Blue Daze

5 games in. New system. 4 wins. I think it's too early to start worrying to be honest. In all these games we've looked to play a more expansive, attacking game and it's paid off broadly speaking. Last season people were moaning about our inability to break down small teams, yet we've already won two potential banana skin games (Swansea and Leicester) that we were struggling with last year. We've shown an ability to break down and decimate teams who sit deeper that we didn't last year and of course that's going to have an effect on how we defend. But Jose isn't Kevin Keegan. He knows that the first step in matches is not to lose and I think we'll see that side of him on Sunday. Against Swansea we looked overrun in midfield, but he made changes and we took control. Against Everton he shored us up in the second half. We have a top manager - if you think you see a potential problem, he saw it weeks ago and already worked out a solution. I just think you have to be patient. Matic isn't at his imperious best but he'll get there and that's a big thing for this team. The one slight worry is JT who is starting to look like a 33 year old all of a sudden. Cahill does so much work to help him out but he needs to step it up a bit which is a big ask at his age.

The only goal I think you could say he should've done better on is Eto'o's and that was a world-class header. Beyond that the biggest worries would probably be the midfield (who lost the battle for the first 60 minutes at Everton and the first 40 at Swansea) and JT and Gazza who were bullied by Gomis for parts of the Swansea games and invited Draxler to have a shot last night. But it's early in the season under a new system and these are things you'd hope to improve. In my opinion, we've got the second best keeper in the world in goal now and he's made us BETTER in some aspects, particularly dealing with crosses.

Coming out of the ground last night, it was hard to be that pissed off. We've had a run of 4 great wins, we're getting all the plaudits, all the hype and I think most people probably expected a nice 3-0 win. This might be the best thing to happen to us in light of the City game on Sunday. Last night means nothing in terms of this season, but it might just give everyone a bit of a reality check before a key game. City will be up for it after last season's 'masterclasses' and now everyone can see that we aren't the finished product. The selection of Drogba made sense. He's a member of the squad and over 60 matches we WILL need him so he needs to get a bit of match fitness under his belt. Remy is a 27 year old in his prime who has already had two full PL matches this season as well as the minutes in the Swansea match so he's much closer to where Jose would want him to be. Beyond that it was a fairly typical group stage match that we could have probably won comfortably if players took their chances, but sometimes a result like this is better in the longer term than an easy win. Luis looked tidy and put in at least one world-class cross to Drogba. Fabregas put in a couple of amazing passes but also did his dawdling bits too. Hazard for me sums up this Chelsea team though. On his day he's devastating but he needs to show a bit more killer instinct. He drifts past players with ease and gets into fantastic positions, but just needs to back himself to shoot more often. I think he'll get there and he's a typically slow starter so the fact he's already having strong performances is encouraging. The only other criticism for Jose is that he could've gone with Oscar instead of Ramires, but it's minor. Fair play to the Schalke fans though. Made a noise for the full 90 minutes and there was even some impressive choreography going on that puts the Poznan to shame.

One of those saves was an absolute worldie against Leicester which did as much to get us the three points as Costa's goal. He's dealing with crosses better than Cech was last season and his kicking is improving game on game. Honestly speaking I think if you're looking at JT and Cahill and thinking we're missing Cech's leadership then there's a bigger issue going on. We've upgraded the goalkeeper position. We probably need to look to do the same with the defence if these early matches are anything to go by.

So um, yeah. Hi.