Chelsea Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2014/15

GavRedKing

greendom wrote: »

That's a real long term strategy. How long has the lulling been going on - 3 seasons ?:D

After his goal at Camp Nou he can do what he wants :pac:

LightningBlue

Mikel on for Cesc.
Fabregas has played his best stuff alongside Matic so far.

GavRedKing

Good tackle from Luis...we didnt say that much last year :pac:

LightningBlue

Zouma, MVG and Salah on for the last 10 mins.

GavRedKing

Courtois could be playing the full 90mins, anything in that?

GavRedKing

Christensen on for the last few mins

GavRedKing

What a save :eek:

Bloody salah is so one footed, hes afraid of his right

LightningBlue

Great save there by the Sociedad keeper.

LightningBlue

Good result. No injuries. Costa and Fabregas gelling well into the team. Job done.

Bring on Burnley next Monday!

Johner

Good run out.

Can't wait for the Burnley match now, a Costa hat rick please. :pac:

GavRedKing

Happy with that, no injuries and the tempo was up from a lot of the games last season.

Impossible to read to much into it, its only pre season but we look ready

hullaballoo

That was well in by MvG in the last minutes there to set up that chance. Some save at the end of it but as you've said, Salah should be taking that on his right.

I actually didn't think Torres was too bad. Apart from his miss, he worked very well in making space and I'm lost how he got up between the two defenders for the header. Could he be some use as a support forward for Costa?

It had the look and feel of a friendly in the second half, might have been helped if Sociedad had got a goal early on but happier that we kept them so quiet. We must have had >70% possession in the second half. Last season, when that happened, we lost. :pac:

I didn't see the first half apart from the goals.

hullaballoo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV9-kM4H2ws

Glad that lad is a Chelsea fan.

kev1.3s

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/394098/WATCH-Chelsea-ace-Diego-Costa-twice-while-Wayne-Rooney-misses-a-pen-for-Man-Utd
Tonight's goals.

GavRedKing

hullaballoo wrote: »

It had the look and feel of a friendly in the second half, might have been helped if Sociedad had got a goal early on but happier that we kept them so quiet. We must have had >70% possession in the second half. Last season, when that happened, we lost. :pac:

I didn't see the first half apart from the goals.

The main difference was Cesc moved the ball quickly and support for the man in the ball was very quick, little crisp passing and moving was working too and the main man in it all was Costa, he occupied 2 defenders at a time and made space for Schurrle, Ramires and Cesc to drift into.

Hes going to be a huge catalyst as to how we do in those type of games we drew last year and failed to score.

MaroonAndGreen

Not seen much of our pre-season games because of working evenings, only seen the goals to be honest.. but it sounds good.

Really excited though with how Costa has started, from what ive seen he looks like what we've been missing. Must be some sickener for Torres to see another striker come in and just blow him out of the way, his confidence and morale have to be at an all-time low at the moment?

MaroonAndGreen

Feeling nostalgic after reading the thread about reliving a match again.

Challenge ye to watch this and not get a little teary-eyed :P

CSF

Mourinho is really making the world sweat over this keeper decision.

MaroonAndGreen

CSF wrote: »

Mourinho is really making the world sweat over this keeper decision.

Yeah he is, who has been the better in pre - season dye think lads?

Its hard for him not to keep faith with Cech I think, hes been our keeper for 10 years now, I trust Jose to make the right decision either way!

peteeeed

MaroonAndGreen wrote: »

Feeling nostalgic after reading the thread about reliving a match again.

Challenge ye to watch this and not get a little teary-eyed :P

may 19th 2012 , best birthday i ever had

GavRedKing

MaroonAndGreen wrote: »

Yeah he is, who has been the better in pre - season dye think lads?

Its hard for him not to keep faith with Cech I think, hes been our keeper for 10 years now, I trust Jose to make the right decision either way!

Cech has made silly mistakes, similar to what he did last year that cost us points, numerous times coming through a crowd for the ball.

Cost us at West Brom very notably when they equalised with minutes to go.

GavRedKing

In saying that, I still think Cech will start vs Burnley

duploelabs

GavRedKing wrote: »

Cech has made silly mistakes, similar to what he did last year that cost us points, numerous times coming through a crowd for the ball.

Cost us at West Brom very notably when they equalised with minutes to go.

Just as torres' lack of finishing sitters cost us important goals and therefor points, cech's mistakes, as you pointed out vs. west brom, cost us points too. Ship him out

GavRedKing

duploelabs wrote: »

Just as torres' lack of finishing sitters cost us important goals and therefor points, cech's mistakes, as you pointed out vs. west brom, cost us points too. Ship him out

I still think Cech will start, the back 5 will be what we seen all last year.

Cech
Ivan Cahill JT Azp
Matic Cesc
Schurrle Oscar Hazard
Costa

This is what I'd go with. Bench is really strong too

Courtois
Zouma, Luis
MVG
Salah, Willian
Torres

GavRedKing

Forgot to renew the membership

Must do it this afternoon, although I dont think I'll make a game until about end of Oct/early Nov at this stage.

Kirby

GavRedKing wrote: »

I still think Cech will start, the back 5 will be what we seen all last year.

Cech
Ivan Cahill JT Azp
Matic Cesc
Schurrle Oscar Hazard
Costa

This is what I'd go with. Bench is really strong too

Courtois
Zouma, Luis
MVG
Salah, Willian
Torres

Filipe Luis will start surely....

GavRedKing

Kirby wrote: »

Filipe Luis will start surely....

Doubt it TBH. I reckon he'll go with what he knows for the opening game and the back 5 from last year is what I'd expect to play, Burnely will be no pushovers.

GavRedKing

Some 1st team coaching changes : http://www.chelseafc.com/news/latest-news/2014/08/changes-made-to-backroom-team.html

Assistant first-team coach Jose Morais, who arrived last year as part of Jose Mourinho’s management staff, has taken a one-year sabbatical to become manager of Saudi Arabian team Al-Shabbab.

Joining Chelsea’s staff is Carlos Lalin, who arrives as assistant first-team fitness coach and gym manager, having previously worked under Mourinho at Real Madrid. He will work closely with assistant first-team coach Rui Faria, overseeing the coordination of the new gym area at the training ground, as well as assisting the Under-21s and medical department.

GavRedKing

Wilmots reportedly wont play Courtois if hes benched by us.

Ya, good luck with Mignelot. :pac:

Sgt Pepper 64

re Moses...Aston Villa, Sunderland and West Brom have monitored the Nigerian international’s availability with a loan move the most likely outcome.
But because Moses qualifies as a home grown player, he could yet remain in the squad to keep the numbers up.
“Everyone knows that we have one too many foreign players in the squad,” said Mourinho.
“And Victor is not a foreign player. He plays in a position where we have a lot of cover.
“But he is English. We will make that decision at the end of the month and Victor is part of that process, so maybe he stays, maybe he leaves.”
Mourinho is bullish about the depth and quality in his side, but even he seeks improvements.
He added: “Do I have any weakness in the side” he asked himself?
“Every squad could be better. No manager is satisfied or has the perfect squad that can’t be improved.
“But I like this squad. The club got me the three targets I asked for, in left back, midfield and striker - two strikers in fact as Drogba returned.
“We have the squad we want, it’s not perfect. It’s the squad for tomorrow, next season and the young players for the next five to 10 years.”
Mourinho is also not interested in bringing in another centre back, saying: “I have Cahill, Ivanovic, Terry and Zouma, we are fine for cover.”

GavRedKing

If Moses goes then the only other over 21 HG player we have is Josh Mac so one of them stays the other goes.

We could shift on both but we'd need a replacement and theyed have to be HG.

Pogba anyone :pac:

GavRedKing

Graham Hunter reckons its ours.

Decent read : http://blog.paddypower.com/2014/08/13/graham-hunter-chelsea-will-win-the-title-heres-why/

hullaballoo

I have nothing to back this up but I don't think we're finished in the transfer window yet. I don't believe the Benatia rumours at all, for obvious reasons. However, we do need extra CM cover. If Matic or Fàbregas get injured, that significantly downgrades our CM because we're looking to Ramires, who's liable to lose the plot at random or Mikel who plays backwards.

I also think another striker should be added, unless José puts some faith in Bamford, who I rate (as if that means anything!) I don't think we're in for Remy. Didn't we previously go for him but he failed his medical?

GavRedKing

hullaballoo wrote: »

I have nothing to back this up but I don't think we're finished in the transfer window yet. I don't believe the Benatia rumours at all, for obvious reasons. However, we do need extra CM cover. If Matic or Fàbregas get injured, that significantly downgrades our CM because we're looking to Ramires, who's liable to lose the plot at random or Mikel who plays backwards.

I also think another striker should be added, unless José puts some faith in Bamford, who I rate (as if that means anything!) I don't think we're in for Remy. Didn't we previously go for him but he failed his medical?

I think our problem in CM is quality, we have the quantity with Cesc, Ramires, Matic, MVG, Mikel, Oscar if needed.

We can upgrade in at least Ramires, MVG and Mikel while Cesc and Matic are quality players that would cost millions upon millions to replace with a tiny bit of extra quality.

The thing is we need to sell before we can buy, to meet the registration rules, unless we bring in HG players as you can have a maximum of 8 of those, we currently have 5.

V9

Looks like Ake and Christensen are gonna be part of the first team for the season, which is great. They are good young players.

Baker out on loan maybe? be great to see him get first team football week in, week out.

GavRedKing

V9 wrote: »

Looks like Ake and Christensen are gonna be part of the first team for the season, which is great. They are good young players.

Baker out on loan maybe? be great to see him get first team football week in, week out.

Ya the youngsters in the squad look to be Ake, Christensen, Zouma.

MVG and Courtois are still young, same with Salah.

Great blend of experience and youth and as you mentioned guys like Baker, Brown and Boga look well able for some game time too.

kev1.3s

GavRedKing wrote: »

Forgot to renew the membership

Must do it this afternoon, although I dont think I'll make a game until about end of Oct/early Nov at this stage.

I've decided my first game this season is the arsenal game in October.

Johner

Christian Atsu ‏@ChristianAtsu20

It was Great meeting the manager after a successful medical test at Everton.

GavRedKing

Wish well, hopefully he gets game time with them and impresses.

peteeeed

GavRedKing wrote: »

Wish well, hopefully he gets game time with them and impresses.

And loses the jacket

MaroonAndGreen

Id like if we lined out as follows:

GK Cech
RB Azpilicueta
CB Cahill
CB Terry
LB Luis
CM Matic
CM Fabregas
AM Hazard
AM Oscar
AM Willian
ST Costa

Possibly the GK, RB, LB, CM and AM positions may change, but even if they do then we have great depth and Couirtois, Ivanovic, Ramires, Schurrle dont weaken us much at all if they play.

Sgt Pepper 64

Good article on why Fabregas is the signing of the summer with direct quotes

At £27 million ($A48.4 million), Fabregas was cheaper than Alexis Sánchez, Diego Costa, Luke Shaw and Ander Herrera. He cost Chelsea only £2 million ($A3.6 million) more than Liverpool paid Southampton for Adam Lallana.
And yet Fabregas returns to England with 151 Barcelona appearances under his belt, 10 more than Sánchez over the same period of time, and 91 caps for Spain. Manchester United signing Herrera is yet to play for the national team's senior side. Crucially, Fabregas also knows exactly what to expect when the Premier League season kicks off this weekend. In eight years at Arsenal, he made 212 top-flight appearances, scoring 35 goals and chalking up 77 assists.
It is easy to think that Fabregas must have failed at Barca to have returned to England so soon, but the figures suggest otherwise. Last season was his best in La Liga for assists, with 13, while only goalkeeper Victor Valdes started more league games in 2012-13. During that campaign, Fabregas was second in the Barca scoring charts behind Lionel Messi and third behind Andrés Iniesta and Messi for the player with the most assists.
United wanted to pay £35 million ($A62.8 million) to take Fabregas to Old Trafford last summer, but Gerardo Martino promised him a prominent role in his Barcelona side. Another change of coach and the necessity to fund the Luis Suárez transfer moved the goalposts.
"It's true that I have been playing in different positions at Barcelona and I learnt a lot from this as well - it made me a more complete footballer," Fabregas said. "However, I know my place is in midfield - I want to play there and I think the coach [Jose Mourinho] knows that.
"This is where I think I can give my best. It doesn't matter if I'm just in front of the defence or playing behind the strikers, they are two positions I really enjoy. When I was younger, I always said that assisting was my best asset and the one that I enjoyed the most. I'm happy I'm very consistent in my numbers season after season but, now that I score more goals and have become more of a goalscorer, I really enjoy that, too. I feel to have a good balance between knowing when to assist and when to go forward to score goals is important. I think I'm finding it now."
It seemed a vaguely ridiculous public relations stunt when Arsenal negotiated a buy-back clause in the transfer of Fabregas to Barca, but the assumption had always been he would finish his career at the Nou Camp or the Emirates.
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho spotted an opportunity when it became clear the Spanish club needed to raise cash to chase their own targets and claimed it took him only 20 minutes to convince Fabregas to take a new turn in his career.
In reality, the key meeting between Mourinho and Fabregas lasted more like an hour with the Portuguese telling the player that he would be the leader of a Chelsea team that can be successful for five years. Actions often speak louder than words, however, and the fact Mourinho missed watching his son's final game of the season to try to clinch the deal left a lasting impression on 27-year-old Fabregas.
"I thought I'm at the right age, I wanted a change and I looked at all the offers I had and, - after speaking to the coach - this was the best decision," Fabregas told the latest edition of the Chelsea magazine.
"My ambitions are to win absolutely everything. The more you win, the more you want to win, although last season Chelsea was not able to lift any trophies, so this season we have to perform well."
Mourinho sees Fabregas as the man who can knit his team together.
Incredibly, Chelsea last season attempted fewer through-balls for their strikers than relegated Norwich and considerably fewer than their title rivals. They expect Fabregas to address that problem. Manchester City's David Silva played the most through-balls per game last term, but Fabregas beat his 0.59 average in each of his last five seasons for Barcelona and Arsenal.
Silva also made the most key passes per Premier League game last season with an average of 3.2. Fabregas bettered that figure in 2009-10 and was slightly behind it in 2010-11.
In terms of a replacement for Frank Lampard, Fabregas, including penalties, has not hit the back of the net as regularly over the past five years, but he outperformed Chelsea's record goalscorer in assists, pass success rate and key passes.
"I have only just started my career here, but I don't consider myself to be a replacement for anyone," Fabregas said. "Maybe I don't score as much as Frank, but I like to assist more. For me, we are different players and cannot be compared."
Striker Diego Costa may well be the big beneficiary of the change in Chelsea's midfield and Fabregas said: "He goes behind the defence, making the kind of runs players like me are really happy with because it gives you an option to play the killer ball. He will do superbly here."
It seems there are a fair few killer balls to come from Fabregas, for whom blue may well prove to be the most successful colour.

GavRedKing

Well we dont have an easy start with burnley away but any victory would be nice, we've got Leicester then at home so hopefully that would be 6 points to start.

Everton away is next I think and that'll be a really tricky game and with Lukaku bulling to prove a point we'll have to be on our game to get ny result, although we shuold have beat them last year if it wasnt for Schurrle amd Eto'o wasting chance after chance, especially Etoo.

GavRedKing

I'm not even going to link to it but Daily Mail saying we might sell Schurrle to Atletico and they want an answer.

I cant see us seling him anytime soon anyway, makes no sense.

peteeeed

not to add any fuel to the fire but jose says we may have to sell a foreign player but is very happy with the squad


http://www.teamtalk.com/news/2483/9421269/Premier-League-Jose-Mourinho-sees-Chelsea-challenging-for-many-years

“I love the club because the club was fantastic and gave me the three targets I was asking for, in the left back, a midfield player and a striker. In fact, they gave me two strikers because Didier is also back.

“We have bought three people in Filipe, Diego and Fabregas, all in the best stage for a football player, between 25 and 30. They are three experienced players with quality to strengthen immediately our team.

“Last season we went into the season with a different profile when we bought people like Mohamed Salah and Andre Schurrle; people that needed some time. We also went to people like Kurt Zouma, but these players - Cesc, Costa and Luis - are ready.

“The squad improves, for sure, and the team can show qualities on the pitch that in the past we didn’t. The team has to be better. But obviously, this is the Premier League and every team tries to be better, especially at the top.”

More business at Chelsea has been mooted, but Mourinho has sought to distance himself from reports suggesting an approach for Roma centre-half Mehdi Benatia is imminent.

He said: “We’re not interested. We have (John) Terry, (Gary) Cahill, (Branislav) Ivanovic and (Kurt) Zouma.

“And we want to make Andreas Christensen step-by-step part of the squad. He’s training with us every day, playing a few minutes with us when it’s possible, playing in the Under-21s and training with us as a first-team squad member.”

While ruling out one incoming, Mourinho admits there may be outgoings, with a decision set to be taken on the future of winger Victor Moses – a man who spent the 2013/14 campaign on loan at Liverpool.

The Portuguese tactician added: “We have one problem to resolve. We have one extra foreign player in at the moment and Victor is not a foreign player.

“Victor’s best position is on the wings where we have many solutions. We have (Eden) Hazard, Willian, Salah and Schurrle but he (Moses) is English and at this moment we have one foreign player who has to leave.

“So until the end of the month, we have to make that decision and Victor is involved in this process. Maybe he stays or maybe he leaves. Because he is English, it is something we have to analyse as well.”

GavRedKing

I'd be selling Cech before Schurrle.

Cech is a club legend but Courtois is the future, Courtois may not start this weekend but long term he has to be our number one.

Selling Cech would sort out the 18 foreign players in the squad, 17 is the magical number but next year we'll probably have to sell even more, the youngsters like Piazon, Hazard, Atsu, wont get in over the established players.

GavRedKing

Chelsea fantasy league code is : 295983-79672

Join away lads.

GavRedKing

PaddyPower have an offer on, throw 20 euro on the Top Scorer in the ELP and every goal he scores you get a free 2euro bet in return.

Thats a savage offer, IMO, its for current or new customers too, one of the buddies sent me the link.

TBH, if your pick scores 10 league goals then you're after breaking even, assuming you use your free bet wisely :pac:

peteeeed

GavRedKing wrote: »

PaddyPower have an offer on, throw 20 euro on the Top Scorer in the ELP and every goal he scores you get a free 2euro bet in return.

Thats a savage offer, IMO, its for current or new customers too, one of the buddies sent me the link.

TBH, if your pick scores 10 league goals then you're after breaking even, assuming you use your free bet wisely :pac:

done

GavRedKing

peteeeed wrote: »

done

Ya gonna throw money on Costa but I imagine it'll be Sturridge or Aguero for top scorer.