Ward

Tibo of course. No one else came close.

Costa was the one who didn't press much. Willian didn't press higher up the pitch at all, having to cover for Ivanovic and immediately dropping back whenever we didn't have possession. Hazard didn't press. As a result, Cesc couldn't press much by himself either, so he dropped back to midfield to defend. You either press as a team or don't press at all.

Us looking much worse than usual had nothing to do with Cesc playing the number 10 I'm afraid. He was our only AM who actually tried to create something today, making some great passes and creating the penalty with his run. I'm most disappointed in Matic, Ivanovic and Cahill. Also, this was Hazard's poorest game in a long while: bad control, many misplaced passes, little to no creative spark. I hope he's just tired.

His words were more of a dig at Lampard than anything: that unlike Lampard, Gerrard deserves respect for his loyalty.

He seemed sluggish in the previous couple of games, but it looks like he's back to his best. Great performance, looked very menacing.

How fantastic is that lad? Brilliant signing, the brain of the team.

I don't think Courtois is worse than Cech, but I can't help but feel more confident when Cech plays.

Fabregas. Ran the show. Costa and Oscar close second.

If we have 2 strikers on the pitch, it usually means we're not winning. Please no.

Well, Fabregas and Hazard did fine against Stoke.

Maybe. If JT doesn't retire this year, Cesc will be a Chelsea player for 2 years by the time we'll need a captain. Out of all our players he probably fits the profile the best.

Matic would make a bad captain, IMO. He's too nice, soft and awkward. Not to mention his English isn't great. He might improve his English, but his character won't change. The Captain should have certain personality traits Matic lacks, but it's not necessarily a bad thing for Matic.

I don't buy it. Matic played one of his best games for us against Stoke with Mikel next to him and Fabregas in the hole and no Oscar on the pitch. Matic was poor today individually and neither Mikel or Fabregas (or Oscar) had anything to do with it. I love Matic just like the average Chelsea fan, but sometimes it amazes me how people consistently make excuses for him whenever he plays poorly while Mikel's every mistake gets criticized.

Gotta love how when Matic plays poor, it's always someone else's fault. At the beginning of the season, he was poor because he had to play with Fabregas. Now he's poor because of Mikel or because Oscar isn't in the team. Oscar was in the team against Hull and Matic was still sloppy, just like everyone else. We just need to admit they're all human and all can have bad games without it being someone else's fault. Matic isn't an exception. He was poor today, period, but it's not the end of the world. He was great in most matches.

Yeah, he was poor. Sloppy, many mistakes, looked tired.

He was incredibly selfish and poor today.

I would like us to try him on the wing instead of Willian.

lol Surreal, isn't it? Did you sing "We've got Cesc Fabregas" or something else?

He can, but it's not his best position. Why would we buy a very expensive CM to play on the wing? He's not a good dribbler. I'd rather we spend money on a proper creative right winger.

No chance. We wouldn't buy such an expensive midfielder to sit on the bench and he wouldn't agree to it. He'd never start ahead of Fabregas. His creativity is much worse(his chances created stat is misleading because most of them are created from set pieces) and defensively he might be only marginally better if at all.

I'm not getting the logic. Why? Shouldn't it be the opposite? Hazard can be given a rest if they play with a weaker team.

Having most touches in the team might mean very little when you play deep. For example, At City, Yaya is usually the one who has the most touches and most passes. But he makes 1.1 key passes per game, about the same as Willian. In the recent games of United, Evans or Fellaini had the most touches. They aren't exactly creative forces. At Barcelona often Buscquets or Pique have the most touches and they create next to nothing. Playing deeper limits Fabregas's participation in attack. He starts almost every our attack, but when you play deeper, you can't leave gaps behind and often have to rely on long balls and through balls to create chances, and they're much harder to pull off. It's undeniable that if you play as an attacking midfielder, you would have more opportunity to participate in the final stage of attack. Even yesterday, we often could we see Fabregas holding back while the AMs went into the box. Fabregas very often gets "secondary key passes": he makes a long ball to Willian/Costa/Hazard, who then give another AM a short pass, the AM makes a shot, and Willian/Costa/Hazard get credit for the chance created, not Fabregas. And that's normal for a CM. And it's normal to expect AMs to do the attacking, but only Hazard pulls his weight consistently, and I don't like it. I can't agree with this. It puts too much pressure on Hazard and Fabregas and makes us very predictable. Manmarking two guys and killing our creativity is easier than manmarking four. Remember the game against Palace? Fabregas was heavily manmarked, but Oscar couldn't use the space that created and we just passed the ball in midfield. When Palace got a red card, they couldn't manmark Fabregas anymore and we know what happened: Cesc made a run into the box, playing 1-2s with Hazard and Oscar, and scored a brilliant goal. That's what I want to see from Oscar and Willian: making runs and thinking creatively. I want them to step up when Hazard and Fabregas can't.

It's not about assists, as I said. It's about chances created. Fabregas is our best playmaker, yes, but unlike Oscar and Willian, he plays deeper than them and is more limited by his position. He can't attack as freely as they can, and it's not all right that he still has most assists from open play in our team. Logically, he shouldn't have most assists and chances created in our team. If you look at the top assisters in the league, most of them are AMs and wingers, not CMs who play in the pivot. Attacking midfielders are the ones who are supposed to attack and create most goal-scoring chances, not a pivot midfielder who is supposed to be mainly responsible for distributing the ball.

Key passes is a more meaningful statistic than assists, actually, though there are key passes and then there are key passes that deserved to be converted into a goal but weren't. I think we, as fans who watch every Chelsea game, shouldn't need stats to notice how few goal-scoring passes Oscar and Willian make in every game. I can remember good chances created by Hazard and Fabregas practically in every Chelsea game without straining my memory. Are you saying you consider Oscar more creative than Hazard only because he has more assists than Hazard? That would be very misleading. In Fabregas's case, his assists stat isn't misleading because he actually leads the League in chances created too. But in Oscar's case, there's very little correlation between the two stats.

He's not joint 4th for assists in the PL. He's joint 8th. There are seven players that have more assists than him: Fàbregas, Sigurdsson, Sánchez, Di María, Tadic, Baines, Downing. But it's not just about assists. He doesn't create enough chances. Practically every game Hazard and Fabregas create at least 3 or 4 chances each, but Oscar creates very few if any. He's 24th in the Premier League for key passes. Even Costa is ahead of Oscar when it comes to key passes. Though Oscar's creativity is good compared to Willian's, who is, eh, 66th. I have no doubt if Oscar was as fast as Willian and had his energy, Willian would be the one who is dropped when needed, not Oscar. They both need to step up, especially Willian. Making space for others with only occasional creativity shouldn't be enough and puts too much pressure on Hazard and Fabregas.