Chelsea Thread

Must admit Chelsea is looking very impressive in preseason. Adding Rooney to that would be a huge mistake for United and the rest of the league. Looking forward to the Real Chelsea game..Real hant impressed so far so I think I'd bet on the boys from London to win it.
 
Gotta say I'm seriously bitter that Rooney's camp is pushing so hard for a transfer to Chelsea. Obviously Rooney is a professional and so should be allowed to ply his trade wherever he'd like if they'll have him, but Chelsea...

They don't even need him. Between Ba, Torres and Lukaku you've got almost 80m of players for one spot. And I doubt Rooney would even get in the support cast, competing with Mata, Oscar, Hazard, De Bruyne, Schurrle and so forth.

It really is just a move to weaken United for me. Mourinho would be an idiot not to seize on the opportunity - money means nothing to Chelsea and it would seriously damage a key competitor.

Personally I hope all the big stars in the prem (Bale/Suarez/Rooney) stay put this summer. They all have long contracts with their respective clubs, and it's time to put the clubs back in some control. Just because you have a 'brand' doesn't mean you should be able to throw the toys out of your pram every few seasons and demand a move to a nicer place.
 
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You know what i think about all this Beach.
Clubs like ManUtd are experiencing themselves now what 95% of the other clubs are experiencing for 100 years.
Football is dog eat dog and now that your club is the dog that is being eaten, you complain (which i understand, wouldn't be different to be honest).
In the book i'm reading (Why England loose by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski) both authors show that there is always been uneven competition in football, the difference is that 30 or 40 years ago clubs domintated because they had good youth players or (even more so) because they had big stadiums and now it is because they can afford to pay big salaries (and not the money spend on transfers). The fact that money is involved in the domination adds a (false) moral dimension to the uneven competition.
To prove their point in the book, Kuper and Szymanski talk about Newcastle United. This is without doubt one of the biggest English club (with good youth working, a big stadium and an excellent scouting aparatus). The last time Newcastle United were Champions was in 1927. Roman Abramovich and Mansour have nothing to do with the fact that Newcastle United never won a champions title between 1928 and 2000...
 
gerd said:
To prove their point in the book, Kuper and Szymanski talk about Newcastle United. This is without doubt one of the biggest English club (with good youth working, a big stadium and an excellent scouting aparatus). The last time Newcastle United were Champions was in 1927. Roman Abramovich and Mansour have nothing to do with the fact that Newcastle United never won a champions title between 1928 and 2000...
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I agree that wages and success go hand in hand - but it's definitely getting worse every season (the wage inequality). Even in the 90's teams' wages were far closer together - Liverpool, United, Arsenal, and Chelsea (pre-Roman) all spent pretty similar amounts on wages.

And it's worth noting that Newcastle came very close to winning the league in that time. Now a team like Newcastle haven't a snowball's chance in hell of winning the league.

Teams should go through cycles. That's the way it works in almost every other team sport. You can only buy or develop so many players in a team, and they won't always work out, so it's boom bust. Newcastle could sign a Shearer and he'd be so good that they could shoot up the table. But then they could spend their whole transfer budget on Michael Owen and shoot right back down. I think that's how it should be.

But rampant inequality means that in most leagues there are 'dominant' teams that aren't as affected by those cycles (United, Arsenal, Bayern, Juve, La Liga 2). I think that's the failing of football. As we've discussed before, it's the fact that leagues become so stratified that make it necessary for City/Monaco/PSG/Chelsea to spend what they do.

In most sports you could add one or two truly class players to a team, and that would be enough to get them to win a championship. In football it costs a billion dollars!

Anyway, I know I need to get over the spend thing and try to just enjoy football. Chelsea should be wonderful to watch this season with the team they've assembled, as should City. In the end, fans want to watch good football, not worry about an income statement.
 
beachryan said:
. In the end, fans want to watch good football, not worry about an income statement.
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Another thing that both authors prove (with statistic evidence) is that basically fans don't care about fair competition.

Take a match Man Utd - Stoke: this match is sold out at Old Trafford because each match is sold out and because fans want to see their club thrash litle clubs.

This match will be sold out in Stoke too, because Stoke fans are eager to see how their team will compete against giant favourites.

The bigger the inequality, the less evident it will be that the underdog wins, but if the underdogs win it is a bigger satisfaction for the fans.

In the end both of us discuss a lot about this. Basically i agree with you: i also want a fair competition but to me there never was a fair competition, to you the competition became unfair because of the involvement of the sugar daddies. IMo that isn't the whole truth since i believe there never was fair competition in the first place. I (kind of) like the sugar daddies because i see "new" clubs compete...
 
I don't see how ManUtd didn't accept the 60m+ € plus Mata offer for Rooney. I'd have taken that in a heart beat.
 
Exactly. :LOL:

Chelsea need to be patient, theirs little chance we'll sell Rooney without bringing in someone ourselves.

Had we for argument sake agreed a fee for Fabregas last night and then Chelsea have bidded it would have been interesting but I don't think we can sell Rooney for 60M right now due to what position it would put Moyes in.
 
IMO Chelsea don't need Rooney at all. If i would be Chelsea i would buy a couple of less reputed forwards like Jermain Defoe. I'm sure with the team Chelsea have, Defoe would score goals and there must be dozens of forwards like that out there who are relatively cheap...why always buy a star player ?
 
Because their owner/management/coach/etc are obsessed with playing real-life fantasy football with their club.
 
Chelsea need a top class striker. Rooney is a top class striker and he wants out.

It weakens a rival team and strengthens your own. Like RVP, from Utd's perspective, it makes perfect sense. He'll be hungry to prove the doubters wrong as well.
 
Godotelli said:
Chelsea need a top class striker. Rooney is a top class striker and he wants out.

It weakens a rival team and strengthens your own. Like RVP, from Utd's perspective, it makes perfect sense. He'll be hungry to prove the doubters wrong as well.
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Yep, if I were anyone on here I'd have Rooney front and center in my fantasy team. When he eventually gets to Chelsea he's going to be fired up and eager to prove that he's still in the top 5 players in the world (which he once was).

It's just a bit galling. The RVP thing is similar but not quite the same - Arsenal hadn't won a trophy in 8 seasons. Rooney's premiership medal is barely 2 months old. Rooney's moving to a team that finished 2 places behind his current team. Now admittedly said team has spent a sh*t ton of money and has a lot of attacking excellence, but it's a hard argument to say Chelsea is substantially better than United.

I blame Fergie as much as anyone. He basically caused this mess. If he'd treated Rooney a bit better through the years I genuinely believe he'd of stayed for his whole career. But Fergie holds grudges, and Rooney earned his ire I guess. But Fergie should have at least thrown the next manager a bone on this one, rather than basically lighting the fuse and closing the door as he left.
 
It's a new challenge....sort of. Like Pep moving from Barca to Bayern.
And maybe he feels (if he actually does want to move there), that he will play a specific roll, and not be down in the pecking order. The flip-side is maybe Fergie was the only thing that did keep him around.
 
daikirai said:
It's a new challenge....sort of. Like Pep moving from Barca to Bayern.
And maybe he feels (if he actually does want to move there), that he will play a specific roll, and not be down in the pecking order. The flip-side is maybe Fergie was the only thing that did keep him around.
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Possibly. The only other thing to add is that Rooney isn't the world's greatest lone striker. He's not very tall, and the inexplicable pace he used to possess is gone. If Chelsea are going to play 4231 which seems likely, he has to be in the 3.

Mourinho is going to have an amazing bench, one way or the other.
 
beachryan said:
Yep, if I were anyone on here I'd have Rooney front and center in my fantasy team. When he eventually gets to Chelsea he's going to be fired up and eager to prove that he's still in the top 5 players in the world (which he once was).

It's just a bit galling. The RVP thing is similar but not quite the same - Arsenal hadn't won a trophy in 8 seasons. Rooney's premiership medal is barely 2 months old. Rooney's moving to a team that finished 2 places behind his current team. Now admittedly said team has spent a sh*t ton of money and has a lot of attacking excellence, but it's a hard argument to say Chelsea is substantially better than United.

I blame Fergie as much as anyone. He basically caused this mess. If he'd treated Rooney a bit better through the years I genuinely believe he'd of stayed for his whole career. But Fergie holds grudges, and Rooney earned his ire I guess. But Fergie should have at least thrown the next manager a bone on this one, rather than basically lighting the fuse and closing the door as he left.
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I think it was poor from Ferguson but on the other hand maybe he was doing it as a favour to Moyes if he knew that Rooney would have no desire to work under Moyes given their history.

As for Arsenal, I think with Cazorla and RVP (and Utd RVP-less) both clubs may have been much closer. Tho, granted, Cazorla may not have been signed had RVP stayed - tho i personally think Cazorla is a signing Wenger would have gone after anyway.
 
Beach is overreacting regarding Rooney, he can go with my blessing in all honesty.

I just don't think its likely for us to accept a bid for a high profile player like Wayne when so many fans (including Beach) are every minute getting more frustrated at the fact we haven't signed someone.

I expect a domino effect to occur late on when certain break throughs occur with deals.
 
Rooney isn't anyway near the top five players in the world, not even in the top 5 of strikers.
I really don't understand how anybody (even a superbiased fan) can think a player who even lacks match fitness can be a top 5 player.

Let's see players who are better:

Messi
Ronaldo
Zlatan
Schweinsteiger
Falcao
Thiago Silva
Neymar
Thomas Muller
Lewandowski
Gundogan
Iniesta

In this list is not a single player from either Chelsea or Manchester City (Silva, Mata, Aguëro). I wonder which players i have forgotten.

Don't get me wrong: Rooney is a wonderfull player but it seems English football fans are always overestimating their own players. Make a world team and there is only one English player who has a chance to be in the starting eleven: Ashley Cole.
 
I would rather get Drogba from Gala than Rooney if that would have been possible. It's just we don't need him but he can ease our competition with Man Utd.
 
amineken22 said:
As much as you try to be objective, your list is also biased Gerd. You included an over-hyped player such as Lewy in there, whereas left better players out.
For example there's no sign of Serie A player in there. Vidal, Pirlo, Handanovic and Balotelli can easily hold their own in there, especially Vidal who's hands down the best midfielder in the world.

As for Rooney: I think Beach meant that he (Rooney) was up there once, the season right after Ronaldo's departure is worth the mention.
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Of course i'm baised, everybody is. And yes i must have forgotten players (Balotelli indeed is a very good example). I also (deliberately) didn't mention GK's, otherwise Courtois and Neuer should also be mentioned. But GK's are odd one out's in those kinds of (silly) discussions.

I've always been a fan of Drogba but calling him back would be a bad idea and a very short term solution. Drogba himself understood this very well: he left after a triumph and leaves a fantastic legacy. Look what happened when Liverpool recalled Dalglish as manager....
 
People have always and will always continue to underrate Wayne Rooney. He's like the opposite of a sexy, attractive, hip choice of a great player.

If one accepts that the premier league isn't crap (and not so long ago there had been prem teams in 3/4 CL semi spots, and 4 straight finals) then you have to acknowledge how good Rooney has been. He is the single most productive player in the league over the past 5 seasons. (goals+assists). His team have won the most league trophies, and been to the most CL finals.

I know it's boring and he's a brute and bald, but seriously. Saying flash in the pan types like Lewandowski, Balotelli, Hazard and so forth are better than Rooney is either looking with a 6 month old lens or just being obstinate.

And I seriously dislike the guy right now, but that doesn't mean like some United fans I'm going to pretend we're not f*cked when he leaves.
 
beachryan said:
People have always and will always continue to underrate Wayne Rooney. He's like the opposite of a sexy, attractive, hip choice of a great player.

If one accepts that the premier league isn't crap (and not so long ago there had been prem teams in 3/4 CL semi spots, and 4 straight finals) then you have to acknowledge how good Rooney has been. He is the single most productive player in the league over the past 5 seasons. (goals+assists). His team have won the most league trophies, and been to the most CL finals.

I know it's boring and he's a brute and bald, but seriously. Saying flash in the pan types like Lewandowski, Balotelli, Hazard and so forth are better than Rooney is either looking with a 6 month old lens or just being obstinate.

And I seriously dislike the guy right now, but that doesn't mean like some United fans I'm going to pretend we're not f*cked when he leaves.
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Rooney is over rated by the English press, but overlooked as a footballer I think. He is made out to be a English god of football, and then when the team inevitably fails its a mind set that he has failed the team.

To me, he is one of the best players of my life time.. but his flaws are more obvious than other footballers, my biggest gripe is the fact he almost looks like he can't be bothered in some games, while sometimes he can seem like he's too ego driven and when he isn't being given an ego boost his form seems to take a dip. That said without him United suddenly look a lot more average and I fear for the team if he does leave.
 
Also agree with Beach. Rooney isn't a flavor of the month. Even when he was perceived to be crap last year he still knocked in quite a number of goals and assists. The only thing I hold against him is that he seems overly emotion driven both on and off the pitch. I do often wonder how much of that is motivated by his agent.
To me the United of this generation IS Rooney. '' the best players in the world'' often refers to those players who are currently playing at their best, but taking pure consistency into account there are very few who would be on that list.. And Rooney would be one of them.

Mourinho must be laughing his butt off with all the controversy this has caused. Mindfuck wars: Mourinho 1 United fans 0
 
Hopefully we can put a good fight today against one of the best team in the world with a great manager. Good luck King Carlo. In the special one we trust.
 
Mehtab said:
Lukaku is pretty much useless. Change him.
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Definitely. Send him out on loan, or just scrap him entirely.

Just offer the 45m United want for Rooney. He'll be better.

Actually, you should probably get Ibrahimovich as well. Given Cavani's the new star in town, Ibra's gonna be off. And he'd probably be, dunno, 60m or so? That's like fuel for Roman's boat for a year. No problemo.
 
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