Practically ran the show verus Genk with a great performance, the way we played football orchestrated by his tempo was reminiscent of Barcelona. Watch it yourself and see! [video=youtube;geuJox_32JI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geuJox_32JI[/video]
was Worried about Ramires injury.. now after hearing about Romeu - not that concerned.. I am yet to see him in a match though..
I'm with Drogs on Mikel starting. Romeu was fantastic against Genk, though. Looked absolutely top quality.
A star in the making. He must play some part , at the very least, against Queens Park Queens! What a luxury to have Romeu and Ramires, eh?
Apparently, Romeu in his 94 passes during the game on Wednesday only failed to find his target with 3 of them! Some stat eh?
when Oriol signed - buyback is all i can think of... shame only way Barca will not buyback is either Barca should go broke or this kid shouldn't play too much of first team football for us..
Does he have the option to say No? Say barca use the clause and make the offer can he say no and stay with us?
I've just got my head around the specifics of his buyback clause and have to ask why not just have the standard arrangement whereby if a young player moves cheaply his fee is increased due to the amount of games played and how significant he becomes, International caps and so on. From what I can gather, on an agreed future date, Barcelona can look back at what he has done at Chelsea and then buy him for a pre-arranged fee regardless of his wishes. If they still aren't interested he gets another year at Chelsea and after that Barca get to take another look and again can buy for an already agreed sum of money but set higher than the year before. So many if and buts. The player may not fulfil his potential and if he does may prove inconsistent. He may get a long term injury. If any of these scenarios happen Barca won't buy back and we're lumbered. So this buyback deal does not keep Chelsea from risk. It's an investment bankers arrangement and is counter to the sporting ethos. As a banker's arrangement it works perfectly for Chelsea and Barca. Look at Oriol as a lump of money. Barca have this pile of cash playing for the B team. Chelsea bank say we can invest that cash at a much higher rate, but beware investments may go up as well as down. Chelsea take the cash and pump it into the first team, which is a risk because the stock will only rise if invested carefully by the fund manager. Now as any high interest bond you can not access your money for the duration of the investment, but a window to withdraw from the scheme is provided after one year. After two years the investment is over and hopefully the intrinsic value of your initial stake is much higher. The investment company have had their own portfolio increased for two years and had the opportunity to use the investors cash as their own business demands. As it is a investors market, to get hold of Barca's lump sum the Chelsea bank had to guarantee Barca some value straight away, £5 million, to stop Barca using other banks. If after two years you if the lump sum does not increase the investment bank get to keep the initial sum. The risk to them is that after two years that lump sum maybe still worth at least the £5million and that they can get to re-invested themselves and try to grow the lump sum over a longer term period.
£5m is a risk I am happy for us to take, but it is like a loan deal really. I read today in the Times he made 92 passes in mid-week and completed 89... I said that night during the game he'd looked special and that backs it up... If he develops at this rate he will be back at Barca but he will have at least contributed to our efforts to rebuild the team, and a good working and business relationship with one of the biggest and best teams in the world is not a bad thing
