Chelsea thread

[Monkey D. Lars]

You chelsea fans out there, do you guys think that Salomon Kalou will have a chance to make it there? I wanna now because im a Feyenoord-Fan and I heard that Chelsea bought him.

[Guest muddatrucker]

They favour playing 1 outright striker, they have Drogba, Crespo (could be leaving), Shevchenko, seems unlikely.

[FLiam]

Shevchenko went to Chelski for "family reasons".

Ha. That is almost as funny as Andy Johnson saying he joined one of the biggest teams in England to win trophies, and that they played in the Champion's League.

[G-O-D]

You chelsea fans out there, do you guys think that Salomon Kalou will have a chance to make it there? I wanna now because im a Feyenoord-Fan and I heard that Chelsea bought him.

[therockbox]

So then who's the holding player out of Ballack and Lampard?

To me it just smacks of desperation to win the CL, signing two players who have realistically only got a couple more years in them at the very top level.

Wouldn't be surprised to see Mourinho bugger off if you win it.

[Buford Ripley]

I guess the holding role will rotate between 'Lele, Essien and Ballack.

[therockbox]

I don't see Ballack being content to rotate, though. After a couple of months he'd be whinging so much it'd make Mourinho look quiet.

Edited June 2, 2006 by therockbox

[Guest Ringo Mars]

Ballack may not care. He's making 120K a week

[therockbox]

But he's there for purely footballing reasons.

[Marsh]

No way is Ballack just there for footballing reasons. He might claim that, but turns his £120,000 /week and turn it into £120 / week and I think he'd be singing a different tune.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/t...sea/5043096.stm

^ According to that, Chelsea have bought Jon Obi Mikel for £16m. Even I disagree with this. Chelsea have enough top class players already. Stop wasting money! Even if Chelsea win everything next season, they won't make enough money back to justify adding all these players into an already jam packed team that's forced to rotate and already encounters morale issues as a result.

Paying £16m for this dude is absurd, especially considering £12m of it goes to their Premiership rivals, Manchester United.

[public enemy]

They've only gone and bought him so we couldn't, on the off chance that he might be decent.

They did the same with Essien and Wright-Phillips and neither of them will get first-team football next season. :ohwell:

[Michael]

I think what we could do next season is play two up front, play Ballack and Lampard in the middle with Makelele and Essien playing the holding midfield role and then have either Robben, Wright-Phillips or Joe Cole as a single winger. As they can all play both sides, we could switch them from side to side to try and expose a weakness in the defence.

Could work.

[public enemy]

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see why Jose would want to change his proven and successful formation to accomodate his new signings.

Ballack will take over from Essien, Shevchenko for Drogba and he'll rotate the others.

[G-O-D]

Paying 16m for Mikel is just absurd. He may be for the future, but 12m to Man Utd is absurd. Very absurd.

And anyone who believes Ballack and Shevchenko came to us purely because of footballing reasons is a fool.

[Guest muddatrucker]

I still laugh at Kenyons intensions to make Chelsea self sufficient.

[TheArsenal]

Only four more years until they break even!!!

[Guest muddatrucker]

Assuming that they don't spend a penny in that period.

[TheArsenal]

Well what I posted was part of Kenyon's plan.

What you posted......well........let's just say they won't spend "a penny"......they probably will spend about £150 - £200 million on new players alone.

Edited June 3, 2006 by TheArsenal

[Johnny Latino Heat]

Mystic Mour

By BEN KINSELLA

JOSE MOURINHO has turned himself into the Premiership’s Mystic Meg.

Chelsea’s double title- winning boss reckons he knows just when his side will play their away matches in the league next season.

It follows another look into his crystal ball ahead of the new campaign’s fixture list, which will be released on Thursday.

Mourinho famously predicted the Blues would win their first title away at Bolton two years ago and the top four Premiership finishing positions last season.

The Special One has courted controversy before over how the fixtures computer does not appear to favour Chelsea.

But this time he is adopting a much more ‘tongue-in-cheek’ approach to the issue by making his declaration of what will happen even before the games have been announced.

Mourinho said: “Soon the fixtures will be out, so these are my predictions for key points in the season — the first game, matches after the Champions League, the Christmas period and the last game.

“I think in England you say, ‘I have looked into my crystal ball’ and this is what I saw.

“For sure, our first game will be away from home. After international matches, Arsenal always play at home, Manchester United and Liverpool are 50-50, Chelsea always away. So with an international on August 16th and the first Premiership game on the 19th, Chelsea will be away.

“Players will arrive back from their national teams on the 17th in the afternoon and we travel on the 18th to play away on the 19th.

“I can also guess our fixtures will be away for the fifth, seventh, ninth, 11th, 14th and 17th weekends of the Premiership calendar.

“Last season was unbelievable. After the Champions League, Chelsea were nearly always away — especially after the group phase matches."

“There is protection to some clubs, nothing for others. I don’t know the intention but I know the reality. It is impossible to deny it. Sometimes matches after the Champions League can be on a Sunday or Monday to have one more day to rest. Never for us."

[TheArsenal]

Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool will be among the top seeds for next season's Champions League but Chelsea have again missed out.

The Premiership champions will be among the second seeds despite the absence of Italian sides Juventus and AC Milan.

Beaten finalists Arsenal and 2005 champions Liverpool still need to qualify to take their place among the top seeds for the group phase.

Scottish champions Celtic will join Chelsea in the pot of second seeds.

The Blues now face the possibility of facing reigning champions Barcelona who knocked them out of last season's competition at the first knockout phase.

Juventus and AC Milan are set to appeal the punishments for Italy's match-fixing scandal which ruled that they could not compete in the tournament next term.

Even if their appeals are successful, the result would not affect the seedings of the British clubs.

The Italian FA is expected to announce on 25 July that Roma, Chievo and Palermo will join Inter Milan in the Champions League.

While Celtic enjoy the highest ever ranking given to a Scottish side, Hearts, should they qualify, are likely to be one of the lowest seeds.

Uefa splits the 32 entrants into four pots of eight teams, divided according to their current European ranking.

Each group will contain one team from the top seeds, one from the second seeds, one for the third and one from the fourth.

The draw for the group stages will take place on 24 August in Monaco.