Ballack where willhe fit in Chelsea midfield?

Sandals

whose position will he take maybee the gudjohnsen role?
I for one can't wait, he may give us a bit of an edge for next year especially if we can secure a strong striker and right back-sub.

Kojak

Has it been confirmed that he is going to Chelsea??

Himself and Lampard will be going for the same position. If the 2 of them are to be accomodated then who will loose out? Gudjohnsen, as you say. What about Makele (sp??)

TheMonster

Lampard,Essien, and Makele already there. Unless they are going to turn Essien into the holding player then it smacks of "we are buying him so you can't get him"

Keyzer

Chelsea are really getting on my nerves buying everyone...
Seriously, where the hell is he gonna play?

If Roman hadn't bought Chelsea the premiership would be savage right now...

TheMonster

at least Obi Mikel mightn't wan;t to go there now.

Jazzy

he would play in that all importent "im the highest payed footballer in the world thats why im taking the place of a hard working player who tries his upmost to get into the team, Eidur Gudjohnsen". there is such a thing as glutney.
a sub right back ya say? and a top goalscorer? aswell as ballack? but that would ruin the fun. chelsea would have such a complete side that no-one would be linked to them and the papers would have nothing to write and other quality players price-tags would drop.
nah, who am i kidding! Chelsea would never be complete! i mean they do need a substitute substitute winger, I dunno.... Stankovich or something. the PL is getting a little silly, 2nd is indeed the new first and the only thing interesting about it this year is who gets that last champions league place & (wow wee.... can u feel the excitement!!) UEFA cup places which everyone is hoping Wigan will get neway
the relegation battle between Brum, Portsmouth and WBA could be fun.... but i never like a battle of who is going to go down... its hardly like you "win" anything (i know u get to stay in the prem and get more money etc.).

go on the chelsea!

mchurl

Has it even been confirmed that Ballack is going to Chelsea? and if that is the case, i agree with the theory that it is merely a case of we are buying him so you can't have him. They already have Lampard for that pivotal attacking midfielder position and then with the likes of young Diarra coming through as well, there is no need for them to turn Essien into a holding midfielder, so just where would Ballack fit in? I know he is a quality player, but central midfield isnt really the area Chelsea need to sign somebody!!

eirebhoy

TheMonster wrote:

Lampard,Essien, and Makele already there. Unless they are going to turn Essien into the holding player then it smacks of "we are buying him so you can't get him"

Essien is already being molded to replace Makelele. Makelele is 33.

PHB

I would imagine if he does join, which i think there is no chance he will because he isn't stupid and wants to finish his career winning lots of trophies while ya know, palying every week, something like this would happen initally.

Essien
Lampard
Ballack

With Lampard in the middle, and having no real impact on the game anymore, just as he does when Gudjohnson plays, and Ballack up front.

I however doubt it, especially considering he is meant to have been offerred 120k a week, which is silly, considering that Real Madrid would have automatically offered more as 140k is their galactico salery.
This isn't a battle of wages, this is a battle of where he wants to go most.
Thats why Inter/Juve/Real/Utd/Chelsea are all interested in him, cause they are all willing to offer him top money.
If he has to make a choice, I doubt he'll go to england, and I very much doubt if he did, he'd pick Chelsea considering the size of the squad there.

Jivin Turkey

Why are people even responding to this? It smacks of "I think I have inside information so I'm going to say it as fact".

Why would Mourinho sign Ballack anyway? An ageing and tempramental superstar looking for one last payday hardly fits into his team demographic does it? Particularly at the expense of arguably his most valuable player.

Big Nelly

What rag reported this? will believe it when I see it

county

Big Nelly wrote:

What rag reported this? will believe it when I see it

pure speculation
http://home.skysports.com/list.asp?hlid=367174&CPID=22&clid=&lid=2&title=Blues+look+to+snatch+Ballack

Aquos76

Big Nelly wrote:

What rag reported this? will believe it when I see it

The rag in question is todays Daily Irish Mail which imo is worse that the sun, if that is possible.

astrofool

Apparantly the Mirror had Man Utd. listening to offers of £10m for Van Nist.

TheMonster

methinks its his agent trying to get more interest either to get more money for him(and thus himself) or get Bayern to cough up more to keep him.

PHB

Apparantly the Mirror had Man Utd. listening to offers of £10m for Van Nist.

I actually brust out laughing in the library when i saw that, hilarity.

David19

Ballack denies any deal:

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=360167&cc=5739

Atlas_IRL

if Van left it would be more near 30 million... u think they would sell him at a loss he has been top of the scoring charts in domestic and european football nearly every year he's been at United...

Big Nelly

astrofool wrote:

Apparantly the Mirror had Man Utd. listening to offers of £10m for Van Nist.

That was the best one I have seen in ages. How do these writers sleep at night? Owen for 16million and you are going to buy Van for 10million? lmao! I dont think so!

25mil-30mil with Ronaldo going the other way would be a nice deal!

Also Van has already said he wanted to finish his career at Utd a season or 2 ago! not much has changed, he is going to move because he was left out of the Tin Cup Final?

Hobart

It's as simple as this. If they want him, they will get him.

johnor

Yea they'd get him if they want him, they've said in the past they dont want him. If they do get him its silly, in terms of how mnay midfielders they have, they have another lad diarra i think? he is suppsoed to be makaele's replacement long term....wouldnt suprise me if they go and get ballack, maniche is only on loan isnt he? they dont need him but it wouldnt suprise me if they go and get him anyway, why a young player would want to go and rot in chelsea's reserves is beyond me....

Dr Galen

all this chelsea nonsense is really starting to get to me. i remember similar conversations a few years back (around 200 i think) when perez at Real Madrid started the Galactico policy. I remember us all sitting around thinking that was it for football and that Real would dominate for the next 400 years......but they didnt......i may be wrong but history has a funny way of repeating itself.

as well as all that Mourinho strikes me as a driven and ambitious type of bloke. Whats the chances of him getting bored in a while with the chelsea winning all in site? any chelsea fans wanna take this thought up?

as for ballack as usual its all rumours...you only have to look at the TV advert for the Irish Daily Mail to see where their journalistic priorities lie

jesus_thats_gre

I suppose he is working on the logic that Lampard has to get injured someday..

SCULLY

nurse_baz wrote:

all this chelsea nonsense is really starting to get to me. i remember similar conversations a few years back (around 200 i think) when perez at Real Madrid started the Galactico policy. I remember us all sitting around thinking that was it for football and that Real would dominate for the next 400 years......but they didnt......i may be wrong but history has a funny way of repeating itself.

as well as all that Mourinho strikes me as a driven and ambitious type of bloke. Whats the chances of him getting bored in a while with the chelsea winning all in site? any chelsea fans wanna take this thought up?

as for ballack as usual its all rumours...you only have to look at the TV advert for the Irish Daily Mail to see where their journalistic priorities lie

I think that Chelsea have the potential to dominate the premiership for a period of time in the forseeable future (like liverpool in mid 70's to mid 80'and utd in 90's) and your point re Mourinho wanting to stretch himself is well made (don't see him there as long as ferguson at utd for instance or even wenger at arsenal). However, he has only been there for just over a season and a half so boredom won't be setting in anytime soon! His big goal will be for CFC to maintain the premiership while building a team that realistically can challange for the Champions league on a regular basis - something which they are, imho, still a long way from.

I think that the model of the Real Galactico policy is not something that Mourinho is attempting to follow (thankfully).

iregk

I don't think Chelsea are following the Galacticos policy at all. They set up to buy the top player in teh world every summer, can you say Chelsea are doing the same? no.

I think Mourinho could get bored from having it too easy but that wont happen any time soon. I think driven as he is he will only get bored after he won the CL once or twice. For me there is one thing missing in the Chelsea lineup, a good creative midfielder. Lampard, Essien, Mak are all class but for me Chelsea lack a Ronaldinho, Zidane, Kaka, Totti type player. One who is unpredictable and can unlock a tight defense. Now Cole could be that type of player but will he ever be as good? I don't think so, I think Joe Cole is as good as he is going to get and he doesn't have it at that level.

If Chelsea nailed down a player like that with a good long term goalscorer then they could rule.

Ballack, I think would be a good addition and would signal the end of Maniche who to be fair i think has been a good player, tidy if uncomplicated.

Dr Galen

SCULLY wrote:

I think that the model of the Real Galactico policy is not something that Mourinho is attempting to follow (thankfully).

i'd agree with you here mate. i didn't mean that chelski were following this trend, more that we've seen teams with money come in before and buy everyone in sight just for the crack, do well for a short period and then fade away as ego's and nonsense takes over the dresing room.
was reading that Ballack is alledgedly in line to become the worlds best paid player if he were to sign for chelski.....how would messrs lampard, terry etc feel about that

Lex Luthor

can't see ballack going to england, never mind chelsea with their overcrowded midfield.

Makele still has 1-2 good years left in him.

I think Essien is more in danger of losing his place to Ballack if he was brought in.

Chardee MacDennis

well i would love to see gudjohnson(sp?) leave, imho he is a great player with a great drive and an amazingly good attitude. and if liverpool signed him I would be very very happy, so lets hope ballack does sign so we can get eidur!!

Kingp35

Call_me_al wrote:

well i would love to see gudjohnson(sp?) leave, imho he is a great player with a great drive and an amazingly good attitude.

I agree. I think Gudjohnson is a terrfific player and I would start him every game for Chelsea. He has great skill on the ball, great vision and a great attitude. I think he is an underrated player because whenever I see him play he is one of the best players on the pitch.

eyerer

couldn't see chelsea selling to liverpool and while i agree hes underrated, i lost some respect for him after he said some smug mourinho-eque crap in an interview after playing liverpool


as for ballack, the rumours have been going for years about him, i have no idea what he's gonna do. basing 'facts' on rags needs to be stopped though

PHB

Ballack is making his decesion after this round of the CL, he has stated so.
So we'll all know soon enough