if this is the way Chelsea going to play, i don't think our team is interesting to watch at all.

still, when the tempo is high, we slow down again and again letting the opposition to get back to defend. and we try to crack them with 8-9 bodies at the back. i still don't see beautiful pass, plus we were sluggish with the defence.

i can see hazard can get past players but most of it he will fall down. he need to adapt quickly.

its disappointing to see our team play like this although its just pre season.

have to admit, i was a bit disappointed as well. the first half was forgettable with like..zero shots on target? and in the second we battered them for the first 10-15 mins, then for some reason we dropped the tempo.it was also sad to see both lukaku and torres deprived of any decent service, and even worse we actually tried playing long balls to the latter in the second half. sheesh.

there was more proof today that ramires is NOT a right winger. shocking how anonymous he was throughout the match. lampard on the other hand, cannot start most games next season. to be fair to hazard he was fouled like nobody's business. which is why i'm a strong advocate of him playing further up the field, where he can scare the hell out of defenders. this lad is capable of winning dozens of penalties for us without a single dive and i hope robbie sees that.

marin tried to dribble too much and needs more minutes. apart from that i didn't like the idea of RDM giving even more time to players who don't have a future with us, namely malouda. give me a raw kakuta any day. flomo did nothing of note and just reminded us again that his time is up.

p.s : after watching another match today where oscar was very influential and grabbed a neat goal, RDM really has a job getting the lad to grips with the pace of the epl. some of the tricks he pulled today were a joy to watch and i see him replacing lampsy sooner rather than later.

Chelsea line up bids for Wigan Athletic winger Victor Moses and Marseille right-back Cesar Azpilicueta

Chelsea’s huge summer spending is not over, with the European champions intending to sign two more players and send five out on loan over the next fortnight, chief executive Ron Gourlay has said.
.
.
Gourlay conceded that the squad “had to be strengthened” after last season and that he expected both £35 million signing Eden Hazard and £25 million arrival Oscar to go straight into the first-team.

He hinted that the likes of Romelu Lukaku and Kevin De Bruyne, along with Hazard’s brother Thorgan, would be among those loaned out and conceded that, at present, the Chelsea squad has “too big a pool” of players.
.
.
he summer signings – a raft of young attacking players also including Marko Marin – are set to continue with Chelsea targeting 21-year-old Wigan Athletic right-winger Victor Moses, for an initial £6 million rising to £9 million, and Marseille’s 22-year-old Spanish right-back Cesar Azpilicueta for £8 million. Older players such as Yossi Benayoun and Florent Malouda are for sale while Chelsea could listen to offers for Michael Essien, despite his protestations that he wants to stay.

“The average age of the side has come down dramatically,” Gourlay said. “Hazard and Oscar are two players that will definitely feature in the first team.” He added that it was “important to decide” what was right for £11 million signing Lukaku, who has disappointed on the club’s pre-season tour of the United States.
.
.
He didn’t rule out that continuing but added the pressures of Financial Fair Play regulations, and the desire to “break even” meant the club had to think about players costing “£6-12 million” who will develop into ones “worth £25-30 million”. “With FFP we have got to be a bit more clever,” he said.

sosej

i dont want Di Matteo to be axed, as Im sure te next candidate as our boss is Pep.

not ignoring the fact that it's pre-season, just slightly 'alarmed' at our lack of fluency. don't forget this was basically a much, much weaker milan which lacked their stars in the form of thiago silva, ibra, robinho and pato. it was quite frankly their second string. we hammered them 3-0 iirc under carlo during pre-season in his first year in charge.

the failure to create clear goal-scoring chances was glaring and to make matters worse, gourlay has revealed roman accompanied the team on their tour. it won't take a mind-reader to know he's less than impressed. the good news though is spain have been knocked out of the olympics, and i really can't wait for the return of the juan and only mata! we've missed him real real bad, and looks like he'll be involved in the charity shield after all

Oscar for 20+ mils. What a bargain for me. His price cud double easily after the olympic.

& to think that liverpool paid almost similar amount of money for henderson + downing.

Oscar for 20+ mils. What a bargain for me. His price cud double easily after the olympic.

& to think that liverpool paid almost similar amount of money for henderson + downing.

RB and striker?

---

Added on July 30, 2012, 8:26 amAn interesting article.

Ya striker position is very worrying, dilemma dilemma, is better for LUKAKU to go out on loan (provided he dont sit on other team bench) but with TORRES and STURRIDGE hardly convince yet, what more if injury hit then we will be short of striker. LUKAKU also a different type of player than other 2 which can offer plan B.

Worse come to worse will RDM drop all 3 striker and play 4-6-0 ? since we are overloaded with midfield at the moment