NlioN

It was a deserved red for Azpili. Upset at first but it looked nasty on second look. Delaney was deserving of both of the cards too, what a stupid twat.

What a beautiful cross fro Felipe Luis. Great to see him settling in well!

Eden is looking so sharp. Really think that having Cesc to take some of the creative burden is working well for him.

Loving this. Great to see Oscar playing deeper and dictating, Costa has a first goal and we look so good going forwards

Lovely cross from Oscar then, shame for the Brazilians to concede, Croatia look really good so far in fairness.

I couldn't see Marin, Moses or Romeu either. Odd.

Sad to see the back of a fantastic personality in the club. That said, it's a great chunk of money that will be well suited to developing the current squad in the right direction. You will go down in Chelsea FC history as part of our 2012 Champions League winning side, including a snorter of a penalty. Thanks for everything Geezer, best of luck for the future.

Thank you for everything Ash. Great servant to the club, you'll be missed. Best of luck wherever you end up next!

Is that a tattoo on Jose's left arm? Hadn't noticed that before!! Wonder what it says. Edit: Just done a search online and apparently he got it last year. That completely passed me by. Has his wife and kids names on it which is a nice touch.

Couldn't agree more with regards to Toure. I find it preposterous that anyone could think Gerrard was the better player this season. Phenomenal talent, making it all the more exciting seeing Matic keeping him quiet so effectively when we played them

Combined with the Champions League money (anyone got any idea how much?) We have a serious wad of cash coming in. Hopefully it will be put to good use. Might be a chance for us to rise in the revenue rankings globally as well, though I think most around us were EPL anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for statistics, but they have to be used with context and an understanding of what the data is telling you. In this case the information conveyed is entirely useless, because it implies that the only thing that matters in a game of football is a goal scored. To assess the INFLUENCE of English players on the overall outcome of a match would be a better way of creating a discussion on the use of English players within teams in the Premier League, although admittedly it would be a great deal more difficult to do. I'm only going to take into account Liverpool, Man City and ourselves for the sake of this argument but it can be applied for all teams. Firstly, this data is skewed by penalty takers. For example, as first choice penalty taker for Liverpool this season Gerrard scored 10 goals from penalties. Compare that to Chelsea, who had a single penalty scored by Lampard this season, and 4 from Hazard. I would argue that the identity of the player scoring the penalty does not have a large amount of influence over the outcome of the penalty itself and for example, Suarez would just as likely scored than Gerrard. The ability get into the position to win the penalty in this case is not taken into account, but is arguably ore important. (Based on Premier League 2002/03-2012/13 79.25% penalties scored, citation needed). Perhaps not the best argument but relevant all the same. More importantly, especially in Chelsea's case, it does not take into account the importance of the influence English players on a match without having scored. Our first choice center-back partnering was Terry and Cahill for large parts of the season. This pairing, although not vital to our goal scoring prowess, were fundamental to our successes this season as the team with the best defensive record (least goals conceded). In other words, these two ENGLISH players undoubtedly had a huge amount of influence on some tight games and probably, though it is hard to quantify, had a big say in a number of results. Something that is completely disregarded by the information in that table. Similarly Joe Hart, as the first choice goalkeeper at Manchester City, was a part of the second best defensive in the league. His 13 clean sheets this season would have played a big part in their second Premier League title, but is entirely ignored with a table of goals. But I suppose it's a table that puts darling Liverpool at the top, which is apparently what everyone in the world wants to see. Top journalism, give the people what they want to hear. I'm not saying that the inclusion of English players isn't a growing concern of mine when it comes to our own squad, especially with the likely departure of Terry, Lampard and Cole within the next couple of seasons, and it is something I hope is addressed at both a club level and more generally in the Premier League to ensure that some of our English lads get a go at the top level, but as a lover (its more love-hate really) of mathematics it annoys me to see things like this. Apologies for the rant.

From BBC Sport: Thank god for that.

Completely agree with the rest of your post but don't forget Cahill, he's been fantastic this season in my opinion.

Agreed, perhaps we are, but at some point we have to put some faith into the players we have brought through. I think there isn't much need to break up our first choice center-back partnership and between he and Ivan I'mm sure that would be plenty adequate for the season.