Ward

Costa was great in the second half, Willian and Oscar's form looks promising, and Fabregas made us look like Barcelona(in a good way). Hazard was invisible, though. All in all, a very solid performance and still top of the table.

I wouldn't say Arsenal smashed them. Villa looked pretty good against Arsenal and played solidly bar those few minutes. And I heard many players were sick.

I think Jose wanted to show his support for Drogba after Drogba was criticized for his bad performance. A poor decision, but can't think of another reason.

Brana has been woeful defensively. I think it's a pretty good reason to drop him, considering Luis is pretty good in attack too.

Would like Ake to start. He impressed me more than Zouma.

Same. After all the criticism he got for being undisciplined, he really upped his game defensively and tactically.

Once again he was at fault for the goal. He's been such a liability defensively this season, which is ridiculous, considering the fact that he's a defender.

I thought what a waste of great players it was to park the bus with the players we currently have. Watching Hazard and Fabregas being used as defensive midfielders was just sad. I'm sure if Jose didn't park the bus and actually allowed our creative players to create, we could have won this. Bringing in Drogba didn't make any sense at all and we effectively played with 10 men because of him.

Those who think Fabregas should be dropped for this game: our only goals from set pieces this season happened only when Fabregas took them. In big games like this, set pieces might be the decisive factor. Everyone else in our team is terrible at set pieces. Also, Costa isn't much of a threat unless he is fed a pass. Most of his goals are tap ins. He doesn't create for himself much. Oscar and Costa have no connection whatsoever, Hazard didn't assist a single goal for Costa this season out of his 7 goals. I'm not sure I want to rely on random flashes of brilliance from Ramires, Matic or Mikel. Fabregas and Costa have a great understanding with each other, and Fabregas seems to be the only player Hazard can linkup well with. Dropping the guy who assisted or scored in every game for us doesn't seem like a very good idea. Our weak defence this season isn't just Fabregas's fault and I don't think we'll be able to get a CS even without him on the pitch (we managed to concede the second goal against Swansea when he wasn't on the pitch). Our defence is worrying, so I think we should try to create and score as many goals as possible, which means Costa and Fabregas are the first names in the lineup. As for Cahill, I'm torn on this. If he gets dropped, it will damage his confidence and he might start performing even worse.

This is just as big of an exaggeration as your previous post about him "barely ever putting in a challenge," which was wrong as well, since he put in a challenge more often than all our midfielders bar Matic. He isn't the fastest player around, so it just looks like he doesn't work as hard as others while in reality he did more dirty work than most of our players.

Players' average position vs Schalke: Look at Ivanovic's. He was higher up the pitch than Willian. We'll get murdered by City if he plays so high and leaves such gaps behind. We need to find the right balance between attack and defence.

Not true at all. He was always trying to recover the ball and tackled plenty of times. Just checked the stats and he made 3 successful tackles, had 1 clearance and 1 block. In comparison, Ramires made 2 tackles, while Hazard, Willian and Oscar all made 0 tackles. Fabregas was pretty solid defensively yesterday, his best defensive performance after Burnley, IMO.

I'm so worried about the defence. The CBs looked very shaky in every game. I don't think we can "park the bus" effectively this year, so my hope is we outscore them.

He needs to work on his finishing. And he misplaced quite a few simple passes today.

Yeah, he made some valid points, though pretty much everyone got the pressing wrong in the first 30 minutes. But he's right that having a third midfielder frees Cesc up to attack and create. Playing Cesc in the pivot is obviously not ideal. It's not his best position.

I suspect Mata will be completely dropped from the NT or remain on the bench at best. He can't play on the wing, can't play in the midfield, and Spain don't play with #10, so there's no place for him in their 4-3-3. Even now that Xavi and Alonso retired and Cesc is used as a midfielder rather than a False 9, Mata could have taken False 9's role, except Spain now has Costa. So Mata's Spain NT career is effectively over I'm afraid. He's not versatile enough.

The lad raised the expectations very high indeed. Hope he scores against City so everyone can finally shut up about him scoring only against small teams.

I agree with this. The importance of an assist of a goal might be anything from 10% to 90%. Sometimes the scorer does the hardest part, but it can be the other way round. Giving credit to the scorer who does a simple tap-in while the assister does all the hard work, uses his vision and creativity and lays a perfect pass seems unfair too.

I haven't taken offence. I just find it puzzling why you mentioned it at all when 1 unimpressive assist clearly has no relevance, considering how great he's been for us. People usually talk about "charitable" assists when a player gets great stats undeservedly, which is clearly not the case, as you admit yourself. So in this case, what is the point?

I agree with you, but in this case, Fabregas's statistics actually reflect his influence on our play and are well-deserved, 1 "charitable" assist for Hazard or not. So it hardly has any relevance.

They aren't, but even disregarding the assists, Cesc has created more chances than any other Chelsea player this season: 16 key passes in 4 games.

Yeah, and considering a couple of Fab's through-balls to Costa and Schurrle that they didn't score, he more than deserved 1 "charitable" assist for Hazard.

6 assists in 4 games. Really crazy. Top assister in Europe by far at the moment.

Premier League ‏@premierleague 6h Fabregas: "We woke up after they scored... The most important thing is we are a team, it's not about individuals or partnerships." Premier League ‏@premierleague 6h Chelsea's Cesc Fabregas: "The more we take advantage from our rivals the better, especially after Man City and Arsenal both dropped points." Now that's the spirit.

All this praise for Costa makes me uneasy. They're too quick to praise and will be too quick to judge and criticize when he doesn't score in a few games.