Costa is an annoying fruitcake but he's one we need to keep!
I'b be happy if we got 70 for Courtois and got Butland on for half that. That would be good business.
Oscar continues to frustrate the hell out of me.
Will Hazard ever get it back???

That is the million pound question

Of course there are players good enough but they are not available and even if they are we would have to overpay way over the odds like City did with Sterling and De Bruyne

Its why we cannot hang around identifying players and getting them in and why we need to appoint the manager soon rather then later.

Anyone who wants to leave then I would move them on. I somehow doubt all those mentioned want to go.
Need to get the new manager sorted first. Reading about Conte, I really hope it is him.
His style is what we need and looks like someone who will get hold of the dressing room.
His way or the highway is what these players need after this season's shambles.

I'm not sure the Sgt Major act goes down too well in today's era of mega-millionaire, precious, little darlings. Stand on a few toes and the manager sees the dressing room turn against him.

Well Simeone seems to do just fine.
Conte has been very successful before using his methods, let's give him the chance to do the same at Chelsea.
Previous Italian managers have done well. You have eulogised about Claudio and Carlos before so hopefully you will give your support and patience to Conte as well.

Excuse me for quoting one of my own posts, but, apparently we value Courtois at 79 million.
If anyone is daft enough to offer that kind of money, we should bite their hand off!

I was thinking about our Premiership.
Look at how many have lost the dressing at Chelsea in recent years - Vialli. Big Phil. AVB.
Jose.

Thats what they are offering, we should hold out for a world record fee, 86 million

Thats jose's method.

Why?

It's not like we talking a massive amount more.

What would the point be?

What major difference would it actually make?

If someone makes an offer, you don't accept their first one.

You negotiate, that's a starting point

Of course but what is the point?

To gain couple of million quid more?

If they offered £50m then yes of course

But if they offer £79M

Then it really is not worth the time and effort.

negotiation is really only worth the time and effort if you are going to gain a serious amount of money, If they offer 79M then its not really going to be the case.

For such a relative small amount of money its negotiation for negotiation sake or some immature point scoring and to say we got the world record just for the sake of it

The kudos of the word record could actually save a team money.

If real offered 83million , it would be in their own interests to bump it to 86 million as the media scrum and enthusiasm around the player would easily recoup the extra money outlay

I just don't see the point.

Our time could be spent doing other things.

We will have a very busy summer and spending time talking to Real about a couple of million quid is a waste of our resources.

A fantastic article by Pat Nevin today on Chelsea's website: http://www.chelseafc.com/news/latest...ger-games.html

"I adored Johan Cruyff’s attitude that winning with style and entertaining while you do so is what football folk should really be aiming for. "

Hear, hear lad! That's what Chelsea FC is about, and I know that there'll be the odd muffin around who says it's all about winning and style doesn't matter. I don't agree, and the most successful clubs in world football, and especially the ones that JC was involved with, didn't just win, they won in the best tradition of the beautiful game.

Referees are rightly instructed to favour the attacking side, and that's the way Chelsea has to go. If Conte joins, we can't be a team again that falls back every game at 1 - 0. The PL is far too strong now, and we need to go for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. goal.

Come on the Chels'!

And I think RA is determined to find who someone who will be long term (ish)

Previous managers had strong characters to deal with, I don't see many like that now.

Did Vialli lose the dressing room? It's so far back now I can't recall if actually that was supposed to be what went down, or whether he simply just fell out with Bates.

As for Mourinho, I'm still not convinced of this supposed mutiny against him. He might have p*ssed off one or two players, but if it was a case of them collectively downing tools then it really doesn't explain how they've continued to struggle for wins under Guus. That theory is just trying to explain away a myriad of other problems, including fitness issues, lack of confidence and hunger, poor form and in the case of a couple....players in decline.. The only player that's markedly improved from earlier in the season is Costa.

I tend to agree. We are going to end up mid-table and pretty sure Jose would of got there. Just been a bad season with so many different problems.

Players past and present were all speaking out about how he was treating the players.
Lebeouf, Deschamps, Petrescu, Zola, all fell out with Vialli. Others prefered to not speak out.
We were 10th when he was sacked and had lost to Bradford with a dreadful display.
From 3rd to 5th then down to 10th with players turning against him made it no real surprise he was sacked.

Btw. Had to laugh at reading Ken Bates say he never like Ruud because he thought he was arrogant.
I loved the days of Ken , our very own king of comedy .

Ah ok, for some reason I couldn't recall the exact circumstances behind Vialli leaving, other than it coming only a few games into the season after an indifferent start.

I do remember Ruud apparently falling out with players though, including Vialli himself.

Yes, Ruud, had a blunt way of speaking to players .
I know this kind of thing happens at all clubs, but we do seem to attract more than our fair share of players with fragile souls and giant egos.

Why get Ibra who is quite clearly going to be a bench option.

He is not better than Costa for the system that we currently use or for the premier league due to the high levels of pressing and counter attacking football being so successful in the premier league. I think it will only make sense if we are playing Costa in tandem with Ibrahimovic, Chelsea's entire current system requires the use of a runner for Fabregas to pick out from deep, when there is a lack of space in behind for Chelsea to use that technique due to slow transition play Chelsea struggle to find a way of scoring. This is where Ibrahimovic becomes useful.

In all honesty think that Chelsea need to improve the central midfield very badly and focus more on the central areas, in particular in big games.

That's fine but we really don't know who is and who is not going to be here next season. While I think we should keep Costa and some of the others it just as likely at the moment they will not be here as they will be. Its one of those crossroads periods we seem to have every two seasons or so. Would I be surprised to see Costa on the first day of the new season in a Chelsea shirt? Nope but neither would i be if he was sold at the end of the season

But since he is a free no matter who stays or goes it would be bad business if we did not even look at him. A player of his reputation and ability comes available we have to at least talk to him and see what he is looking from his next club. From a marketing POV alone it might be worth at least talking to him to see what he wants

Don't think you can judge much when playing Villa who are a total embarrassment of a team and club.
RLC looked decent and deserves another start next week.

Yes, best I've seen from RLC in the first team. He looks more comfortable further up the pitch. I'm not so sure he will be the answer at CM or DM though.
As you say, it was all too easy to draw many conclusions from the game. Pato looked decent, it was a great penalty and he played a key role in the superb third goal.
Miazga was ok for a young guy making his debut in English football. Pedro and Fabregas both looked sharp and so did Kenedy. In fact there were no really poor performances, but Courtois continued to spill a few simple balls..must be a confidence issue ?