But Ballack was injured in early September and missed a good chunk of the season as a result. I don’t think it’s quite fair to say the same would have happened if he’d stayed at Chelsea — we simply don’t know. (Although with the way non-Josh midfielders were dropping like flies this year, he probably would have gone down.)

But I fully agree with the general premise that we needed a Ballack-type player rather than the actual Michael Ballack, unless we could hop in a time machine and grab the Ballack from a few years ago, as you suggested.

Because we all could predict that:

1.) Lampard would suffer his only second major injury of his Chelsea career. He had played 35+ league games in 8 of his 9 previous seasons. In fact, he failed to crack 40 total games for the club for the first time ever this year. He played in 24 EPL matches, which is tied with the 07/08 season (the OTHER injury season) as the fewest since he played 13 for West Ham in 96/97. In short, Frank has been a rock and while he was getting older, there were no real hints of a major injury cliff to fall off of.

2.) Speaking of cliffs: Michael Essien. Will the real Essien please stand up?

3.) Ramires wouldn’t be played as much as he should’ve been, thus delaying his settling process?

4.) Benayoun would rupture his achilles

5.) Uncle Carlo would have an allergic reaction to the depth in the reserves/youths. McEachran. Mellis, even. Could’ve turned this into an opportunity to retain the good prospects of Jackie Cork, instead of completely alienating him and sealing his departure (which I expect to happen any day now). Wouldn’t it be nice to have depth in the form of a fixture in the English U-21 side?