Chelsea published their accounts yesterday and revealed that Chelsea had to pay £28m on "changes in the first team management structure" by sacking Carlo Ancelotti and hiring Andre Villas-Boas as his replacement which is just insane.
In addition to this, Football Finance Analyst Andy Green has calculated that Chelsea and Roman Abramovich have paid out around £64m in the last four years on managerial changes alone!

With matters outside of football keeping Roman Abramovich busy, it was great to hear that he was at Cobham to see the players train on Saturday, to see AVB for a chat about things and to attend the game on Sunday. Roman even popped in to chat with the players for 30 minutes after the 3-3 draw with United.

By Chris Wright

Here's Chelsea's latest acquisition, promising young Belgian winger Kevin De Bruyne (who definitely has a whiff of the 'The Sherminator' about him), holding his new uniform aloft for the cameras at Cobham after signing from Genk for £6.7 million earlier today.

After getting thru the anti-climax that was QPR, Chelsea have announced that John Terry will miss the trip to the Liberty Stadium, coincidentally in line with the week his trial for racial abuse commences. More, after the jump:

M.I.A.

In a late-night conversation with The Doc, we both agreed that John could profit from a stretch of rest.

It's safe to say Alex has not enjoyed the new year thus far. After Andre Villas-Boas kicked the bold, bald Brazilian to the Cobham curb earlier in the winter, he was left to fend for himself on just £50k per week. Just really, really terrible.

Thankfully for Alex, the nightmare looks to be coming to an end.

Let's not beat around the bush here and let's tell it like it is. We've seen two managers, drama, controversy, speculation, excitement, frustration and find ourselves at the turn of this year in the exact same position as we did a year ago. Isn't it strange how things have turned out!
This is my review of 2011 and a year on my blog as written by me, a lifelong Chelsea fan giving you my take on everything that happened.

Clearly, cold temperatures at Chelsea's Cobham Training ground have taken over Didier Drogba's proper senses. As for David Luiz, pretending to call someone with his hands is all in a day's job! / Photo via Reuters

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We're back at full force here on Futbolita! Things have been crazy (as you may have guessed from our posting schedules and tweets) but we promise you it's all going to be worth it.

We've been running around London in the last few weeks, meeting friends of Futbolita, readers, clubs, players, towns, cities, neighbourhoods and running 1.

Most of us have been quietly, and painfully, waiting for the day when Barcelona shows up at Cobham with a few million euro and trudges back to Catalonia with a monster of a holding midfielder named Oriol Romeu in its pocket. As it happens, that's probably not going to happen. Not unless Chelsea loses its mind in the near future that is.

Fascinating article in the Sun Thursday about how today about how Andre Villas-Boas laid down the law to his Chelsea players.

Between the defeat to Liverpool in the Carling Cup and the trip to Newcastle, AVB met with Chelsea's four most senior players: John Terry, Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard and Petr Cech.

Fascinating article in the Sun today about how today about how Andre Villas-Boas laid down the law to his Chelsea players.

Between the defeat to Liverpool in the Carling Cup and the trip to Newcastle, AVB met with Chelsea's four most senior players: John Terry, Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard and Petr Cech.

It looks like our continued overhaul may get started a little early. A host of outlets, including BBC Sport, are reporting that Nicolas Anelka could agree a move to Shanghai Shenhua within the next week.

A sight not to be seen again

As you are well aware, Anelka will not be hanging around Cobham for much longer.

So it's been nearly two weeks since our last game at Blackburn following the international break and the players are back at Cobham preparing for a massive game on Sunday against Liverpool.
For the most part of the season at home we have seen a familiar shape to our play, Ashley Cole and Jose Bosingwa are expected to get forward and support our attack, a holding midfielder with two midfielders either side with licence to get forward and a front three.

It's news I wanted to hear this morning and hopefully it will give AVB and the players a kick up the arse that they have needed for a while now when it comes to our defensive mistakes.
AVB "apparently" has given the players (as a collective and not pointing out individuals) a major dressing down yesterday at Cobham after our woeful defensive performance on Saturday against Arsenal.

For many, Sam Hutchinson represents a specter of a foregone era at The Bridge- a time when Jose Mourinho ran the roost and everyone wondered if we'd ever produce an academy star, to rival the likes of John Terry, after years of significant investment. Currently, we're replete with inventory when it comes to young prospects, but once upon a time, this wasn't the case.

By Chris Wright

Photo- and video-bombing the bejesus each other is a tradition that is taken very seriously down Chelsea way (see here and here for details) and with the cameras knocking around at Cobham for the club's official team photo shoot, serial offenders David Luiz, Paulo Ferreira and Branoslav Ivanovic just couldn't help themselves.

By Chris Wright

What have we here? Why it's a bevvy of photos from Chelsea's open training at Cobham ahead of their 2011/12 Champions League opener against Bayer Leverkusen tonight during which Raul Meireles (and his freshly pomped mohawk of truth) was 'unveiled' by AVB despite making his debut against Sunderland at the weekend.

I think it's fair to say that a fair few people on here who comment are becoming frustrated with the selection of the team or should I say certain players week in, week out. They feel as though these players are being selected based on who they are within the squad rather than their current form. All I say in response to that is that we have only played three games so far, have made new signings and the future looks alot brighter than it did a few weeks ago.

With the influx of new faces this summer at The Bridge, it was somewhat lost in the shuffle that one of our January signings has secured his move to London earlier then previously anticipated. More after the jump:

Baby-faced assasin

So it's been confirmed, Piazon has officially signed his contract with the club and already begun training with the first team.

Romelu Lukaku's transfer to Chelsea may not quite be a done deal. That hasn't stopped the mammoth Belgian teenager from participating in training at Cobham, however.

No need to worry about that one falling through then. It looks as if just the particulars need to be sorted before he officially becomes a member of the club.

I had a rant a week or so ago at some Chelsea fans with all their negativity about our performances in pre-season. People were moaning about a lack of signings and the way we were playing so I posted an article called "Enough is enough".
In that post, my message was clear, we are in pre season after only being back in training for a couple of weeks and also getting used to the climate in the Far East.

Quote from The Official Wycombe Wanderers website:

World-Cup winning striker Fernando Torres was on the scoresheet as Chelsea recorded a 3-0 victory over the Wanderers in a practice match at Cobham on Tuesday afternoon.
Yossi Benayoun danced through the visiting defence to open the scoring in the early stages and Nikki Bull produced a fine stop to deny Didier Drogba, while Scott Rendell missed Wycombe's best chance of the half from a tight angle.

LONDON, England Harry Redknapp has already pulled off the transfer coup of the summer, sources have told ESPNsoccernet, by snatching Barcelona youngster Cristian Ceballos from under the noses of Chelsea. Ceballos, 16, was hailed as Barcelona's new superstar four years ago when he became an internet sensation, featuring in a video juggling a ball [.

After Nicolas Anelka spoke the other day about accepting the adopted squad rotation system at the club these days, it seems that he will still be as competitive on the training ground even as far as Carlo Ancelotti as the referee is concerned during matches at Cobham.
When asked about the job Referee's have to do, Ancelotti revealed just how he has found it.

Claudio Ranieri has spent time this week at Cobham as a guest of Carlo Ancelotti to look around the training ground and to watch training as a whole. Ranieri took time to speak to the Official Chelsea Website and has talked about Frank Lampard and has a startling revelation.
He said:

I noticed that for Frank it was very easy for him to arrive in the box and score a goal.

Claudio Ranieri has spent time this week at Cobham as a guest of Carlo Ancelotti to look around the training ground and to watch training as a whole. Ranieri took time to speak to the Official Chelsea Website and has talked about John Terry.
It was Ranieri who decided to establish Terry as a first team starter ahead of the more established international players we had and Terry has never looked back.

LONDON, England Fernando Torres has explained he could wait no longer for Liverpool to reclaim their place amongst the English elite, and he hopes that Reds fans will eventually come to understand that he has joined Chelsea to win trophies and further his career. Torres, signed for a British record £50 million on transfer [.

Well someone has made a point to Carlo Ancelotti this afternoon and that's Danny Sturridge!. Chelsea smacked Spurs reserves 7-3 at Cobham this afternoon and with Chelsea's front line struggling for goals, suffering from Malaria and trying to deal with a lack of form, Sturridge has made a claim for more starts!