I want Leicester to have won it at OT.

All this gumph about us throwing matches to stop Spurs winning the PL.

Spurs don't need our help by the looks of it.

Silly boy and him and his agent need to look at themselves BUT one the same hand we have to take some of the blame as we have allowed him to run his contract down to one year.

When you allow an English player more so a striker get that near to running down his contract something like this could always happen. You let a player get this close to being a free agent and you put an awful lot of power into his hands.

Letting a young players contract go so far without either signing a new one or at least having a idea of what he wants is an awful mistake.

Well it's been a roller coaster lads, let's admit it.

There's a lot to look forward to though, so let's be positive. At the back Zouma came through, and quickly looked a complete centre back. The one concern at the back is the need for a leader though. Ivanovic is just too slow now, and JT might be leaving which leaves just Cahill to lead. The squad need another world class centre back close season, and despite the fact that there'll be no European football next season, Conte is a world class manager who could attract big names.

As said before, the midfield needs more strength. There needs to be faster more committed players in there to win the midfield battle game on game. A bit like Matic last season. It's clear that the experiment playing Mikel further forward didn't work, and to justify a more advanced position a player has to either be banging the goals in Lampard style, or making a large number of assists, Fabregas style. Having said that, Cesc can assist from further back as well. Cheeky has come on well, but has to link much better to justify a regular position. He also has to tackle more, and put it bluntly get stuck in. It's the PL not the U 21's, and it's a big jump.

As predicted, Hazard is getting back to his best and is a huge player when fully fit and motivated. If this season taught us anything, it's that in the modern game, you cannot compete in Europe and the league by playing the same team more or less week after week. There has to be variety, and there has to be sensible rotation. Next season there won't be any Europe, so the league is winnable even in Conte's first season.

Up front, and again as predicted a long time ago, Costa cannot be relied on week after week. He is not Drogba, and world class competition for places is needed up there. Rashford at Man Utd has shown that if you're good enough, you're old enough, period! Solanke? There was call recently for Lukaku to return. He had failed to score against Chelsea on several occasions in the past, and then gets two late on in the game recently when Chelsea's heads were dropping. I always said he was no future Drogba and that at the highest level in the first few yards he's not quick enough. I stand by my words, and bear in mind that Origi is ahead of him often for the national team. Also, could you ever have seen Drogba missing a penalty and failing to score in the FA cup at Wembley? His nerves were steel.

There was also debate over De Bruyne's fine form and why he was let go. KDB has had a very good season and has had a lot of room to play. Teams going forward will probably cut that space down, and he could quickly fade the way Silva did. He's still not in Hazard's class and never will be. Looking back, maybe it was a choice between keeping Willian or De Bruyne. I admit that he's a better, more intelligent player than Willian, but Willian puts a shift in and has played well this season.

In summary, a big thank you to the excellent journalists at the Daily Star who have always lead with ground breaking news and articles. Well done lads. Also, a thank you to the brave lads on sites like this who stuck up for the beautiful game, when boring, monotonous football was starting to creep in. You can never win playing like that year after year. And last but not least, a very big thank you to all the staff at the Dog and Duck, who have worked tirelessly to keep us warmed with the best variety of lagers that London has to offer. Hip hip hurrah!

Lukaku is good enough to play for Chelsea and using one game(when e.g. the likes of Robben tended to do the exact same thing in big games i.e. CL final and game vs Dortmund in 11/12 where he missed a pen and Dortmund won the title and they have established him as a big game player since) is a bit harsh.

Other than that Costa can be relied week on week as long as he's fit and not banned... so it's not a question of quality it's a question of whether Chelsea have quality to fill in for when Costa is out(which they do not as they don't play Remy regularly enough and his game isn't suited for Chelsea's slow transition play, he's offside a lot too which is also due to his lack of match fitness).

Really Benatia rumours is a potential idea if/when Hummels moves to Bayern.

Really order of priority goes CB, box to box CM, backup ST and a fullback(ideally LB). Baba Rahman is good enough at the moment and just needs game time to establish himself as a top quality fullback.

Loftus Cheek is a potential solution to a box to box CM if he can improve his work rate, but I think he's a Yaya Toure type player, good at driving the ball but problems at defending due to questionable work rate. That will improve in time, remember that he's 20 years old and in his first season as a first team rotation player.

With ST Falcao and Pato are obviously not options, Bertrand Traore I guess is decent but needs a lot of work to be a dependable option. I think Chelsea will buy a quality ST simply because Conte plays a lot of formations involving 2 strikers and likes to change it up a little. Don't know who ideally will work at Chelsea. Probably a hold up man. I'd personally try for Benteke on loan although he'd want first team opportunities. Solanke can be 3rd choice if Remy goes.

Then finally at fullback Nathan Ake is a probable solution as the first choice options are not needed to be upgraded on urgently.

I was with you until you mentioned Benteke. No thanks, I'd almost sooner stick with Remy.
I also don't get why you would put Solanke as a third choice ? I think Traore is ahead currently, and he was more impressive when on loan to Vitesse.
Otherwise, I agree with your priorities. An experienced CB (difficult to know who might be avaiable). A box to box midfielder, someone who can add some energy and bite. Nainggolan has been mentioned a lot and would fit the bill.
Then we need a quality striker, both as an alternative option or to play alongside Costa. I don't know if we should take the route of finding another big hold-up front man, or look for something completely different. I guess that's up to Conte's plans.

FA Youth Cup winners for the 3rd year running. There are certainly some big lads in the team. One or two looked possibilities for the future.

First Carroll and now Benteke mooted as summer signings. Anyone want to suggest Balotelli to complete the set of recent Liverpool flop strikers?

I know we won't have CL football on offer, but come on lads. We can surely aim higher than that.

A number of media sources are saying the signing of Nainggolan is now virtually a done deal. Terms have been agreed, the figure quoted is around £28m.
If true, he sounds the kind of player we've been looking for. A ball winner, technically sound with a bit of a nasty streak. Maybe a bit like Vidal, a player I've always hoped we might sign.
Again, if true, it's good to see we have started to get some of our summer signings lined up early.

Balotelli would be great if we could arrange a brain transplant. There really is a fine footballer in there somewhere, I wonder if they've tried hypnotism ?

Aim higher?

As you keep reminding us, football moves very fast these days. According to you the game moves into a "different era" almost every couple of years.
Therefore, we should take stock of where we actually at, at this moment in time.

At this moment in time we look roughly like a 6th-10th level team. There are big holes in this team from defence to the second choice striker. Our goal keeping posistion is also under question.

Carrol would be a perfectly decent addition to the squad for a team in our current position. Just think for a second how different he is to almost every other English striker. He'll give us something else for a modest outlay. We can then spend more on more important places in the team which is our very insipid midfield, which is neither all that creative or defensively strong.
We are going nowhere fast until that area of the team is sorted.

You're mixing me up with another poster on here (The_don1).

For what it's worth though, I agree that sorting out the midfield and then defence are the bigger priorities, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be setting our sights higher than Carroll when looking for another striker to bring in.

No, we've had an inexplicably bad season. The reason why is clouded in mystery.
Costa, Hazard, Oscar, Willian, Fabregas, Matic, Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpil, Courtois..that was basically our title winning side from last season. On true form, probably approaching £300m of players, maybe more ! They don't become poor players overnight.
All right, age may have caught up with a couple of them, and you would probably expect some to be in and out of form. But this season has just been plain weird.
We've got Zouma to come back from injury, Pedro is beginning to look more like the player he was at Barca. Baba Rahman is probably a better player than we've seen so far, and we've got some promising youngsters coming through.
We need a few quality signings to fill some obvious gaps, but it's nowhere near as bad as some people suggest.

Different from every English striker? Why is that important more so when they are mostly nothing more then decent players. When ever nationality is meantioned when comparing players it's a worry more so when they nationality really has nothing to shout about with regards to quality players

You often get what you pay for. You pay modest money you get a modest asset. Not even sure in this case I would call Carroll modest. If Costa stays due to a number of issues (fitness and tempememt for example) we cannot go for cheap option when it comes to getting another striker in and everything about Caroll says cheap, it's saying oh we cannot be bothered to look for someone lets just buy the first available English striker we can find.

Brilliant result last night.

Chelsea became FA Youth Cup champions for a fifth time in seven years after turning on the style in the second half to secure victory against Manchester City.

Dujon Sterling, Tammy Abraham and Fkayo Tomori all netted as the Blues hit three in the second leg of the clash at Stamford Bridge following a 1-1 first leg in Manchester.

Chelsea’s dominance of youth football just shows no signs of ending.

This was their third consecutive FA Youth Cup triumph and their fifth in the last seven seasons. Frankly, they might as well retire the trophy to the Stamford Bridge cabinet if this stranglehold continues much longer.

The only comparison in this competition’s long history is with Manchester United’s Busby Babes, who won the first five editions.

Think City are running us close at the moment and think they will continue to do so and prob push us closer going forward

They have improved since last season and although we played very well (much better then first leg and think Abraham's return was a big part of that) there was signs that at times we was ridding our luck, Think if we had not scored when we did and in the manner we did the game might be have been much tighter. Jody Morris will be taking over for us next season so should provide us with some continuity which is important for the current team.

It's desperate stuff. Basically 2 strikers not good enough for a Europa standard team and would be expected to take us back to the promised land.
Bizarre.

For the upteenth time... As a squad player!!!!!!!!

So what if he didn't fit into Liverpool's way of playing. Ian Rush was nothing like as good in Italy as he was at Liverpool. Did that make him second rate?

Do you seriously think we're going to get top class strikers coming to a team with no CL football and be a bench player?
Bizarre!

So you love Rafa, you now want Carroll, benteke and are singing the praises of Ian Rush!

Careful, your true colours are showing!

Oops

So in other words, in the last 20 mins or so get the big man off the bench and lump it forward. Hardly the sort of football you have been preaching about.
You really must start to remember what you have written before otherwise it looks like your mask is slipping.

Its quite obvious whats happening here.

No true chelsea fan in their right mind would want carroll, especially one who has been continuously slaughtering Jose for not playing barcelona style football when we won the league last year.

Sell hazard, buy carroll and wear an ian rush t-shirt. You couldn't make it up.

On this day 1970.... twenty eight million viewers witness the final defeat of the forces of evil at Old Trafford
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjLagMHPoU

Blimey, that is even more pathetic than what twonk number one comes out with.
So wrong one very point:blush

An ''Ian Rush t-shirt"
I was using him as an example of a top player [a different level to Carroll] who never fitted into a different team. The other day I used Mata as an example of not doing as well at Utd.
Saying i want us to sell Hazard...my current fav Chelsea player.
I slaughter Jose because he doesn't get his teams to play like Barca.
When have i ever said i want us to play like Barca? Fyi, I think Messi is a genius [probably be accuse of being a Barca fan now] and i enjoy seeing some of the goals they score, but i would tippy-tappy football a bit boring to watch week in week out.

You twonks need to try and get over your bizarre obsession and hatred with anyone or anything that has ever had a connection with Liverpool.

And yes, i am getting personal with you guys now. I don't care if i get banned as i've had more than enough of your stupidity and arrogance.

That was the night i became a Chelsea fan.
I remember the fans being awesome that night.

There's a lot of players of a similar level around though, we've tied them before ourselves with Demba Ba and Remy. Same with Wilfried Bony, I actually thought he might be a decent signing for us, but I was wrong..be looks out of his depth at a really top level.

Even a squad player who ( in this case) will be needed to be a starter quite often during the season, will require a step up in class from the likes of Carroll or Benteke.
That's probably why Jose went for Eto'o, and then took a crazy gamble with Falcao. Former world class players who had lost it through age/ injury. He recognised that you can't really challenge for honours with just decent, average players in important games.

But I guess it depends where you see our position in world football right now. I don't think one bad season should suddenly turn Chelsea into failures. We haven't got European football next season, but we're still a wealthy club able to pay top wages. In other words, an attractive prospect for some of the best players around.