.

I would have loved for us to have kept Mata, but his style of play didn't suit Mourinho and £37m was just too good an offer to turn down. Being honest, I don't think he would solve any of our current problems anyway, in fact his inclusion would probably make us even more lightweight.
I agreed with Jose about KDB. I can only remember seeing him a couple of times and he appeared to be a lazy sort to me. An inflated idea of his own ability, he expected everyone else to do the dirty work around him. That was probably just his age, and I've no doubt he's a much better playef now. But at the time I wasn't sorry to see him go.

I'm glad we got rid of Mata, he's been too unreliable for Utd and like someone said, he was a luxury player we didn't need. He wouldn't solve our problems now. IMO he's overrated like Ozil.

He was very good for us in 2011/2012 and outstanding in 2012/2013. So I wouldn't say he was overrated. He just wasn't a good "fit" for a Mourinho team. It would be even more difficult to play him now with Fabregas in CM. Man Utd have Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger, Fellaini, Carrick, Blind and even Herrera to stiffen up their midfield. As I keep saying, we look a bit lightweight.

Tough physical mid fielders in the squad: Matic, Ramires, Loftus Cheek, Zouma

R'mond, I agree. Two more are needed.

It's rumoured (credibly) that many players are complaining about the lack of freedom they are getting to play the way they want to play. Imo, that's the problem in a nutshell, the manager's inflexibility and reluctance to change shape etc. Many people have rightly criticised Ivanovic, and I have said many times, a pivot there could have been to move him to cb on occasion and move Zouma to midfield on occasion.

But no, despite the fact that Ivanovic has played very well in the past at cb, according to Mourhino, he's a rb. That's it, no discussion. Stupid.

An interesting insight: http://www.chelseafc.com/news/latest...-heads-up.html

That's an encouraging sign. As I said before, I don't hate the guy.

Yes, RLC could turn out to be the answer in midfield. But I think Mourinho is right in not rushing him into the side too fast. He's still only 19 and it's a big ask to expect him to come straight into the engine-room of the team. Zouma can do a job, but he's really only an emergency midfielder. Ramires at his best was ok, but his form seems to be up and down recently. There's Mikel of course, but he adds little to general play, more of a shut-up-shop kind of player. We badly need Matic back to form.

Imo, Ramires has never shown a poor attitude and can play very well on occasion and score some vital goals. Mikel? I honestly forgot about him, no joke. Now and again he plays quite well, but even as a back up he's far too unreliable imo. Zouma was very good when he played in that position, as was Luiz of course.

A Veratti, an Essien type player, a Vidal hard man who can also get forward.

Let's be realistic. Neither me nor anyone else on this thread are scouts for Chelsea, so analysing the options is really a bit stupid. I'm sure there are many, many possible targets that the club could have bought, and even within FFP the club could afford £50 million +.

One obvious target as it turned out was Martial. That's the quality required. As I said many times, Costa can't be relied on week in week out the way Drogba was.

Just because we can afford to spend money cannot mean we should.

That takes us down the previous route of spending for the sake of spending.

Martial would have made no financial sense for us whatsoever.

Plus it's highly unlikely he would have come.

We was looking for a player who was willing to come as at very best a second choice striker but more likely a third choice striker.

The fact you think Costa cannot be relied on is not that relevant as you are not manager. Costa was first choice striker and it was as much as a sure fire thing as you can get that he was going to be first choice striker going forward at the time

Verratti would have been great. I can't stand the guy, seems a nasty piece of work, but he's the sort of player you want on your side. I can't see PSG selling though.
I'm a bit surprised we didn't go for Vidal, he often carried Juventus in midfield while Pogba was getting all the plaudits.

I've no problem with Costa apart from his continuing hamstring issues. If there was a doubt about him lasting the season, I do think just having Remy and Falcao as backup leaves us looking a bit toothless up front.
That's why an attacking midfield goal scorer might have made sense, someone like Griezmann or Sterling (though I thought he was overpriced). If we could rely on more goals from our midfield, only having a 10/15 goal front man wouldn't matter so much.

I agree, there weren't many strikers around as far as I could see, apart from the obvious names..and they wouldn't have been prepared to join Chelsea as backups. Arsenal and Man Utd were hunting for a striker as well. Man Utd appear to have struck gold with Martial, I think both Arsenal and ourselves were linked with him as well ? But the transfer fee seemed ridiculous at the time.

and "at the time" is the only way we can look at it.

Its not only the transfer fee that was illogical for us to pay considering the "job description" and the role we was trying to fill again at the time but the add on's that made the deal a compete no go.

We must never go down the route of buy buy buy again. It did not work in the past and it 100% will not work in today's game.

Of course we will not get every buy right but they still have to based on the role we are trying to fill and not just because we can buy someone and then we work out how we will play with him and where he will play etc.

Costa was the perfect example of that, Not only was he the right player ability wise, He was the right "type of player we needed had the type of attitude we needed and was at the right price we needed to pay.

Torries was a player we bought because we could. Fantastic player at the time but he did not tick a single box. It was the ultimate symbol of our lets buy and chuck money around attitude

Begovic; Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry (c), Azpilicueta; Ramires, Fabregas; Willian, Oscar, Hazard; Falcao

Blackman, Zouma, Baba, Matic, Loftus-Cheek, Pedro, Rem


I want to cry.

Falcao starting too? Think i'll skip it and just watch the highlights later.

Doesn't exactly fill you with confidence, does it ? I'm more worried about our pairing of Ramires and Fabregas in CM. I'm sure we'll again look good going foward, but defensively ..oh dear. Still, fingers crossed.

4 matches in-a-row for Willian.

No sign of Dixon in here?