Ward

Cahill is a solid defender but JT makes him look better than he really is. The best thing that can happen to a CB is to be paired with JT.

Spot on. While I do think Hazard and Matic are our two best assets - purely because they'd improve almost every top European team - but we have decent backup for them in Schurrle and Mikel. Yes, they're not of the same quality but the team can still function adequately. Fabregas has no such equal. We don't even have someone like him in the youth setup. It's something Jose should rectify going forward. I haven't seen anything of Pasalic but either way we need some creative resources. We only really have Hazard and Fabregas who are world-class playmakers.

Quite frankly we need Willian and Oscar to step up to the plate. When Cesc and Eden have a bad day, these two need to be able to step in.
This is where we can fail if we don't have our other attacking players take the game by the scruff of the neck.

And gooners know it too:
 
 

Another quality performance today, who would have ever thought we'd be so happy to see an ex gooner playing for us?

And gooners know it too:
 
 

My favorites:
 

The EPL and La Liga are virtually identical in terms of average goals per game so I don't think what you've claimed is strictly true.
Man City, Liverpool and even Chelsea have handed out thrashings on a regular basis. We've also seen Suarez, Bale and now Costa score at a rate that suggests high totals are possible. I don't think we can just write this off to a petty circumstance by saying Hazard is limited by what league he plays in. There are plenty of opportunities for Hazard to pad his tally, he just doesn't take them.
That's not necessarily a criticism. Jose's interview was extremely revealing in thia regard. Hazard just isn't the kind of person out for glory and like Hazard's father suggests, it's his mindset that "limits" him.
Perfect example would be the penalty he won against Arsenal. We all know he could pull off that run against any team at any time, but he limits hinself. Right now, he's a perfect team player, but I think Jose will develop a ruthlessness to him that will manifest itself in more goals- we just need to be patient.

Gosh.. I'm not criticizing him or his performance... You can clearly see I have mentioned that his overall performance has improved from last season.
 
He says he wants to win Ballon D' Or and wants to reach the goal scoring heights of Ronaldo and Messi. For it he needs to score a lot more than he is doing currently.
 
Remember it's HIS words not mine.

Think the Arsenal fans did a better job of motivating Cesc for the rest of the season than even Mourinho could.  I would pay a reporter to ask Cesc, in a press conference " So after seeing how Chelsea fans treated Lampard at the Etihad, despite scoring a game tying goal for their direct title rivals, and after the reception you got from the Arsenal fans today, care to comment on any differences you've noticed between the two sets of supporters from the London clubs?"
 
Think we can safely say, in addition to Wengers we don't need him comments, that Fabregas should feel very little loyalty for Arsenal anymore unless he is a complete nostalgia nut.  Hope we've helped, and will continue to help, give him a reason to love this club even more by the time he leaves or retires.

Yeah, was great, even defensively. Fabregas-Costa have some amazing chemistry. Loved that he celebrated the goal. Arsenal fans were pathetic, as always.

That's two big games where he has been excellent defensively. Many fans doubted his ability to play in the pivot ( somewhat justifiably) but it shows that, as always, Jose knows best.

He was immense today, you could see how much he wanted to win it

I can imagine Fabregas going-
 
 

 
Loves Arsenal,  will always love Barca and from Jose's words looks like he is beginning to love Chelsea as well. lmao.

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.

He has been superb for us so far, just because he's not socring in a game people overlook the fact his passing and vision are a joy to watch.

On youtube there is now a cesc compilation for the Aston Villa match and i've got to say i was highly impressed.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl583e_TPeM
 
I remember thinking during the match how good his passing was and seeing it again really made me see what Chelsea have been missing all these years.
 
First half was immense, second half was a bit more sloppy but there are two things that i just wanted to highlight.
 
Firstly, the long right-centre to left touchline balls to Azpilicueta (1:55) Hazard twice (2:23 and 2:33) and the beautiful ball to costa on the left corner of the box (5:36).  These are on-a-dime passes that manage to cut out their entire team and generally leave our player 1v1 which i think is one of our main weapons (Hazard).  Probably in the past only Lampard could do this but cesc does it even better and more often.
 
Secondly (1:21), and this one is my favourite, is a ball in the first half to Ivanovic from the centre to the right inviting the serb to push up.  Now many people will look at this pass and say that it isn't that special but i think nowadays it's these kind of balls that can be the difference.  
 
What happens is that there are two villa players ready to block the ball to the right.  Now 99% of players would play the easy ball into Ivanovic's feet but Cesc sees the space and the momentum it can cause and plays the much more difficult lofted pass perfectly so that Ivanovic can run onto it.  There is no control needed, no adjustment and no valuable time wasted.  Where most people pass into feet, cesc will read the game and see where to place the ball to take advantage of space and not lose momentum.  
 
Many teams will park the bus against Chelsea this year and so Chelsea really do need to take advantage of any counter attack situations or any situation where a defence isn't fully settled and this is a perfect illustration.
 
He then repeats this (4:30).  
 
Cesc will misplace passes and he will probably never have the highest pass completion rate.  But it's because he's so good and confident in his passing that he is willing to try passes, long, short and first time that others wouldn't dare and it's these passes that can make a difference in a game.
 
Defensively he is still not fully up to speed and can still improve.  I think this has actually affected Matic's production (although i feel he's been better than many people think).
 
Anyway i'm just so happy with what i'm seeing from Fabregas and as a result Chelsea.  The football has been good, fast paced, fluid and precise, it's just a shame that people (not Chelsea fans) are so blinkered with the whole "Mourinho teams play boring football" that they can't actually appreciate what in my opinion has been some of the best football played this decade.

Ward,
If your better player Remy is on the bench, then why not take on him? The team first, players second, I have read somewhere. So far as I can say, Drogs has very little in him. Keep him on as a motivator to pep up the boys, but to play him when the game is in its crucial phase is not in my repertoire.

I don't think Fabregas should be getting ANY of the blame. It seems like he can't win with some. He can't constantly do both tracking back and creating, it's just unrealistic to expect that from someone.

Fabregas is a class act, exactly what we have been missing, can't believe people questioning him.
Agree against big sides he has to have more cover and play further forward. His vision and passing are miles ahead of anyone else and his assist tally will go through the roof this season.
Looked tired towards the end of the game last night, I hope he recovers fully to cause city problems Sunday. Play him in a 3 with Matic Ramires/mikel.

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.

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.

And to be fair his 'tackle' set up our goal.

I saw it and I wouldn't call it slamming really. I thought he made some solid points. I suspect that we will most likely play with a 4-3-3 against bigger teams for this exact reason. 
 
Neville has to be the best pundit on TV right now. I think he gets mostly everything spot on with little to no bias at all. Even Carragher isn't that bad (though he has nothing on Neville).

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.