Surely he's the perfect person to be saying it? He's spent the last ten years watching his club spend about three times as much as Utd and failing to match us in the major competitions. It will hurt him as much as any Chelsea fan, and probably more than the ones who measure their success in terms of the proportion of games they don't lose against Utd.
Yep and it's defo the case. It will be interesting to see how City do... Atm they have Negredo, Silva, Jovetic, Aguero, Nasri, Navas, Sinclair, Rodwell, Fernandinho, Yaya Toure, Barry, Garcia, Milner and Dzeko to fill 6 positions!? A lot of big name players in there who will want to start every game
Indeed, they will, and they know there is competition, a lot is down to how the manager juggles them. If I was manager I'd rather have the players and try deal with the situation than not have the players at all. That's why I think the article is balls
Yep... We have probably a similar amount of players but a lot of them know that they are squad players... So it's easier for Jose... Will be interesting to see how City do it
I'm looking forward to this season for so many reasons, new managers, lots of new players, have a feeling this is gonna be a cracking season
Don't think you spent the money that wisely when Roman first came along. Out of the 10-15 signings you made in your first season under Abramovich, maybe two or three of them could be called unqualified successes. You did have a better starting situation, but the league was also much weaker back in 2003 when compared to 2008 when City got their money. That's the biggest difference - you had next to no real competition for your first league title, whereas City's first league title had to be won on goal difference, with a record points total for the runner up. So you guys could afford to splash the cash on average to good players like Mutu and Crespo and flops like Verson and Parker and still win the league, whereas City couldn't get away with doing the same for Robinho, Bellamy and Jo.
On a financial level yes, but arguably on a footballing level he was on a par with Crespo and Mutu in terms of his longevity, strike rate and performances. Had Robinho been six years older and signed for Chelsea in 03, he would almost certainly have been their first choice striker and would have picked up a couple of league winners medals. Just goes to show how much easier it was to win stuff with money back then.
Not counting Ambrosio or Macho as they were free, I think it was about 50-50 to be honest, half of them worked out and half didnt. Those players I feel were pretty successful: Wayne Bridge Damien Duff Glenn Johnson Joe Cole Claude Makalele Players who were total gash: Veron Scott Parker Players who were meh!: Neil Sullivan Crespo Geremi Alexei Smertin I dont think Mutu could be counted as gash since he was a decent player for us, we werent to know he would become a coke fiend and get sacked! So I dont feel that should count really, as there was never really an issue with his playing, I thought he was very good, Also Crespos second spell with us was pretty good, his scorcher in the last minute against Wigan and his hat trick against Wolves.
That would have been prudent on his part to conceal that fact yes. Rio is a coke fiend, I think Fergie knew, well maybe not a fiend but dabbled. As long as it was not in the news about it and didn't affect performances he turned a blind eye, many footballers are dabblers, it goes with the money. Half the politicians are coke heads too
I think Crespo was a god signing tbf... Duff and Makalele were brilliant for us! Also Robben and Cech who joined a bit later on but Cech has been outstanding... Was it £7mil we paid for him? Will never forget Crespo getting the injury time winner to see off little old Wigan! Cue carnage in our away end on the opening day of the season!
Of the players you bought then, only Cech and Makalele could really be called great successes imo, with Cole reasonably successful. Of the rest, Bridge, Johnson and Duff were ok for the fees you paid for them and the profile they had. Ditto Crespo - he was ok, but not really an improvement on what you already had. When you compare it to City's first season with money, their record arguably comes out even better: Great success: Given, Kompany, Zabaleta Moderate success: De Jong, Bridge, Bellamy Poor: Ben-Haim, SWP Flops: Jo, Robinho So as I said before, it wasn't that Chelsea spent their money well and City spent it poorly, it was simply that Chelsea faced less competition, and started from a better position.
Demba Ba is plenty good enough, and if you haven't seen that I'd note your insular world Chelsea view. Unfortunately your manager insisted on playing Torres more often. [video=youtube;bYDxllDjTkc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYDxllDjTkc[/video] It's my pet hate when people shouting the loudest win the argument, even when they're shouting s***. Demba is a quality striker, but he needs to play and needs to be passed to more by one of your 10,000,000,000 greedy midfielders. What a surprise this transfer window is, Chelsea sign ANOTHER winger. Yawn. p.s I got Ba on my shirt when I knew he was going to leave. Why? Because he's comfortably the most gifted striker we've had since Shearer and it was a privilege to watch him play for us.
Brilliant, so you think Ba is of the same ilk as Aguero and RVP? Do me a favour. Posting a video of him scoring a goal like that won't help either, plenty of **** strikers can score screamers. He has been awful for us so far, end of.
Have you even see Ba play for us? He's ****ing awful, has nothing to his game apart from missing chances, he misses so many, fair enough he scored two crackers vs the mancs in the fa cup but big deal he doesn't do it regular enough, Torres is much better than him which isn't saying much for Ba
