After weeks of promise and hope that he would stay with Chelsea and even sign for five years, Arjen Robben does not look very confident now, even to renew his newspaper subscription. Now, that’s three key Chelsea players with two years on their contract, still waiting for a better deal with just a few days to go for the start of the pre-season friendlies.

It’s a widespread feeling that [tag]Malouda[/tag] was brought in because we knew that Robben is about to leave or even worse we want [tag]Robben[/tag] to leave. I absolutely don’t think Malouda’s signing would influence Robben’s decisions or it was meant to. Jose made it very clear that he needs Robben:

The market is open, but I want to make it very clear on Arjen. The fact that we signed Malouda is not to open the door for him to leave. I’d love to keep them both, and I’d like to keep Arjen. Chelsea are negotiating with him over a new contract. Hopefully we can do it.

[tag]Roman Calderon[/tag] has publicly stated that [tag]Arjen Robben[/tag] would the conductor of the orchestra for [tag]Real Madrid[/tag]. We’ve seen coaches and directors declaring interest but to shower such kind praise on a player from another team is strange. Next time, he’d say he spoke to George Bush about landing Freddy Adu. In my eyes, Calderon lost his credibility many months ago, when he blasted all his players right, left and centre in his speech in a college and later apologised like a complete idiot.

Arjen was at his diplomatic best when asked about the interest from Real Madrid:

For any individual player it’s always good if there’s interest from any big club in the world. It shows you’re a good player and I see it as a compliment.

Personally, I’m a big fan Robben and would like him to stay as long as possible. He is a great talent. He is a fantastic tactical dribbler with killing pace and he is a great winger while he can score consistently - all this when he is injury-free. He is just 23 and we have not seen his best yet. While we have bought players who are past their best such as Sheva and Ballack (doesn’t mean they cannot play well), I’ll go mad to see us sell a high-potential player who is improving and yet to peak.

In a surprise reversal of roles this season, we have seen [tag]Man Utd[/tag] and [tag]Liverpool[/tag] and even Newcastle and Spurs (goddammit!) spend millions, Chelsea are very contained wrto transfers. That’s not because Roman stopped out pocket money or something, in fact, he made it clear that we have money available for transfers. Like Jose I believe we have the squad (except the right back) that can win the title. Just because we have the transfer window open, doesn’t mean we need to sell some and buy some. [tag]Jose Mourinho[/tag] seems unruffled by the multi-million signings outside of London:

Every club does its own analysis of the market and their needs. What other clubs do is something that we don’t control, we don’t want to control. We don’t comment, we don’t want to comment. But we know that in the previous three seasons when we spent some millions, everybody pointed at us as the team with more ‘responsibility’ because we were the big spenders in the market. That’s not the case this season.

Our team, our squad is almost the same. Why? Because it’s good. We trust and we know the success we’ve had in the last three seasons with this group. If last season was not the perfect season in terms of the results we had, you know the [injury] problems we had. The squad worked well and we believe in them. You are not interested in what the other teams spend. We know what we want and we trust the squad we have.

[tag]Alex[/tag] sounds all too intelligent for his wrestler looks. He knows that he may not play too many premiership matches, as long as the first choice defenders are available. Also he seems to have understood in clear terms that he is a second choice defender.

It will not be easy to obtain a place in the XI fighting with great players and men like John Terry and Ricardo Carvalho, but I am prepared for the biggest challenge in my life. I have shown that Iam worth a place in the starting XI for Brazil and Chelsea is my next challenge. Chelsea suffered problems in the position of central defender last season and hopefully my arrival will reinforce the defensive line.

Jose awarded the ‘Number 9′ jersey to [tag]Steve Sidwell[/tag] as he welcomed him into the team. The whole team is currently training in [tag]California[/tag] ahead of the first [tag]friendly[/tag] on Saturday. When I said the whole team, it included all the players who are yet to sign a contract extension and also some teenagers that include Sinclair too.

I’ve got this thing called ‘day job’ which comes calling. Gotta go. Bye.