£70m seems crazy money for a 21 year old, no matter who you are. Id only expect to pay that much for proven world class players. An even wilder rumour is Messi to Chelsea.. fueled by him following us on instagram, now that would be a shocker.

Schwarzer leaves to Leicester, surely ends the rumours of Cech leaving? Not unless we sign another keeper.

FFP would mean signing Messi would be nearly impossible unless we sold some big names and even then it would be insane

I doubt he is in charge of his instagram account, Its more likely due to us sharing a sponser and a attempt to push up ours and his followers

Messi to Chelsea means we would be a superpower for at least 5 years in Europe. With that said, he's staying at Barca.

I have grave doubts that messi could survive both halves away at Stoke in January.

Good start for Nando, get a pen & beat RM!

Might work if we could get around £150m for Mikel, Schurrle and Salah.

But seriously, it has to be a load of nonsense. Same with the business about Suarez joining us.
The Reus and Varane rumours could have more substance, but somehow I don't see us making any big signings in this window.

Yea unless someone amazing is offered to us I would not buy anyone in this window, What we should be doing now is looking at our targets for the one after, Get the wheels started now so we can do what we need to do as quickly as possible for what I expect to be a very tough season (alot tougher then this season no matter where we finish)

£30m for Schurrle?

Take it and run.

I dont know.

It would take a simular amount of money to buy a replacement at this short notice.

If we could get that sort of cash at the end of the season and find a replacement thats not too bad but selling in this window should only be done on a one in one out and if the money is something really special

I rest my case:

https://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs...125143734.html

The Watford game clearly showed that making several changes when necessary can work, as Ferguson showed season after season at Man Utd, and as Benitez showed at Chelsea.

If Mourhino chooses to sensibly utilise the squad effectively, then Chelsea could win 2 or 3 trophies this season. If he doesn't, it could be nothing.

Any article that starts with some fool saying that a team can win the title in November is not worth blowing you nose with and anyone who writes such a article knows less about football then I know about building a time machine

Complete and utter rubbish

As for copying Rafa, I would not copy answers during a Spanish exam

I don't think the article makes a great argument for rotation. Man City have been forced into changes by injury, at United Van Gaal just doesn't know his best team and is experimenting. Liverpool and Arsenal would hardly qualify as great examples for the policy of rotation, and neither would Spurs despite their recent performance against us.

Jose picks players on form, to me that's a tried and trusted method that has always worked. Of course there comes a time when it makes sense to rest a player, but I've never liked the idea of rotation just for the sake of it. Besides, he has used players like Schurrle, Luis, Mikel, Drogba, Zouma and Salah. Ramires and Remy should have been given more appearances, I'll grant you that. But do you honestly feel as confident when you see some of the names I've mentioned there on the team sheet ?

We've just gone through a poorish spell of tricky games, while at the same time Man City had a remarkable run ( on paper at least) of easy games against mainly relegation candidates. That's the way it happens sometimes, it would have been a big surprise (to me anyway) if we had kept that 8 points lead.

Football management is quite easy, Come game time you pick your best team.

Yes today we like like to make it more complicated with pretty bar charts and lot of nonsense facts and figures so we can pretend we know what we talking about but it still boils down to putting the best players you have on the the pitch

I seem to remember saying many years ago "If you tell a player he is tired he will soon be saying he is tired" or something along those lines and I think they was right.

The media and some fans like to spend too much looking into bad results nowadays and come up with weird and wonderful reasons why we lost. The answer is "you win some and you lose some".

Yes he have been having some dodgy games lately but in everyone of them its been a much better (or on par) with just about every performance since Carlo was sacked.

Can we win the title? Yes (and not been able to say that again since Carlo left), Should we win the title? Still to early to say, Will we win the title? We will find out at the end of the season, Until then we should just carry on doing what we are doing

Yes, Ray Houghton was on Talk Sport jus now, they were on about Raheem Sterling taking a prolonged rest. He reminded them of the one of the times when Liverpool won the title, using only 14 players all season over the course of 42 league games.
I've obviously never played football at the top level or anything like it. But I can't imagine professionals are much different to the rest of us. If they're playing well they will want to be selected. I can't imagine anything more frustrating than feeling on top of your game, raring to go, and then being told you need to take a rest.

I have said it's nonsense about Messi coming to us but it looks like their are some issues between him and the manager and one of those it seems is due to "resting" him.

Eden is a fantastic player but not at the level he probably should be and the only way he going to get there is by playing week in week out, Costa is still learning about the game over here and the only way he will learn is by playing week in week out. This is a very very new team. It needs fame time not to win things this year but to win things for the next 5 years

That's the only thing I'd disagree with there. I do think we are ready to win a fairly mediocre Premier League this season. The Champions League is almost certainly a step too far (barring another miracle) there are several teams better equipped than us.
We have been lucky, Costa and Matic have adapted very quickly. But that's a tribute to Mourinho for choosing the right "type" of players. I think Fabregas would fit in anywhere, it's just a question of the best way to use him. Hazard, Oscar and Willian have had the time in my opinion, it's up to them now.
But we have got a relatively small squad, and I don't think we've got the depth some pundits would have us believe. With the FFP rules I suppose that was inevitable. Some might say it's the way it should be. Unless a club can show big (supposedly "genuine") profits the days of having world class players on the bench are over, even if Roman was prepared to splash the cash. All the FFP rules have done is to re-establish the old elite and create a closed shop. But that's probably a debate for another time.

Oh we are ready to win the league and I think we should but on the same hand I wont be that disappointed considering the recent past and I can see the foundations being built that could win 3 titles in a row.

Have never been so confident about our ability to create something special since Roman bought us.

Liverpool last season was the team that everyone was talking about and drooling over and had people making out they was something special but I had no doubts that this season it would be totally different and that has been us in the past.

Be great to win the title this season but that should be something that is normal for us after all these years of big investment, We need to be doing more now and that's what we are looking to be doing now (for example only Utd have won it more then twice in a row) and no team has won back to back Champions League. I am not saying we going to do all this but for the first time it looks like we are heading in a direction that we could,

So yes your right we should be winning the league this season I would not be so bothered if City (who a very good team and further along in their plans then we are) pipped us to it by a couple of points or the odd goal or so for the simple reason I see bigger things in our future

The biggest difference I can see between us today and Chelsea of the last few years is although I don't think Messi is coming to Chelsea that is due to FFP etc, In the past it was because it was because I don't think he would have wanted to come to us or fit into our system.

Now I think he would more inclined to do so and fit right into the style we are heading towards

Saturday 10th January, 3 p.m.

Starting line ups:

Nice to see Zouma in for Cahill, who has looked dodgy for a month or two now. Maybe he needs a rest.

Oscar back in. Not convinced. Yes sometimes he tackles well and scores the odd wonder goal. Often though he fades in games and his shots on target can be few and weak efforts. I'd start with Costa and Remy or Costa and Drogba. It's something Newcastle won't have prepared for, and while they try to work out how to cope, Chelsea could score a couple of goals.

It would be good to see Ramires back in as well. I don't know where the rubbish comes from that he's not the same player anymore. He's done well when he has played, and it would allow Fabregas to push up more where he's best. Ramires also gets forward better than Mikel, although Mikel is strong and has played well recently.

Come on the Chels'!

Čech, Ivanovic, Zouma, Terry, Azpilicueta, Fàbregas, Matic, Willian, Oscar, Hazard, Costa

Subs: Courtois, Cahill, Luis, Ramires, Mikel, Drogba, Remy

Chelsea getting outplayed by Newcastle early, not a good start

Pretty dreadful so far.

Chelsea is just getting outhustled right now, this is not a good sign going forward

Oscar scores. 1-0 Blues

Totally undeserved lead. Jose should still rip into them at h/t.