I don't see why Bamford wouldn't have been happy to be promoted into the first team (even as a 3rd choice striker). He's well aware he's never going to come to the club and be one of the starters when we have Costa. At that time we had Remy who's injury prone so he would've gotten his chance throughout the season and stake his claim to be 2nd choice. His chance is probably gone now we've got Michy who's same age but way ahead in his development. Traore, Solanke and Tammy will also get more of an opportunity than him I think

Hopefully you're right about Joe Edwards, something has to give. We need to get rid of people like Marko Marin who are never going to make it at Chelsea and unlikely to make us a profit anyway. We've got 38 on loan when it should be about 20 if we just keep those who've got potential to be part of our team or actually make us some money. I was under the impression that Guus was going to be given a position at Chelsea but that seems to have fallen through or is he doing his consultancy on the downlow?


I didn't even know we had upped it to that so I was fairly happy to find out the club is willing to loosen the purse strings. You're right though, it should've come in a lot earlier. Reading the statement by the Napoli guy it sounds like he wouldn't have sold him regardless of what offer was made anyway so we should've found another viable option sooner.

We offloaded Marin to Olympiacos for around £3m in the summer. The amount of players on our books does need thinning out though. You look at some of these perennial loan players like Delac, who we signed over 6 years ago now, and wonder what the club is actually doing with them.

You're probably right. Just think we need to do something that allows us to give some game time to younger players. The squad is a bit too full of experienced and stale players.

We are lacking in leaders on the pitch, drogba, cech, (and now terry) are all missing.

No one has replaced them.

According to reports we put in the 58m a couple of days before the window closed, Which was pointless as they could not have replaced him. I agree it's unlikely they would have sold him but going in with a starting bid of 30m is utterly pointless it's a waste of our time and theirs, If we went in at around 50m (which in the current market about right) we could have realised sooner we was not going to get him and as you say identity new targets. During any window we should be aiming to do no business in the last week of it unless of course some major name comes available.

Oh for sure it's something we need to do and should do but I just not sure we have the framework needed to do it and again it's something we should have started after Carlo left as that was when major changes needed to be made to the squad etc, If we had made them then we would be getting the benefits today

Hello Chelsea fans....

what would you say your best and worst home kit you ever seen ????
I always like the chelsea home kit from 12/13....

I think AVB tried but he certainly wasn't the one to do it.

Yep again wrong person recruited.

Went about it in the wrong way.

Interesting article in the DM today. Slow week I guess with only internationals.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/art...l-success.html

The ideas behind plan is spot on and what is needed more so with the rebuild coming up shows how far Utd are ahead of the game with I think the article saying they have 45 people in a office in London.

But will the plans work? I have my doubts

Yes, but not much we didn't know already. Had to smile at the ending though...

"The owner is not going anywhere – and neither are his club"

Well, we don't appear to be doing badly on the commercial side with our smaller group of staff. It's the reliance Roman seems to put on Emenalo in our transfer dealings that worries me.
The article also puts a lot of emphasis on FFP. That didn't seem to be a worry over the summer when we were (allegedly) bidding big money for Koulibaly and Lukaku etc ?
In Roman's position I'd be worried (and bloody annoyed) at some of the money we've thrown away on middling transfer deals that haven't worked out. Added together they dwarf the money we misspent on Torres.

Oh we are doing well but we can always do better.

How do you think Utd would have handled a player like Lamp's going? They would have marketed it to the moon and back and bought in loads of money (The last few weeks of Gerrard's last season you would have thought it was more important then who won the title) it was the same with JT last season, It looked for most of the season it would be his last but we did nothing.

Utd have bring in money from anything not saying we can go to that level but we should be running nearer then we are, Of course we up there with shirt sales etc but I think that sort of thing looks after it self. I think Utd even earn over 100m from their training ground name etc that's the sort of deals we should be looking at getting in. It was laughed at time for they even have a "global food partner". If we can get someone to pay us to put our name on it would should be all over it

Just one change with Pedro coming in for Willian. JT on the bench.


Courtois, Azpilicueta, Luiz, Cahill (c), Moses, Kante, Matic, Alonso, Pedro, Diego Costa, Hazard

Subs: Begovic, Aina, Terry, Chalobah, Loftus-Cheek, Batshuayi, Solanke

Going very well so far. More of the same please.

Excellent performance. Even had a few youngster on at the end

So nice to have Aina, RLC and Chalobah on the pitch and getting more than 3 minutes. Chalobah's assist was so good. Think he'll play a lot more going forward because he just seems so comfortable

Yes, good to see the youngsters getting some game time.

Very good team performance, hard to single anyone out as they all had a decent game. The third goal was great too, lovely play between Moses and Chalobah.

Good to see Conte showing Diego whose boss. He decides who comes off.
Diego must be keen to play next Sunday, I wonder why

Great first half, the 3-4-3 worked a dream. My only criticism would be of the second half where Conte appeared to have made a decision to defend deeper. I would have liked to see us continue with a high line and press. It turned out alright, but we nearly let Leicester back into the game before settling it with a third goal.
Difficult to pick out any single players, it was a fine team effort. But I thought Luiz read the game well playing in that kind of sweeper role. Kante was everywhere as usual. Alonso put in some good crosses and Moses made some threatening runs.
Fine performance and a valuable three points.

So, do we stay with 3-4-3 against United?

It makes sense to do so. The players have been working on that formation for the last 3 weeks and winning both games with clean sheets will have given them a lot of confidence. Not sure changing it just as players are getting used to it is the best idea.

kante is proving to be a great player!

Yes, I'm of the same opinion too. Just interested in what others think.

Of course the other thing to consider is whether JT should return to the starting line-up for this game. There are three potential options as I see it.

(a) keep the defence as it is
(b) JT replaces Cahill
(c) JT replaces Azpi in the back 3, with Azpi then replacing Moses as the RWB. As impressive as Moses has been, Conte might decide to be a bit more defensive minded for a big game like this?

Personally I'd keep things the same for the time being. I'd be concerned with JT's lack of pace in this formation, and as you say we've just kept a couple of clean sheets for the first time in a while so it wouldn't make much sense to tamper with the defence now.