The Chels

Least worst = best.

Home form to carry us to the title.

Why was Cahill warming up at 0-0?

Willian is such an unintelligent footballer. Passing to Matic when he's clearly offside.

Incredibly sloppy in possession, defenders easily bypassed, chaotic and porous midfield, the usual disorganised pressing. But we somehow lead.

Our pressing is so easily bypassed. Also has anyone noticed how much Azpi is backing off this game? I think he must have been instructed to stay right next to Terry. It gives Newcastle so much space out on their right wing.

One defensive liability dropped, another still to go!

Could anyone tell me of the last big away game where we looked defensively solid and created a good number of chances apart from City away last season? It is difficult to achieve a good balance in these games but after 18 months under Mourinho I'd have expected us to be a lot less imbalanced than we have been. It's generally been either one extreme (defensively vulnerable, e.g. United, Liverpool, Tottenham away this year) or the other (offensively poor, e.g. away to City this season & away to United, Liverpool, PSG and Atletico last season). To me the solution seems relatively obvious: defend with numbers - which means don't use the split of 6 in defence and 4 in attack that we sometimes see - and be more aggressive with a higher, more intense press.

I completely agree that we shouldn't be cheering for the opposition but I don't think the Lampard chanting did much and I reckon we'd have conceded anyway. The truth is that we've lost 7 points (and counting) from winning positions in the league this season - all coming in big away games.

Good shout but their revenue is a lot bigger than $5 billion.

PSG fans moan about him like we moan about Willian. Absolutely not the answer.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/chelsea/11336123/Chelsea-news-Jose-Mourinho-targets-replacement-for-Andre-Schurrle.html

Crazy to think how much Madrid spent on a counter attacking player. Hazard is the better player.

Simeone is an unbelievable motivator and tactician. I'm surprised at how many people still don't consider him the best manager in the world.

If Ivanovic were dropped from RB we'd be playing Azpi-Luis, no? But I'm pretty sure Ivanovic will remain the number 1 RB for as long as Jose is still in charge.

Fair enough. Neither of you think Koke would be creative enough to replace Oscar in our team but there are very few AMs out there who would provide the defensive workrate and playmaking abilities we demand from our number 10. An alternative and better short-term option is to simply depend less on the AMs for the attacks and more on our FBs (Azpi-Luis) but doubt that's going to happen.

I watch every Atletico game because I really admire Simeone's work and their tactical nous, and I do feel like quite a lot of those stats are misleading. Atleti are a very clinical team which means they don't require Koke to create so many chances from open play. The fact that they have Mandzukic up front now instead of Costa only adds to the significance of set pieces for them and their play is heavily orientated towards winning free kicks and using clever set piece routines rather than on creating lots of chances from open play like ours is. Hence just because Koke doesn't create so many chances from open play doesn't necessarily mean he can't (he is very good and decisive with the ball) and I would suggest that if he were given the number 10 role in our team his attacking output would increase a lot. Another thing you have to take into account is that Atleti always overload defensively, even at home against lesser sides which means Koke (who plays out wide) is always behind the ball when the opposition have it and he has to press amd track back a hell of a lot. Oscar does a good defensive job for us but he doesn't need to do as much as the Atletico forward players, who arguably have to defend more even the likes of Ivanovic and Cesc (which is why they are a more defensively stable side, conceding significantly fewer shots on goal than we do). It probably sounds like I'm making excuses for him and while I am willing to admit that while he is the not the best playmaker, he is a lot better than those stats suggest and I see a lot of potential in him. It's just my personal opinion though and I understand why you might think otherwise.

I don't think the Spanish NT is the best way to judge a player's creativity. Koke is a very direct player a la Cesc and when I've watched Spain recently it seems like they still don't know whether they want to play a more direct style to accomate the likes of Costa and Koke or whether they want to play their tika-taka football. Where are you getting your stats from by the way and do you have a detailed breakdown because I suspect we dominate possession in the final third much more than they do. You can't just ignore set pieces because that's a huge part of Koke and Atletico's game. You see it with us even - when Costa and Luis get to the byline they will very often just hit it against the defender wanting to win a corner (all players do this of course but I've noticed Atletico players tend to do it a lot). If Oscar was that good from set pieces he'd be a hell of a lot more useful. Koke does all the defensive work Oscar does and still does more going forward relative to the demands of his team whereas Oscar is often a passenger attacking-wise. I would swap them in a heartbeat.

Atletico set out to attack through counter attacks and high turnovers rather than through dominating possession so Koke isn't really given the opportunity to dictate play. I think he has the ability to do it but either way I don't think we'll get him - he'll be at least £40m and will probably not leave until after 2016 when Barca will be very strongly competiting for his signature. We dominate possession in the majority of our games a lot more than Atletico do so it's inevitable that Oscar creates more open play chances than Koke. I think it's a misleading stat as it does give the impression that Oscar is the more creative player which is not true imo.

Koke is probably as close as it comes. We were apparently interested in him before we got Fabregas but I think he'll end up at Barcelona.

Varane has everything and will be the best defender in the world soon enough imo

Oh I wasn't listening to the commentary but read about the Luis thing on twitter. Thanks for clearing that up. I don't think Mourinho's been very impressed with Oscar lately!

Costa played in a two at Atletico but it requires a lot of tactical discipline and defensive work from the wingers - Willian would be okay but I'm not sure about Hazard.

Mourinho was ranting at Luis in the first half so that doesn't bode well for him. I really want to see him have a go at Ivanovic but that's just a pipe dream. Heck in one of the away games this season (think it was United) I remember how the commentators mentioned that Ivanovic was having a go at Jose - he definitely has Mourinho's nudes

Mourinho does a speak a lot of BS. He called La Liga the best league in the world when he was there. And if it was so easy for RM why did he only get 85 points in his final season?