The Chels

This is true. No team only scores goals from open-play so not sure why anyone would object.

why do I feel like this is you trying to defend Mikel and write off the defeats where he played instead of Matic? Obviously Matic's absence isn't the only independent factor and the inference would be a poor one if I were writing a statistics dissertation but I'm not. The other biggest factors, say quality of opposition, can just briefly be taken into consideration given that this is only a football discussion. You can ignore the stats completely if you want but I think it is pretty clear just from watching us and how our performance deteriorates when Matic is playing poorly (or absent) that we do rely very heavily on him and IMO too much. The sample size is small, granted, but I'm not very hopeful for a big change in pattern in the next 3 games.

What? Mata is about as far away from a 'Simeone player' as you will get. Atletico are all about intensity, tactical discipline and workrate. Mata would definitely not suit them. Valencia have now got a lot of money coming in and he might return there but whenever I watch them their style seems to be based on intensity too. As much as I like the guy Mata is just too limited tactically.

This season we've only lost 1 out of 37(!) games when Matic was playing. Without him we've lost 2 out of 3. It goes to show how important (and great) Matic is but over-reliance tends to spell danger and it could really hurt us in these upcoming games.

There was an article in the Daily Fail about Jose's 6 untouchables yesterday - Ivanovic, Terry, Matic, Cesc, Hazard and Costa. I think that's about right, and Oscar is regularly dropped for big away games so he definitely isn't one. If a good offer came in for him I think we'd let him go.

It would obviously not have been the sole reason but it is not so outrageous to think that the PSG board were watching their CL tie versus us with very close attention and happened to be very impressed by Luiz's performances (I know I was). That could have been the cause of their interest. And we would never have bought Salah if he didn't play well against us! I'm surprised you find that so hard to believe.

Not sure what you find so outrageous. Take Salah for example. You're kidding yourself if you think we didn't buy him based on his performances (and goals) for Basel against us.

Why not? We do that kind of stuff quite a lot with Salah, Willian and (arguably) Luis being some of the most recent examples.

Did you see the pace with which he ran back when Burnley had that chance right at the end? Never knew he had that in him. I wish he'd show that kind of determination to get back quickly more often.

That didn't stop them buying Luiz! In fairness though he was (apart from the OG) very good in the two legs against them and especially excellent in the second one. Maybe if Oscar plays well against them then they'll be interested... In fact didn't Oscar say he had talks with them in the summer? Probably because he hit the crossbar from that FK! 'Twas a nice strike.

Great performance from Luis. He looks to have become more assured in 1v1 defensive situations and his ability on the ball is by far the best of the 3 FBs. His intensity off-the-ball is also very noticeable. And what happened to the white headband?!

Jose only played Azpi there to man-mark Luis. I don't think he will do anything like that this game because we need to change things more in the middle of the park than out wide, and I don't see Jose changing so many positions so drastically. I can see Cahill playing in the midfield next to Ramires and probably Cesc. Most of the realistic options seem quite bad in theory though, but I guess we will have a whole week to practise it in training whatever it ends up being. It really is an awful combination and I hope to never see it again.

We are definitely very light in the DM position and I think that might have been an oversight by the club. Hmm Mourinho hasn't really trusted Luis much in his best position so I don't think he will play him at DM. I actually think it will be Cahill next to Ramires since he did play there for a short while against City, and Jose did sometimes use Pepe in the midfield against Barca. I would rather see the Luiz-Lampard duo from last year than that though!

Can I just say that I don't think the crowd helped at all. Of course paying good money the supporters have the right to be disappointed when someone can't complete a basic pass but there was a loud, collective sigh every time we lost the ball and it would only have increased the anxiety among the players. Then when Matic was sent off you could hear the Burnley fans loud and clear pushing them forward when we needed the crowd to be our (then) 11th man and rile up the sense of injustice. Shame.

He played on the right wing (man marking Luis) and assisted Torres' goal. It wasn't his fault we lost and the experiment could have turned out brilliantly to be fair.

Forgot about that possibility! Think Jose might genuinely consider it for the game against Spurs.

Think we would have been better off packing the midfield, telling them to sit and getting Costa to press & act as the first line of defence (instead of him just standing there ahead of play). It would certainly have reduced the spaces and prevented such an average side from advancing so far into our half. Mikel would have been useful but I think we'd have ended up eventually conceding anyway. Holding on to a 1-0 lead is not something we find very these days.

Just remembered that's the same pivot we used against Bradford lol. It's no wonder we couldn't hang on today when it was that duo playing together again.

Didn't help that our shape was awful.

I think this will be an incredibly difficult game. Tottenham completely ruined us with their pressing and movement last time and we were on better form and had Matic in that match. Zouma and Luis to start again hopefully.

Surprised to see you so angry about the performance. You're usually very upbeat.

He was going to come on for Costa though so I don't think it would have made any difference.

Double post

I thought he already did. http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/pictures-chelseas-cesc-fabregas-takes-4979998 Might there not be a link though? Barca fans used to say that Cesc and the entire team played brilliantly for the first half of the season but he went missing in the second (except for some stat padding) and the team's level also subsequently dropped. I don't doubt that there's a lot of hyperbole in their arguments but there does seem to be an eerily similar thing happening here.

That's the last one before Everton but Henderson did miss a sitter after we took the lead. Another question: (apart from Everton) when was the last time we convincingly held on to a 1-0? Not including 2-0s or 3-0s etc. just 1-0s where we've taken the lead and don't get another goal. We used to do it all the time but I honestly can't remember any from this season.