Socrates

Sorry but this 'deal' leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. It strikes me as us being too clever by half. The team are starting to gel and we've brought in Matic to shore up the midfield. We don't need to sell Mata and certainly not to shore up one of our rivals. Bloody daft and has the potential to blow up in our faces. Injury to Hazard, Oscar or Willian and we'd be exposed. Unless we have some amazing deal up our sleeve, I just don't see the point of it. We end up weaker while strengthening one of our biggest rivals. Talk about suicidal...

Selling Mata to Man United would be a big mistake. Why should we strengthen them when they are in crisis and could miss out on the Champions League? It would be naive to treat them like a mid-table club that wont in future be a real threat to us. If Mata must be sold then we should sell him abroad and have a player lined up like Reus or Costa. But please not to Man United. Not at any price. Seeing them crash and burn is preferable.

Relax, guys. We are leading Man U on so they waste all their time and energy this transfer window thinking they are going to buy Mata and they end up with no-one! It's revenge for the Rooney debacle last Summer...

Strange one this as everyone's assumed we'd be in the market for Luke Shaw. Then again we have just sold them De Bruyne and sent Bertrand out on loan...

"Chelsea are reportedly deep in talks with German side Wolfsburg over a deal for Swiss international defender Ricardo Rodriguez..." http://soccerlens.com/negotiations-ongoing-chelsea-close-e25m-swiss-star/124955/

Some tweets from Jan Hagen, a Portuguese football journalist: Jan Hagen ?@PortuBall So, If you want a DM who is great at tackling, intercepting, heading, reading the game and play the killer pass, Matic is the man for you. Jan Hagen ?@PortuBall He reminds me of a more defensive/deep-playing Yaya Toure. Great at intercepting the ball and good at passing. Jan Hagen ?@PortuBall If A Bola's fee on €25,3m for Matic is true we've just witnessed a daylight robbery. He's a beast with a €50m release clause/long contract.

Yes, considering Benfica sold Axel Witsel for €40m. Then €25m for Matic, who is arguably a better player,doesn't look like a bad deal.

Oscar made the difference. Two assists. One goal. Should've scored another...

Good all-round team performance. Luiz, Willian, Cahill and Azpi all in with a shout. But Hazard stood out for me. Really top, top player.

On the Suarez-Eto'o incident – Andy Gray got it spot on. Blatant dive by Suarez. Or as Mourinho said: a yellow card. For Suarez. The foul on Hazard was a clearer penalty call.

Credit to Jose. Got it spot on today. Luiz, Willian and Eto'o were the right calls. Hazard was terrific. Azpi proves he's ahead of Ivanovic as a right back. Thought we missed Lampard second half. But we looked solid and kept Suarez quiet, Great result.

Thought we played well. Disciplined, solid performance. If we had a decent striker we might have won it. For all our control we lacked a cutting edge. Torres was very poor. John Terry MOM.

Hardly his fault if he was told he was going to be fourth choice and wouldn’t be playing regularly. It'd be ironic if Everton qualify for the Champions League at our expense. I don’t think that was the plan at all.

Most memorable moments: Oscar coming deep out of sheer frustration to try and take the ball forward. And Luiz looking for movement ahead of the half-way line, turning around and kicking it back to Schwarzer instead. Other than that, nothing much sticks in my mind.

Don’t know about long-term, but considering the alternatives right now I reckon we've got nothing to lose.

I wouldn't blame Cech even though his error was the turning point. Nor even Jose's insistence on playing Ivanovic and Azpi out of position. Or Mikel and Ramires' lack of defensive cover. My view is that we can work on our defensive shortcomings. But we cannot fix our strikers. They are finished as a potent force and have been for a while. Jose knows the problem is our strikers can't score. If we had scored two or three goals first half yesterday, as our play deserved, then we wouldn’t have had to be so desperate and exposed when we went chasing the lead again. We dominate possession and still lose because we don't convert enough chances. Nothing is going to change because we're going into games with effectively just ten men and relying on our midfield to score. Torres was so wretched these last two games that he might as well not have been on the pitch. Why on earth did he start yesterday after his abysmal display on Wednesday? What sort of message does that send? How poor can Ba be in training? The situation is so bad I'd just play Schurrle upfront and have another attacking midfielder like De Bruyne or Willian start. At least we'll be competing 11vs11. We're not playing with a striker anyway. Why keep up the pretence?

Thought we were playing quite well until Cech messed up. It was all downhill from there as we went chasing the game. God, how we miss Drogba. We'd run away with this league if we had a striker of his quality. Of any quality really. Can't believe Jose told Lukaku he was fourth choice behind this lot. Oh well...

Hazard was sublime. Pity our defending couldn’t match up. Torres couldn’t have played any worse. Almost comic at times. We would’ve won that 6-3 with a decent striker. Pleased with the three points but we made it hard for ourselves.

Some of our players could’ve done with being rested tonight. No reason why Schurrle, Torres, Mata, Bertrand were left out from the start. We were really sluggish and were second-best all over the park. Credit to Basel. They deserved it. We qualified. But that was a shocking performance.

Fair play to Steve Clarke. West Brom allowed Ivanovic plenty of time on the ball knowing that he would do little with it. Why should he? He's a converted centre-back playing right-wing most of the time. When we switched play to Hazard on the left, he went on a run and created our first goal. Second half they targeted Ivanovic by closing him down knowing that if he loses possession upfield we would be exposed. Steve Clarke focused his strategy on Ivanovic as a weak link allowing him plenty of possession, knowing he is no threat, and closing us down everywhere else. All sides follow this same tactic against us. They know Ivanovic is a liability in games when we are playing against opposition with ten men behind the ball. I would’ve started Azpi at right-back and (assuming both Cole and Bertrand are injured) played Luiz at left back. Mourinho's obsession with playing Ivanovic every game, regardless of opposition, is a mystery to me.

Tough one. Hazard. Scored one, made one. Ramires for being there when it counted. Went with Hazard for the cool penalty.

Thought it was a soft pen. But still a pen. The defender kept running knowing he would take Ramires out. Coolly done by Hazard. Ivanovic needs a break. He looks exactly what he is: a central defender playing right-wing. Lampard doesn’t look happy as a deep-lying midfielder. Never seen him make so many mistakes. Cech was nervous as a kitten today. Selection was well-exploited by Steve Clarke who let everything pass through Ivanovic. Then waited for him to lose his way. Bit baffled in Jose's team selection when we have Schurrle, Mikel, Essien and Mata sitting on the bench while Azpilicueta is played at left-back. We were all over the place once West Brom came at us second half. A bit of pressure and we crumbled. More dropped points and a poor performance. It’s November again...

Only Willian seemed to be aware that you can play a forward pass.

Seems like our players just turned up expecting to stroll it without putting in much effort. I thought we'd step it up second half, but if anything we were worse. Saw more composure and commitment from our so-called second string in midweek. Jose will have learned a few things no doubt...

No getting away from it. That was a terrible result and a terrible performance. Exposed all our limitations that needed to be addressed over the Summer. We desperately needed a couple of forwards and reinforcement in central midfield. For all his hard work, Eto'o looks well past his best. And Van Ginkel is a work in progress. Also I'd rather we’d kept Moses and Lukaku. I have no idea why we've loaned them out to rivals. Makes no sense. Saying that, I can't agree with Jose's team selection tonight. Why not Azpi, Mikel, Torres and Terry? Thought Jose got found out tonight. Everyone was woeful, except Oscar. But the real problem is upfront and there's nothing we can do unless we bring back Lukaku and give the kid a go. Sure he'll mess up occasionally but our 'experienced' forwards offer even less. It's a sorry state of affairs but I don’t think we've got much choice. Can’t believe it's come to this already...