IF CHELSEA ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR FRANK LAMPARD ANYMORE, EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE MADE HIM THE PLAYER HE IS, PERHAPS ITS TIME HE MOVED ON. BYE BYE FRANK.

LOYAL CHELSEA SUPPORTER

i agree it should hurt chelsea, which i fail to see the downside in by the way, but if lampard can succeed in italy, i think that would do wonders for english football. if you exclude beckham's results in the MLS (and you should), there's no english player making an impact outside of the mother land. owen's inability to break into the top XI at real was an outright failure, especially after watching a rather washed up looking van nistle-destroy take the bernabéu by storm these past two years. woodgate didn't exactly turn a lot of heads there himself.

i think one of the real problems is the early purchases of young talent by the big clubs. it's nice for arsenal to own theo walcott's rights. in some matches, wenger has even thought it was nice to sub him in for a little run. more often than not, the youngest player on the 06 Cup side is watching the games with the rest of us.

wayne rooney deserves his spot on a big english club, but how interesting might it be if players like wright-phillips, carrick, crouch, joe cole and wes brown had gone to clubs in serie a, la liga and the rest, and not had to worry about playing time? i would love to see cole dribbling out to the corner flag for no apparent reason in spain ~ wearing a kit i don't loathe.

i don't think the problem with english players is technical as much as it is lack of exposure. the epl has imported a lot of foreign talent, but not a lot of foreign style. if the teams bought more latin players, and less sprinters and hatchetmen, the influence would be far superior. combine that with a few successful english transfers to big clubs in spain and italy, and i think the game would be in far better shape than it is today.

DECO IS A GOOD PLAYER BUT HE HAS NOT GOT THE HEART AND STRENGTH LIKE LAMPARD HAS TO HOLD THE MIDFIELD TOGETHER I'M NOT A CHELSEA FAN BUT THIS WOULD BE A GREAT LOSS FOR THEM AND FOR ENGLISH FOOTBALL TOO BECAUSE HE WOULD START TO LEARN THE ITALIAN WAY OFF PLAYING WHICH IS MUCH SLOWER AND LAZY--FROM ANDY SMART IN NUNEATON