₦airaland Forum

dopeJemi:
Funny, we had a weaker squad when y'all were finishing 3rd and 6th

Chelsea will finish 3rd this coming season... bookmark this page

You wan bet money bcuz i no get time for book marking page?

mathys:
You wan bet money bcuz i no get time for book marking page?

1000 cfa

dopeJemi:
1000 cfa

That na 300 naira

Tval:
That na 300 naira

Who tell you

1000 naira= 2500cfa now oh

So na 400naira

dopeJemi:
Who tell you

1000 naira= 2500cfa now oh

So na 400naira

Naira don spoil finish ,, So 300 Naira is not up to a thousand CFA

Guy u no serious ojare

Tval:
Naira don spoil finish ,, So 300 Naira is not up to a thousand CFA

I'm telling you, sorry for who wan go do vacation for that country

mathys:
Guy u no serious ojare

I swear, try reach border make you see

dopeJemi:
I'm telling you, sorry for who wan go do vacation for that country

dopeJemi:
I swear, try reach border make you see

Border wey dem abandon

dopeJemi:
I swear, try reach border make you see

I mean u no serious aspa the bet

Tval:
Border wey dem abandon

Lol, the border is a hot mess, do you know you have to pay 400 to and fro to cross the border now, passport or no passport

mathys:
I mean u no serious aspa the bet

Lol, I dey reason your pocket na

dopeJemi:
Lol, I dey reason your pocket na

You dey reason my pocket ke? Abi u dey deceive ursef say na only u like be billionaire?

No worry about my own just worry about urs. Tx

dopeJemi:
Lol, the border is a hot mess, do you know you have to pay 400 to and fro to cross the border now, passport or no passport

Lol..Naija immigration officers or Benin?

Tval:
Lol..Naija immigration officers or Benin?

Benin

mathys:
You dey reason my pocket ke? Abi u dey deceive ursef say na only u like be billionaire?

No worry about my own just worry about urs. Tx

1500 dollars.. you up?

dopeJemi:
Benin

Back then it was 100 naira. See upgrading o

dopeJemi:
1500 dollars.. you up?

Yes I am up for it.

Meanwhile,sey the bet na cfc will finish 3rd this season?

So as long as we dont finish 3rd,I win?

mathys:
Yes I am up for it.

Meanwhile,sey the bet na cfc will finish 3rd this season?

So as long as we dont finish 3rd,I win?

3rd and below

Tval:
Back then it was 100 naira. See upgrading o

Back then it was free sef

dopeJemi:
3rd and below

No wahala...we have a deal. Tx

Now You talking.. 1500 dollars Up.. Mathys, How far my share?

Bimffo:
Now You talking.. 1500 dollars Up.. Mathys, How far my share?

Wait make money enter hand first la.....!

Meanwhile, you too still fit try go something on the side with dope ,bcuz e b like say the guy like do father xmax for us.

Now jokes, fanatism and stupidity apart; Sunday's Community Shield between Arsenal and Chelsea will determine who is more the tactical between AW and JM as both teams have equal strength and depth. Being a 50-50 contest, no more excuses.

Spy360:
Now jokes, fanatism and stupidity apart; Sunday's Community Shield between Arsenal and Chelsea will determine who is more the tactical between AW and JM as both teams have equal strength and depth. Being a 50-50 contest, no more excuses.

Ur responds dey ur thread dey wait 4 u.

Spy360:
Now jokes, fanatism and stupidity apart; Sunday's Community Shield between Arsenal and Chelsea will determine who is more the tactical between AW and JM as both teams have equal strength and depth. Being a 50-50 contest, no more excuses.

Funny how you lot think you've got a balanced team. Cech's signing must be sending out orgasmic feelings

The biggest revelation I see in your team is Francis Coquelin. Dude's presence in your team have seen Arsenal become more disciplined in midfield and his influence means una seem far less likely to throw too many men forward and leave yourselves vulnerable to counter-attacks.

Giroud would always be Giroud whilst Ozil the passenger would be waiting to be carried.

That said, I don't think I'd have to wait for the outcome of Sunday's game to conclude who's better between Wenger and Jose. Mou has been sodomizing Wenger tactically over the years, and it has got nothing to do with the teams both men manage.

I've seen less fancied sides like Newcastle, Bradford etc defeat Mourinho's Chelsea, so no be team quality. Wenger has been the chief architect of his failed attempts to beat Jose. Over the years, the way he sets up Arsenal suits Mourinho and Chelsea down to the ground because you guys have been cavalier going forward whilst staying exposed at the back, that's too cheap to worry an intelligent Mourinho.

If your manager no change approach against us, this info below might just get funnier

This piece is penned with two hopes;

1. To stimulate spirited discussion among the members of the Chelsea family
2. In the hope that some person(s) in the corridors of power for Chelsea FC perchance stumble upon it, reads it and that it gives food for serious thought and hopefully beyond that action.

It's quite a long piece, I pray I don't get banned

I know the views I will express will not be popular amongst those amongst us who feel that the place of the fan in a club is to agree hook line and sinker with everything management does and says and to never express dissent. Those with that mind frame may well best skip this as it may likely offend their sensibilities but I am wholly unapologetic.

Let me begin by saying I love Deigo Costa and I like the whole package, his finishing ability, his fiery temper, his aggression, his drive to win, his competitiveness and his physique. His record as a goal scorer when fit and not suspended is nothing to sneeze at either. His record speaks for itself and it can be argued that his presence was THE difference last year that took us from top 3 finisher in the BPL the year before to BPL champs with points to spare the year after. Yes Cesc`s influence was also immense as was Matic and Hazard, JT etc etc but with Costa we had last year a striker who scored in double digits in the BPL and this is a commonality that has marked every campaign in which Chelsea has won the BPL. Furthermore in recent BPL memory any team that has won the BPL has had to have at least one goal scorer with double digits of goals closer to 20 than 10..that is what DC19 gave us last year.

If we are to have any designs on retaining our BPL title it goes without saying that once again at least one of our strikers must reach double digits and as our preferred and starting striker in our dominantly one striker playing formations that burden right now falls squarely on Costa`s burly shoulders. If we are to have any hope of making any noticeable impact in the Champions League we must also have at least one top tier if not world class goal scorer. Go look at all the prime players in last year`s Champions league tournament; PSG have the incomparable Ibra backed up by Cavani, Barca have the prolific MSN, Real have BBC, Juve had Carlitos Tevez backed up by Jesse who grew leaps and bounds in stature last year and with Tevez`s departure they did not waste time retooling by adding Mario Mandzukic and Paulo Dybala to their profile that already includes Jesse and Fernando LLorente. As for Bayern they obviously have Lewandowski in addition to Muller and the Robery connection when that duo is fit. Atletico who we should add to this mix (as they have done better in the champions league than us for 2 years running now) have Jackson Martinez backed up by Antoine Greizman.

Jose has recently said that pre-season is fake and means nothing. As with many things he says I believe he was playing games with words here but taken on face value I absolutely disagree with him on this. Pre-season and the games played then have value and teach a lot in my opinion. We would ignore the obvious and apparent signs seen then at our own peril.

Let us go back to memory lane after we won the Champions League in dramatic fashion in Munich in 2012…we went into the post season then with only 2 strikers as king Drogs and Salomon Kalou departed and AVB had already ejected Nico Anelka earlier. We were left with El Nino and Danny Sturridge. Danny quickly got injured playing for England and was largely unavailable for the pre-season activities. But looking back this was not just a fluke occurrence even before that he had had recurrent injury issues and importantly they were mostly "muscular" and ligament problems not structural problems like joint or bone problems that are generally amenable to surgical intervention. RDM was wise enough to see trouble on the horizon especially considering the poor form of el Nino and is on record to have begged Roman to get him another striker. He specifically asked for ..wait for it… Radamel Falcao who had just moved to Atletico then and had been in devastating form for them after his very successful European debut at Porto. Incidentally it is also on record that AVB himself had asked for Falcao and the guy had been very keen to follow his then prior manager to Stamford Bridge but Roman had refused. As far as the records show, Chelsea made some half hearted inquiries about…wait for it..Loic Remy at that summer window but he was recovering from some lay of from injury and that came to nothing. We all know what followed; Torres continued to flop, Danny suffered injury after injury and had few opportunities consequently as also because of the pressure on RDM from above to get El Nino going. It is on record that at that fateful game in Turin against Juve which finally got RDM the sack he was so fed up with El Nino that he had decided he would not play no matter what. He had Danny in the starting line up and the guy picked up an injury during the pre-game warm ups. RDM was forced to play Hazard as a false 9 and the rest is history.

Anyone can go look at what happened next with Danny. We sold him for peanuts to Liverpool (maybe in retrospect we accepted such a low bid because of things our med team knew that were not disclosed..we may never really know). However while Danny started out on fire for the reds (and this was the first season for him that he would be playing a full compliment of games rather than being a sub mostly playing wide) but as good as SAS was that year and as productive as Danny was, anyone who looks closely at his record then will notice the extended periods he spent in the treatment room again because of mostly muscular and ligamentous problems. This issue was largely covered up by the prolific form of Suarez and the rising profile of Raheem Sterling. Liverpool failed to see the hand writing on the wall and act to protect themselves and their investment. Last year the chickens came in to roost and Danny`s body gave way. With Suarez also gone, the bottom literally fell out of the Reds previously potent offense and we know where that ended them. Danny has since had some "hail mary " type surgery here in the US but seeing as his recurrent issues have been muscular and ligamentous rather than dominantly bone or joint related the reds know that this is an issue that wont be disappearing any time soon and so they went stir crazy this summer getting Danny Ings, Roberto Firmino, and Benteke while they still at this moment have Ballotelli, Lambert and even Borini still on their books (they are obviously trying very hard to move all three of these asap) leaving them with a glut of strikers because they realize that the chances they will ever see the same productivity Danny gave them in his first season with Suarez are almost essentially nil.

Why do I go into all this detail? Because the hand writing is on the wall that Diego Costa is not a Franchise striker and that is what we thought we got when we bought him from Atletico.I had hoped he may be able to play up to 30 games this coming season but the omens are there that this may even be over optimistic. Go back and study Diego`s body of work at Atletico and several things stand out;

1. He never played as a single striker with them. He was always paired with another striker..he backed up Falcao for some time and then became the lead striker after Falcao`s departure but always worked in a paired set up which played to his strengths and reduced his work load

2. Prior to joining us he had only played in the "defense optional" atmosphere of La Liga where the play is far less physical and intense and where he had the luxury of a Christmas holiday to rest, recover and recharge

3. The moment the work load expected of him increased as happened 2 seasons ago when Atletico reached the Champions League final, won La Liga but were pushed by Barca right up to the last day and also went deep into the Copa Del Rey with call ups to the national team roster to boot, his body gave way and he had a spate of again dominantly muscular injuries involving his hamstrings and importantly invariably each of these injuries involved a different set of muscles so while the mechanism of injury was essentially the same the locations were variable.

We all know the story of Costa`s injury woes last season with us despite being managed by (in my opinion) the best physio team in pro footie. Dr Carniero and her team need to be commended for getting as many games out of Diego last year as they did but let us not fool ourselves; they are very good but they are not miracle workers or magicians. This issue is still there and is a ticking time bomb that will go off eventually especially if we don`t change how we utilize him.

The BPL is a very different animal from La liga. Defense is a premium here, the pace is fast and furious, the rain often makes for slippery pitches, the defenders are often very physical in approach and often well physically endowed both to dish and take punishment. Diego`s playing style means he will take much more punishment than most and unfortunately his preceding reputation means he has traditionally got (and I don`t think this will change anytime soon) little to no protection nor benefit of the doubt from the refs. Worse still our season is one of the longest with 38 games, no Christmas break and two added local cup competitions (the FA and Capital One Cup). With Jose`s penchant for minimal squad rotation and preferring to play one rather than 2 or even 3 striker/forward formations this is requiring a huge amount from our "franchise" striker and fellas I am saying it now..his body cannot take it..if we push this too far we will end up with the Danny Sturridge type disaster.

It is very telling looking back at Deigo`s body of work last season how poor his form and productivity was in mid week games for the Champions league as compared to the BPL. It speaks to the fact that his recovery time is significantly longer than many of our other players and several comments Jose made regarding his fitness levels last year also belie this. It is also telling that even after a full summer holiday of total rest with no national team call up or duties the moment Diego racked up 3 games in quick succession played within a week rather than the typical once weekly routine his hammie acted up again. Now remember he never played 90 minutes in any of these games. If that does not spell trouble ahead then we are deceiving ourselves.

Diego is an excellent striker when fit and in form but with his persistent muscular injuries which are clearly over-exertion related those are huge ifs to deal with. There is no clear surgical fix for Diego`s problems much like Dannys. They can only be managed and his profile suggests that we would be wise not to expect more than 30 games at the best from him in any one season. Also, we would be best advised to play him no more frequently than once weekly with adequate rest and physio in between and also play him more with a strike partner than alone as Jose tried to do when he paired him with Kenedy in the first half against barca.

The problem though is this, muscular problems like this are capricious..we can do everything right and have the best physio team working with him and yet we could still have a major disaster and/or a season punctuated by recurrent hamstring flare ups the most minor of which will require at a minimum at least 2 weeks off major exertion to allow healing. Diego is in a catch 22 situation. For him to perform he needs to regain match fitness and sharpness and it is obvious from his preseason showings he is not there yet. Problem is that to get there he needs game time and lots of it but if we push too hard his hammies act up and the only way to fix that is more rest and extended time in the physio room. This is essentially being between the rock and a hard place or as the Greeks would say between the Symplegades and Planctae. Does that strike you with confidence for a Franchise striker of a club of our stature seeking trophies in 4-5 different competitions per season? I don`t know about you but I am sorry I am just being real here, it does not engender confidence in me.

Loic Remy his back up is an efficient and very good back up but he is a back up make no mistake about it. Loic I am sorry is not a franchise striker. His health and fitness woes are well documented and if he is required to bear the full load of carrying the goal scoring duties of a team like ours I fear his body will also give way as we saw happen a few times last season as well. Let us not also forget that both Loic and Diego are now one year older with mounting wear and tear on their bodies.

Our final option is Radamel Falcao post left ACL repair. His situation is well discussed already and we know our taking him on loan is a calculated gamble. Do you feel comfortable with these as our striker options; a very injury prone first choice option, another injury prone back up and an older legend rehabbing from near career ending knee surgery?

Left to me I think the wise thing to do it ensure we have some kind of insurance. A team of Chelsea`s stature should have at least two top tier goal scorers anyway. I would suggest we go into the market while it is still open and go in hard to get Alexander Lacassete. Failing that we may have to settle for someone like Higuan or even test Atletico`s resolve by making a serious bid for Griezman. A less optimal option would be to retain a much younger, less experienced and less accomplished 4th striker like Kenedy (if we could secure a work permit which seems unlikely) or begin grooming Solanke for possible major minutes.

It is now looking more and more painful how we twice missed on the chance to get Wilfred Bony and allowed Liverpool get Benteke for prices we are reputed to be willing to exceed to try and get Josh Stones from Everton. For those who say we will be fine..remain as is..just take a moment to see what our competition for the top 4 in the BPL and the big boys in Europe have to boast of and ask yourself if sentiments apart we match up favorably in your mind. Remember last year LVG ejected two strikers that SAF had won multiple titles with at Man U in Chicarito (sent to Real on loan) and Wellbeck (sold to the Gunners) and replaced them with only Falcao. RVP`s long documented fitness and injury problems finally caught up with them and the rest is history. City won the title 2 yrs ago with 4 productive strikers..they sent out Negredo to La Liga and had just the injury prone Jovetic, injury prone though excellent Arguero and Dzeko. The damage was already done by mid season when they acquired Bony to get their compliment back to 4.

For those who say lets wait till January and then see if we need additions they need to understand how difficult it is to get any players of quality talk less value in the January window. Our past history there is not stellar either. More importantly though, look back at all the BPL titles we have won in the Roman era. The formula has always been the same; we start fast and strong, build up a comfortable lead from the pack and have them chase us. With all three Jose`s titles we built up such a lead as to be able to coast towards the end with a cushion between us and the second place team. Only during Carlo`s time did we have Man U push us until the final days fixture. The point is, chasing down a team or group of teams ahead of us by Christmas time is something we have never done as a team in the Roman era and I don`t think we are built to do that given our depth issues. If we do nothing about this striker conundrum we are in right now by January the title may already be lost and very likely targets we could secure now will not be available then. He who procrastinates invariably lives to regret it. The floor is yours blue nation..have at it and discuss. KTBFFH.

Source: ChelseaVitalfootball

mathys:
Ur responds dey ur thread dey wait 4 u.

Bros you dey here? Well my reply dey wait you too. It's titled FoF.

Guess...


Aha! You got it.

AirborneLacer:
Funny how you lot think you've got a balanced team. Cech's signing must be sending out orgasmic feelings

The biggest revelation I see in your team is Francis Coquelin. Dude's presence in your team have seen Arsenal become more disciplined in midfield and his influence means una seem far less likely to throw too many men forward and leave yourselves vulnerable to counter-attacks.

Giroud would always be Giroud whilst Ozil the passenger would be waiting to be carried.

That said, I don't think I'd have to wait for the outcome of Sunday's game to conclude who's better between Wenger and Jose. Mou has been sodomizing Wenger tactically over the years, and it has got nothing to do with the teams both men manage.

I've seen less fancied sides like Newcastle, Bradford etc defeat Mourinho's Chelsea, so no be team quality. Wenger has been the chief architect of his failed attempts to beat Jose. Over the years, the way he sets up Arsenal suits Mourinho and Chelsea down to the ground because you guys have been cavalier going forward whilst staying exposed at the back, that's too cheap to worry an intelligent Mourinho.

If your manager no change approach against us, this info below might just get funnier

YOU ARE SPOT ON.
So that is why I said we are now at par- the emergence of Coquelin and the signing of Cech. But under rate Giroud at your downfall and ignore Ozil at your peril.

@airbornelacer,

That's a great piece there. To be honest with you, if we fail to sign a striker who is better at the moment than falcao, then we should know that we would play the top guns in Europe with ''invisible top striker''. As you rightly said, the trio of our strikers cant be guaranteed of top-notch performance when it matters most. Over-reliance on hazard late last season hunted us out of ucl. now with uncertainty in performance delivery in the frontline, biggest gamble ahead. That's why I may prefer a loan or outright sale of remy in case athletico can release griezman. My other concern is Terry, I hope mou will do something before deadline.

Spy360:
YOU ARE SPOT ON.
So that is why I said we are now at par- the emergence of Coquelin and the signing of Cech. But under rate Giroud at your downfall and ignore Ozil at your peril.

on par?? I never knew a keeper would cover a 15points gap