MrExcalibur100

No player plays at the top level 90% of the time, get real. Maybe 80%, not 90%. And Hazard is world class. His numbers this season are better or on par with the other world class wingers out there bar Cristiano (but Ronaldo isn't really a pure winger) And excluding numbers, his ability alone speaks for itself. I'm surprised there are Chelsea fans that still think he isn't world class. Hazard has been world class since his last season at Lille. And Oscar is not great, just good. He still has a lot to prove. I believe it's all happened a bit too quickly for him, and it's starting to catch up to him.

Apparently just played fantastically for Serbia. Too bad he played the full 90 though.

What a scary sight, FUCK these digusting friendly matches. Hazard almost suffering a serious injury just now

Still a quality player. I know the back four is settled now, but Cole can be given a look-in verses the relegation fodder and defensive minded teams willing to sit back at the Bridge. We need a natural LB playing in these games as Azpi isn't that comfortable on the overlap.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but majority of Oscar's caps for Brazil have been friendlies against the likes of China, SA, and Iraq in this Brazilian world tour. It's easy to shine when you are the world cup hosts playing these terrible footballing countries. You don't have to play through the brutal CONMEBOL qualifiers. This is an important factor people forget.

You can't really compare playing for Chelsea in the PL to playing against a shockingly poor South African side who aren't even interested in defending.

Mandzukic is the one that you're overhyping he is nowhere as good as you think he is. Plus he is a bigger douche than Costa.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Interesting analysis from Reddit on Torres' performance against Fulham.

Utter bullshit. Many other teams play with "inside" wingers and their strikers are not on the wing as much as Torres is. For Real Madrid, whenever Ronaldo and Di Maria/Bale are playing, two wingers who are always going infield, Benzema still makes many runs forward and does not go into the wings. Same with Bayern, when Ribery/Goetze and Robben/Shaqiri is playing Manduzick hardly ever goes onto the wing. He stays more centrally then even Benzema! This is just a poor excuse for a player who really doesnt offer our club much. Eto'o and Ba might go onto the wing like Torres, but honestly, they are not on the wing nearly as much as Torres. Torres might as well set up a home there, he is more on the wing then in the center. Whenever Eto'o and Ba play they both seem to actually stay in the right position and get off shots, both when you look at the stats have nearly 2-3 more shots on average per game then Torres. I actually went to my TV and fetched the recording of todays match to show you how poor Torres' positioning is. In the pictures I will use Yellow to label what is wrong or what Torres is doing, the red will mostly be Schurrle or what is correct. 1st goal: The useless run made by Torres As you can see Torres is making the completely wrong run. Instead of making a run straight down the middle giving Schurrle his lane and opening up another potential pass for the man with the ball he effectively puts himself out of the game. Schurrle would still be making the same run with or without Torres there and he is not dragging any defenders with him to make his run of any value. The aftermath of his run.. As you can now see he is not anywhere near fast enoguh to be able to recover from his bad run and Schurrle is already speeding away. Had Torres made the correct run down the center instead of towards the wings (the area he loves to be, who knows why) he could have gave Schurrle a target in the middle to square the ball towards. Schurrle without anyone open through the middle did the correct thing in cutting across into the open space, the rest is history. 2nd goal Here is Hazard on the ball looking for someone to make the run into the open space.. Hazard is on the ball and there is space between the defenders for a ball through. Nobody is making the run...yet. Torres is just off to the side and Schurrle is beyond him, who do you think will make the correct run? Schurrle making the correct run! As you can see Schurrle runs past the pedestrian Torres and into the space. Where was Torres? Staying stationary off to the side. Schurrle made the run from the wing into the space Torres should have been trying to get into. The fact that Schurrle came from the wing into the striker position instead of Torres says a lot. Great play Schurrle, terrible play Torres. Torres still walking, very pedestrian like. While Schurrle rushes on ward to goal after making the run Torres should have made. Its obvious which player was hungry to score.. 3rd goal: The run made by Schurrle and the pass made by Torres. Finally Torres something positive to say about Torres! He properly wins the ball from the air (although it was a huge mistake by the 6'7 defender Bern) and controls and passes to the speedy Schurrle. Schurrle again makes the perfect run into the space behind. This is why I believe he has the potential to be a great center forward given the chance. He is aware of the space and has the legs to get there and the finishing ability to put it into the back of the net. This was great play all round for the final goal. Conclusion Torres offers nearly nothing to our team. For a team like Chelsea we can do so much better then Torres and the sooner we can, the better. He cant make runs for his life and then the midfield is blamed for "not giving service to him". He makes runs away from the center lane instead of towards it, he shows no hunger to get a goal and spends more time on the ground then any striker I have seen play for Chelsea for a long time. Its not even diving, he just slips, falls, tumbles more then anyone for whatever reason. He also gives away wayyy to many fouls. He cant channel is aggression properly and just ends up giving too many freekicks to the opposition in their half of the field. I am almost certain that if we had a striker of Aguero or Suarez's quality that they would have had atleast a couple goals this match. The runs were there but only Schurrle really wanted them. Edit: Thanks to whoever got me gold!! Means a lot!

I You do know that players improve right and that Costa (age 25) has been playing at a top-class level for the last two years, like Drogba before we signed him from Marseille. That logic makes little sense. As for Lukaku........were do I start. He is not ready to lead the line for Chelsea. Watching Everton matches and reading through their forums, it's obvious to me. He is just not good enough yet and his ball control is still sorely lacking, something that will be ruthlessly exposed at Chelsea playing alongside Hazard and co. He also has a tendency to go missing a lot in matches. His work ethic and his back to goal play is generally average for someone so big. He's also on something like 2 goals in his last 12 matches for Everton. We need better than that. If he wants to learn the Chelsea way, he needs to come here, be patient, and learn first hand Mourinho's methods. Forget the woeful penalty miss, the shift he put up in the Super Cup was unacceptable. All Lukaku's done so far for Chelsea is yap his mouth to the media and hand in a loan transfer request just 2 days before the deadline. That transfer request was unacceptable behavior and disrespectful to the manager, and in hindsight we should have rejected it. His lack of patience could end up costing us the league if something happens to Torres or Eto'o. Diego Costa is the only top quality striker out there. Balotelli (crazy, inconsistent, overrated, why the hell would anyone suggest this guy?), Benzema (inconsistent, lazy), Manduzvic (not that good, a massive bellend. Even has a worse personality than Costa), Cavani (Impossible to sign) are not viable options. And like @BlueLyon pointed out, the one who fits our style of play the most (or at least, the style of play Mourinho is developing) is Costa. There are other good strikers out there like Adrian Ramos at Hertha Berlin and Jackson Martinez at Porto, but those guys are not elite players and have little to no room for serious improvement, considering they are at their peaks. Unfortunately, all the kids nowadays want to be attacking midfielders and wingers. That's the new "in-thing" and according to Jose, it's a theory as to why less and less of the top teams play 4-4-2 nowadays. There aren't too many great CF prospects from age 21-26. Although there are a lot from 17-20 for some strange reason.

Drogba was hardly a diver, like say an Ashley Young. He just went down easily, but there was almost always some contact. He never jumped in the air like a loon. Was Drogba ever more of a diver than say a Torres? No And those of you bashing Costa, please don't be hypocritical. I'll bring him to the Bridge with my eyes closed. He's what this team has been screaming out for for 3 years.

Nice interview with David Ginola. Eden talks about a bunch of current stuff. Must have been done a couple of days ago.

He was shocking when he came on, wasn't he? Will definitely be leaving Stamford Bridge next season. He's won a lot with us and he should be proud of that. His presence in the squad and his wages make him a pointless player to keep, even as a squad player.

I don't know if this article has been posted on this Torres thread, but it sheds some light on what REALLY happened to Nando. Of course it doesn't explain why he inexplicably misses open goals, but it explains why he no longer strikes fear in the hearts of opposition defenders. http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11661/9088027/what-went-wrong

Anyone who thinks Eto'o hasn't been MUCH better than Torres this season needs his head examined. I've seen Torres fangirls/boys bash genuine world-class players like Hazard for not passing Lord Torres the ball enough and for being "stingy". As if Torres hasn't been shit before the likes of Hazard joined us. Unreal. Torres' problem is injuries. It hurts me seeing a great player become a pale shadow of his former self, but the truth is Torres was "done" when he lept off in the World Cup final against Holland. Hasn't been the same since. There's only so many knee injuries and hamstring pulls/tears a player can take. Funny thing is Roman attended that match and should have known not to buy him. As for Eto'o in the last 3-4 games, his problem is clear. He has been carrying the work-load and piling up the minutes in the absence of the previously injured Torres and it took its toll. You don't expect a player in the twilight of his career to play every game, including in mid-week. And Mourinho was reluctant to use Ba as well.

https://vine.co/v/MmAxuX5F1KU Saw this on twitter. Hazard skills freestyle .

Robben's contribution to Chelsea has been far overblown and overrated.

Attacking set-pieces is something we should be working on. I'm surprised Oscar doesn't take more. He took some good ones last season. Lamps is the only one that seems to get that devastating whip on the ball. Willian's are ok, and Schurrle is pretty inconsistent. Hazard's set pieces are good, he used to take them for Lille, but oddly, not his corners.

I'm not to worried about his lack of goals because he is a very goal-shy player. Look at his record in his past teams. His play in the final third is not very threatening either. That's what bothers me the most. He can improve a lot. IMO, he has played some good games, but he doesn't look like a 30 million player. When you see an absolutely top, top player, it's obvious. Every one could see it with Hazard from his Lille days. But it's not my money. The only reason why we paid that was because Spurs were desperate too spend the Bale money, and we matched their bid. I think he'll improve with a top class CF though, next season and the burden to chip in with goals will decrease a little.

Clever play from Schurrle in that move too.

Okay game, but ZERO goals, missing easy chances. He's just a disastrously poor player and he hurts us, especially in the PL. Look at that. It's the sort of stuff Diego Costa gobbles up easily. The sort of stuff any decent striker would score from. When your teammate is good enough to do something like that, the least you can do is return the favour.

Shocking miss from Hazard's cross but showed strength to assist Schurrle's goal. Just feel bad for him nowadays. He needs to leave us in the summer. For his and Chelsea's sake.

Oscar lad, what's happening to you nowadays? Maybe Jose needs to give him a week/two weeks off to catch a breath and find his form. I thought it was mostly a finding space issue, but he looked out of sorts even on the wings today.

https://vine.co/v/MKPUWLHKgqw Bad man

Jose: 'I didn't say a word at h/t, the first half was really bad for us. We said before they couldn't have more desire than us.' Like a boss.