The Chelsea Daily Drivel (Catch up) Friday 13th August.

The Chelsea Daily Drivel is a daily update of all the stories concerning our club, the rumours, the opinions and more....

So here are the Chelsea news updates from Thursday 12th and Friday 13th August 2010 including: Chelsea's move for the Brazilian Neymar, Ramires to sign on the dotted line today?, Jack Cork rejoins Burnley on a season long loan, Essien feels good being back and Chelsea link to Burdisso denied by his agent.

First to news of a familiar story this summer to Chelsea fans and thats the situation regarding 18 year old Brazilian starlet Neymar. Neymar has been some major focus of attention by the Press and Chelsea reported interest has now become apparent. We all know from previously reported that an initial bid had been turned down, with Santos holding out for the £29.6m release clause that had been inserted into his contract.

Its believed that a bid of around £20m could be on the cards in a matter of days from Chelsea as our Chief Scout Michael Emenalo was in New Jersey along with the famous agent Pini Zahavi (who is believed to be trying to broker the deal) to see Brazil beat United States 2-0 and Neymar scored.

However, news has broken all over the place on Thursday that Santos have threatened to report Chelsea to FIFA for allegedly "tapping up" Neymar before the game. Of course the club has denied any of these allegations as we do not want another Kakuta situation on our hands now do we.

Santos president Luis Alvaro de Oliveira Ribeiro has once again re-affirmed the his clubs stance on the move and said:

"The clause is there, If they pay it, they can take him."

Alot more to follow I feel on this one. There is no question that Chelsea are interested. The fact the Chief Scout is out in New Jersey to watch Neymar who scored 32 goals in 33 games last season. Let's just hope that this so-called tapping up report is plain rubbish and Chelsea can get the deal sorted sooner rather than later.

Now to another Brazilian who has all but rubber stamped his move to London and that's the long awaited and speculated move by Ramires from Benfica.

Now I am not so sure about the rest of you but I had been sitting here last week waiting for a big announcement that a deal had been done and dusted and the player would be heading to London for a medical as we were getting beat by Hamburg and would be a Chelsea player in time for the Community Shield last Sunday. However, we didn't hear anything!

I began to wonder what was going on, was the boy lost? Had a last minute snag hit the deal or was there simply more to it. It turned out that it was a work permit problem. Chelsea had argued their case and the player has been granted a permit under the special circumstances clause given that he had not played in 75% of Brazil's games over the past two years.

So expect the deal to be wrapped up today, an announcement will be made so remember to check back here later to follow up.

Now to news about youngster Jack Cork. Cork has rejoined Burnley on a season long loan after being there last season and gaining vital Premier League experience. Cork had since returned to Chelsea but maybe still hasn't managed to catch Carlo Ancelotti's eye in training and has now returned to recently relegated Championship side. Boss Brian Laws said:

"I am absolutely delighted to get him back into the football club, There's been a number of clubs courting him this summer but we've got a great player on our hands. We know he's a good quality player, He's hungry and had a great experience with us last year.

It's been the main objective for us to try and get him in as soon as we possibly can, although it's been a very long process. We've had to be very patient because Jack's tasted the Premier League and we knew that if any club came in for him we'd have no chance.

Jack's one of those players that he's such a young age that there's plenty more to come and we'd like to have a piece of that. We decided to just step back and speak to Jack on a regular basis and keep us informed. But now we've got a decision where we could no longer hold out on Chris [McCann] because of the surgery required the timing is right to bring him back."

Once again we wish Jack Cork well for the season ahead.

Now to fit again Michael Essien and he has spoken of being back and available for selection for our new campaign this season. He said:

"It feels so good to be back, it has been a long way back but everything is behind me now and I'm enjoying playing football again, I never feared for my career, it never crossed my mind. These injuries are part of football, so you have to take them when they come and not get too down about it.

I knew if I worked hard I would be back again so that's what I did and I am back on my feet. I know a few years ago it could have been the end of my career but with new technologies, surgery and techniques things are good, so yeah, let's go again this season.

We've had a bit of a bad pre-season with losing games but more importantly it has been good for me to be gaining fitness again and making sure I am sharp and ready for the season.

It is good to have a pre-season under my belt, personally I think I have done well and I keep getting fitter the more games I play. I feel like I am ready for the season and I am looking forward to it so much.

I think this season could be a big one, the last two seasons I didn't take too big a part in, I didn't start in one but finished it, then I started okay last season but didn't finish it, so this year has to be a good one and hopefully I will stay injury-free and help Chelsea win some trophies.

My main aim has to be to stay fit, to keep working hard and helping the team to get as many points as we can."

You will all agree with me here when I say that you can forget all the money that's been spent by the Premier League clubs this summer, the best player back and almost like a new signing for us is Essien. He is so so important to our midfield now more than ever. Expect if he remains fit, a massive season from Michael Essien.

Finally in the Daily Drivel to reports of another name that up until this stage we hadn't been linked to this past summer and that's Inter Milan's Argentinian defender Nicolas Burdisso. It had been reported that Chelsea had turned their attentions to Burdisso after it had been announced that Carvalho had left us.

The players agent Fernando Hidalgo said the following in reponse to these reports:

"Chelsea have not contacted me for Nicolas, Just yesterday I spoke with the Blues about another situation and Burdisso's name never came up. I don't know anything about this interest. (Is it an) Inter market strategy? I don't know. I don't know if Nico would refuse Chelsea because we cannot talk about assumptions that have no real feedback."

So he was speaking to the club about another situation eh!? I wonder if that could have been Balotelli? We shall see!.

Please remember to check out my tribute to Ricardo Carvalho if you missed it!

KTBFFH Everyone!