JFDI >

Selling Drogba without replacing him leaving us desperately short of striking options and having to rely on Torres - a player who previously had only desperately underperformed for us.

Selling and loaning Meireles and Essien right at the end of the transfer window without replacing them leaving us desperately short in central midfield.

But that was not a transfer policy issue was it. That was clearly a decision based on a number of factors. Age and wage bill were as much a factor as anything else and in his case if we had wanted him we could have kept him by offering him another contract. The decision to relase Drogba does not give me any concerns in relation to a decision we might or might not take with Luiz.

Why would De Bruyne only be 5th choice ?

De Bruyne could also be used in central midfield as a good alternative to Frank.

We know Frank wont be able to play every game next season.

JFDI >

You havent read my post properly.

I said selling Drogba "without replacing him".

Selling Drogba was probably right as his race had been run. Not replacing him was the major error the club made last season.

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Superb, I read that bit but to be honest as an example of a poor transfer policy it doesn't make sense, that bit in it or not.

Put that to one side for a minute though, the transfer policy has little to do with the thread anyway as it is based on the incoming manager wanting him out not the club, he hasn't been here for a while therefore again hardly reflective of the clubs transfer policy.

KDB can play in any of out midfield positions, he would be a real asset for next season, makes no sense to me loaning him out.

TCP if you are watching, this could be groundwork for future stories.

What happens is a story like this is run.

Transfer window closes, player still at club.

Someway intoi the season, typically before a big game or when a player is rested a story or two will appear suggesting unrest in the camp. Luiz and Jose don't get on, Jose forced to play Abramovich signing or some such story. This story would be the "groundwork".

JFDI >

So you think that not replacing Drogba last summer was a good transfer decision ?

I have no issues with it at all, I would have been happy for him to stay but like Lampard and Terry at some point their career with the club has to end. We have no idea how he would have fared with Oscar, Hazard and Mata. Even Ba has been made to look like Torres at times when playing with these three and on the plus side we have Hazard and Oscar, Lukaku a step closer to the first team and a reduction in wages so regardless of how I feel about it, it makes sense. It is always a wrench losing a favourite but when you bear in mind I have seen the likes of Osgood, Harris, Dixon, JFH, Clarke, Zola and others depart after great service to the club you kind of get used to it.

I thought Torres was Drogba's replacement?

That's how far up Torres's ar.se many were on this board.

You can't replace a player like Drogba, comparing others to him is not fair. There was only one. I would still take JFH or Dixon over him though

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JFDI >

I´m not really talking about Drogba leaving as such. As I said before I think it was probably the right decision for him to leave, especially after scoring the winning goal in the CL Final.

The question I´m asking is was it a good move for the board to think that we didn´t even need to replace Drogba ?

Personally I though it was a terrible decision.

If we get Cavani this summer, waiting a season to replace Drogba makes sense.

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Makes sense ? In what way ?

Wouldn´t it have made more sense to buy Cavani last summer ?

Not sure what waiting another year has achieved. His transfer price has only gone up in that time.

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last season everyone was saying let Torres come out ofDrogba shadow..so he deserved his full season.

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basically you falling back on nothing .....Ouch that hurts

yet to impress from BA

hasn't Luiz stated that clubs are watching him but he loves it at Chelsea.
At the minute

Torres was supposed to be better than Drogba though

Superb, you bougth Drogba into this, I am merely responding to your posts, I don't mind as such but if Drogba isn't the answer you still haven't justified your crticism of the transfer policy.

In relation to this > The question I´m asking is was it a good move for the board to think that we didn´t even need to replace Drogba ?

Personally I though it was a terrible decision.

I have no idea what there pans were,we were linked to several strikers last year, maybe we couldn't reach agreement with a club. Goal wise we didn't exactly suffer last season so losing Drogba has not been that much of a loss, could have been worse.

It would have made sense to get Ba in the summer, do not know why we waited untill January to get him, we were being linked with him in the summer, and would have improved us no doubt. That's the only mistake we made probably, but we did have Sturridge (although ended up being injured for most of first half of the season)

cause we didn't sell Sturridge, yet Robbie wasn't allowed to play him

JFDI >

You asked me to list some of the club´s poor transfer decisions over the last year and so I did.

Not replacing Drogba with a top class striker last summer was probably the worst of them.

As for us suffering goal wise I think we did suffer very much, especially in the PL last season.

If we´d had a world class striker like RVP last season then I think that we would have at least made some kind of reasonably sustained title challenge and we wouldn´t have been struggling to finish top four as we did.

Torres only scored 7 Premiership goals last season which simply isn´t good enough and the reason we are looking for a top class striker this summer is because we failed to bring one in last summer.

So in summary we are still trying to redress the fact that we didn´t replace Drogba last summer.