benny might gradually make it his own, if mikel slips up. a mikel and essien combo does lack a bit of finesse imo. but i'd love to be proven wrong. in any case they can share game time so it shouldn't be a problem.

latest rumours concern a 23 year old brazillian named ramires from benfica, and porto's raul meireles. something new i suppose to keep us guessing.

thanks for the info ichi! I think if u didn’t mention it here, most of us will be in the dark as well. Even all the tabloids missed it, which is quite frankly, shocking.Brilliant spot mate!

I have to say I’m very impressed by the way we went about our business getting this young prospect. Only murmurs of his name a few weeks back, then everything went quiet. Suddenly he’s already on our books! Fantastic work by our scouts and negotiators in getting him in quietly without much fuss. This is the way we should conduct our transfer business, and I look forward to more aces up the management’s sleeves. Way to go chelsea! Mighty pleased with how this went down.

yeppers that's our frankie! its going to be tough replacing him in the future. even in the academy right now, nobody's showing the capability to fill his boots. josh mceachran maybe?

clubhouse much closer now. nice


well apparently they weren't highly rated by our coaching staff. that's fine by me as long as we keep the rare gems, and start integrating them gradually. who needs ozil when u have toooorrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! (probably what i'll be saying if we fail to snag the former )

100 mil transfer 'warchest?' come on people...that kind of stuff doesn't happen anymore at the bridge. city have the biggest budget in the epl at the moment, and as a result we're less likely to secure big names. that's a fact. we could be forced to wait for them to conclude their spending, before moving on to our targets. that is if they haven't been snapped up yet!

the same applies for every other team in the epl actually. its the waiting game right now, and everybody's doing their utmost to avoid a bidding war with city.

35m sounds about right, but i think liverpool will ask for at least 45m. so the front runners will still be city. we can only watch from the sidelines, but sometimes that isn't such a bad thing! i do believe ngogg will be pool's future main striker though. looks a talent.

this news has got me exciteeeeeeeeddddddd. love the pics of him in our latest kit!
i agree with maddie. the kid trumps both aguero and torres at the moment, simply because he went on the friggin' STAMFORD BRIDGE TOUR wearing a CHELSEA kit! a buy and loan-back agreement similar to what we did with kalas, would make a lot of sense. his next season with anderlecht could be a blinder, and there's a real possibility his value will skyrocket even further. this is what we should avoid. besides that i think studge, di santo and borini should get their chances this season first.

what's with all this streaming stuff???? its on ASTRO SUPERSPORT tonight, 0955 pm !! woooooooooooooot. haha now this is more exciting than any other transfer bollocks that's out there at the moment!

no astro? get to a blue buddy's house and enjoy the match!

huhu it was on the guide man..was quite surprised myself!

no problem. i almost didn't bother to check after seeing everyone here was determined to stream

the bison's back with a bang!! fantastic volley with his weaker foot which hit the post in the 1st half, and a very cool finish when he did find the back of the net. mceachran, matic, sinclair all had very good games! di santo couldn't do much, and studge was a bit over elaborate at times. essien's man of the match for me, although he was given an early rest. we sure went crazy with our young subs

how i missed watching the chels! hope the ajax game isn't too late.

i was looking forward to watching them both..then i remembered they were involved in the the tourney
djalo looked to be the smallest on the pitch huhu. but he has a sturdy build, and reminded me a bit of makelele!

studge was perhaps trying to do too much. when he kept things simple and picked out teammates, he was impressive.
there was one time he was clear through one on one with the keeper and should've doubled our lead. he tried to do some weird spin move which failed to deceive the keeper and proceeded to dribble some more, before picking out a teammate waayyy too late.

di santo would've gotten at least a goal imho, if studge just looked up once in awhile when he got into the box. franco looked pretty frustrated with his strike partner on the night, and i don't blame him. still a lot to learn studgy boy!

This post has been edited by Kerplunk: Jul 19 2010, 12:06 AM

carlo has stated he wanted joey to stay but since the issue was 'economical' as he so eloquently put it, there was nothing he can do.
i agree with akramulazi. it is a strong statement from the club, and one which is totally necessary in this current economic climate. our players and any incoming personnel need to understand that the days of chelsea awarding big fat weekly paycheques like they were going out of fashion are long gone.

spot on by aw13 as well. its nothing more than an agent trying hard to stir something up, regarding didier's case. after we unceremoniously shoved joey out, his agent is merely clutching at straws at best.

the rags are making lots of noise regarding our alleged pursuit of neymar. i did some digging and guess what? this time they weren't lying. there's an official rejection in brazilian (anyone care to do a direct translation? lol), but it reads something like this : ""Santos FC declare they have received an official proposal from Chelsea FC of England for the economic rights of forward Neymar." But the statement "reiterates that Santos FC have no interest in opening negotiations".

i got that from another site. but here's the official link :

Santos FC Official Rejection

u can easily make out the that we were involved in some sort of bid, and were turned down.

Interesting. i also read that santos had a promising striker named andre who had a 41 MILLION pound buyout clause inserted into his contract, but was subsequently sold for 6.7m to dynamo kiev.

if we can get neymar for less than 20 mil...worth the gamble? honestly i'd rather have him than torres.

This post has been edited by Kerplunk: Jul 21 2010, 08:59 AM

haha we'll forever be in the kun aguero camp me thinks!
out of the choices you've put out, i'd say mine's similar. but i'll exclude balotelli, as i fear inter will drive a difficult bargain.

if city are serious, they'll get him. ramires is an interesting player, but if we're up against what they can offer in terms of wages and the actual fee, we may as well pursue other targets.

the early own goal and hilario's comical goalkeeping cost us dearly. sweet finish by studge to keep us level for a grand total of about 2 minutes , nevertheless. he drifted away in the second half though, with some poor touches and wayward passing. the one player i will single out for huge praise is nemanja matic. cool and calm in possession, and his ability to deliver those long raking passes are really beginning to shine through. to top it all off he's well built, and not easily hassled off the ball. no need to search for a ballack replacement imho. he's already in our squad. just needs to work on his shooting ability next.

that's right. didier was determined to play at the WC, i don't think its fair if we deprived him of that chance. as we know, for all that brawn and aggression on the pitch he's actually quite sensitive. kinda has that tendency to 'merajuk' thing. from his comments about the club being 'broken' when jose left, till the moment he pulled a long face as lampsy took the 1st penalty in the wigan mauling. we all know didier too well, so did carlo within a short space of time. so it was inevitable he was only going to do the surgery after the tournament ended. the true depth of our squad is being tested now, and i do think bosingwa's reintroduction will make a huge difference!

plooky, dunga did emphasise ramirez's ability when he remarked that the holland game could've had a different outcome, if the player was involved. the little info i managed to gather presented a combination of versatility, hard running with superb stamina, and a no nonsense type of midfielder. i'm tempted to put him in the 'essien' category so if he does arrive, we'll see if he lives up to the 'hype.'

interesting list! hmm it'll be ireland and robinho for me. on trimmed down wages of course.
i'm not sure city are willing to offload players to epl teams though. pretty sure they'll seek to send them away from england so the players don't come back to 'bite' them, so to speak.

did someone say gael kakutaaaa?! meant to post this much-much earlier, but got caught up with work. damn. the first one is kakuta's predatory goal vs holland, second is vs croatia, followed by his mercurial performance vs spain. an absolute joy to watch. i sincerely hope he breaks through our team this season, even if it means nobody else comes in. give him a chance carlo!

bah was looking forward to this. what happened? wrong info or astro messed up?

as our recent season was a huge success, expectations have also rised exponentially. take a deep breathe guys, i know many here are worried including me, but its better if they make all these blunders in pre-season where there aren't any points at stake. however be warned, considering the recent exertions of the world cup even though our players didn't make it far, it does take a toll on their bodies. so don't be surprised if the 'rustiness' bleeds into the first couple of games in the league.

forget it dude. at the moment, our budget will only allow us to sign his hair band. he isn't coming, so go with lampard

neither!

madrid will demand ashley cole in any sort of deal, so i say we steer clear from their players. besides that carlo has dismissed the kaka rumour entirely. its highly likely our transfer dealings will be concluded with the signing of ramires, barring any last minute hitches.