Month: August 2015

Chelsea winger Juan Cuadrado has completed a loan move from the champions of the Premier League to the champions of Serie A.

The 27 year old signed for the London club for £23.3 million in February, leaving Italian club Fiorentina in order to move to England. But he only made 15 appearances for the Blues with just 4 of them coming in the starting line-up.

With Chelsea signing Pedro from Barcelona on Thursday of last week it became clear that the winger was surplus to requirements at Stamford Bridge and Juventus seized upon his unhappiness in England’s capital to take him to Turin.

The Columbian international has already played in Italy not only for Fiorentina but also Lecce and Udinese, so the move to Serie A won’t come as too much of a shock to the winger.

Cuadrado, one of the stand out performers of the 2014 World Cup, was greeted by Juventus fans when he arrived in Italy on Monday night. He successfully passed a medical on Tuesday and has now moved to the Italian champions on a season long loan.

John Stones ‘won’t be fazed’ by a move to the defending Premier League champions, according to the Barnsley Academy coach that trained him when he was younger, Ronnie Branson.

Speaking to the BBC World Service Branson, who coached Stones from the age of 8, said, “He’s done well at Everton and got into the England first team. Every step he’s taken, he’s managed it well, so going there won’t faze him”.

Despite Roberto Martinez’s continued denial of the likelihood of a move for the talented defender it now seems likely that Chelsea will get their man before the transfer window slams shut at the start of next month. Stones made 23 appearances in the league for Everton last season and has been capped 4 times. He has four years left on his contract, meaning that the Londoners will need to make an offer their Merseyside rivals can’t refuse if they hope to tempt them into selling.

Stones handed in a transfer request on Tuesday as he attempted to force through a move to Jose Mourinho’s team, with Chelsea planning a £40 million bid in the coming days. He is seen as the long term replacement for John Terry, something that has become more urgent in recent weeks with Terry being substituted during Chelsea’s game against Manchester City and then sent off when the Blues played West Bromwich Albion at The Hawthorns.

Branson said, “He’s a real defender. There is a lot of talk at the moment about whether he is a good defender. We all know he can step in and get the ball and set attacks off but can he defend? Yes he can. He has a steeliness that people don’t realise”.

Everton have so far refused to admit that they have even received a transfer request from the Premier League champions and they are unlikely to do so. If they accept the transfer request then they are essentially accepting that Stones will be leaving and that will put the power into Chelsea’s hands. For now Everton will likely keep their cards close to their chest and that will force the potential buyers to up their offer until the Toffees can no longer refuse their offers.

Jose Mourinho used his press conference after Chelsea beat West Bromwich Albion 3-2 at The Hawthorns to claim that people ‘love’ to see his club lose matches.

Speaking to BBC Sport Mourinho, who looked somewhat gaunt and spoke in a weakened voice, said after the match, “Many people are disappointed with this result. They love Chelsea to lose a game”.

The Chelsea manager was responding to questions about John Terry’s red card, shown to him after he appeared to drag Salomon Rondon back when the West Brom forward was through on goal. The Portuguese boss said, “I prefer to have no views and try to keep quiet”.

The comments from the self-proclaimed Special One seem to hint at a belief that there is a conspiracy against Chelsea going on behind the scenes. The Chelsea boss confirmed as much when he refused to pursue an appeal against the red card, stating, “I think we should but normally it’s a waste of time. It’s a ball into the space behind the full-back, the full-back is pressing high, the striker makes the movement and then Mr Clattenburg decides it’s a red card”.

If Mourinho failed to understand that footballing rivalry means there will always be people who are happy when other teams lose, he was somewhat more sanguine when it came to Pedro’s debut for the club. He said, “Pedro played well. We know he is a good player, more than good. There are lots of top players who come to the Premier League and it takes time to adapt but it looks like he has been with us for a long time because straight away he was in the game and he was important”.

Continuing his theme of suggesting there was some sort of conspiracy against Chelsea, the Portuguese manager said of Chelsea’s first win of the season, “The performance was not dramatic, and not bad but obviously four points in three matches is not enough. There is a feeling we are fighting against a lot but today we won”.

This is the first time in 17 years that Chelsea have failed to win either of the first two opening games and Mourinho knows that they will need to pick up their form if they hope to become the first team since Manchester United in 2008-2009 to win back to back Premier League titles.

Chelsea Football Club today confirmed the signing of Spanish forward Pedro Rodriguez from Barcelona for a fee of £21 million.

The club confirmed earlier today that the 28 year old Spanish international has agreed a 4 year deal to play at Stamford Bridge under the tutelage of Jose Mourinho. He said, “I am very happy to be here. I am very excited to start my adventure at Chelsea and I am here to keep winning titles. Thanks to the club and the supporters for giving me the opportunity to put the blue shirt on”.

Pedro is a product of the Catalan club’s revered academy system, making 321 appearances for Barcelona and scoring 99 times during his time there. He was a target for Manchester United, the club he scored a goal against in the 2011 Champion’s League final when the Spanish club beat the English team by 3 goals to 1. However he stalled on a move to Louis Van Gaal’s team in the hopes that a club more likely to win major honours would come in for him and got his wish when Mourinho showed an interest.

Pedro made 50 appearances in all competitions for Barcelona last season, helping the club to win a La Liga, Copa Del Rey and Champion’s League treble. He has previously won the European Cup 3 times with Barca as well as La Liga 5 times; he was also part of the Spanish side that won the World Cup in 2010 and the European Championship in 2012.

Stats wise, Pedro matches up with the best of them. Since the 2009 – 2010 season only Lionel Messi has been involved in more league goals than Pedro. Messi has either scored or assisted in the scoring of 317 goals during that period, whilst Pedro has netted 58 goals and got 35 assists during the same amount of time. The fact that Messi was involved in 317 goals and Pedro in 93 shows the gulf in class between the players, but 93 is nothing to be sniffed at.

Pedro will be a welcome addition to Jose Mourinho’s squad, offering a more viable alternative than Radamel Falcao during any periods of injury that Diego Costa is likely to suffer. He will also offer competition to the likes of Hazard, Willian and Oscar in the more creative part of the Blues’ team.

Jose Mourinho has defended his decision to substitute John Terry at half time of Chelsea’s game against Manchester City at The Etihad this weekend; a game that the Londoners went on to lose 3-0.

34 year old Terry, the Chelsea club captain, has not been substituted in the previous 176 games he played under Jose Mourinho’s management. Yet he was replaced by youngster Kurt Zouma at the interval with the team having been outplayed by the hosts and finding themselves 1-0 down.

After the match Mourinho confirmed that Terry was not removed from the action due to an injury, but rather because of a tactical decision by the manager. He said, “It was clear to me Zouma has to play”. Mourinho felt that City were dominating in Chelsea’s half and that he had to bring on his fastest player in order to play the high line he wanted to play to keep the Manchester team away from his team’s final third.

Mourinho was somewhat prickly in the aftermath of the game, suggesting to journalists that he wasn’t the manager they should be questioning about Terry’s removal. In what was a bizarre and slight non-sequitur of a reply the Chelsea manager said, “I don’t know if you asked questions to Rafa Benitez, Andre Villas-Boas, Roberto Di Matteo, to the ones that never played him. I’m the one you shouldn’t ask because I’m the one that plays with John in every game. I made John captain. I recovered John from a difficult situation with other managers”.

Yet Benitez did comment on John Terry when he was Chelsea manager, saying, “With his age, he has more experience and his understanding of the game will be better but you have people coming that will be faster and they will be stronger. But still he has a lot of ability and he can do well. But it will not be two games a week, carrying on playing, because [he has] more competition”. Owing to his long-term animosity towards Benitez it is no surprise that Mourinho has not acknowledged the Spaniard’s foresight regarding Terry. He might also point to the fact that the ex-England player played in every game of Chelsea’s title winning campaign last year.

Yet his removal of the captain in a game that Chelsea were being dominated in suggests that the self-proclaimed Special One feels the centre back may no longer be able to handle the pressure of what is an intense league.

Coming just a week after he made a scapegoat out of his doctor when the team struggled to get a result against Swansea at home, some feel that this is yet another distraction tactic from a manager who specialises in just that. In The Irish Independent the journalist Chris Bascombe wrote of the manager’s decision to remove Terry that, “it smacked of sending a message to his board about the urgent need for reinforcements”.