MrExcalibur100

I heard Marcos Alonso was pretty good with those. That's an unbelievable free-kick. Wow!!

Pedro hasn't done anything and Kante is on a yellow. Maybe it's time to bring in Cesc for Pedro and bolster the midfield.

Alonso is having one of his worst games of the season. Looks tired.

Soft fucking foul. Luiz is all over the place

Nice pass from Kante. Impressive from Eden.

Jammy as hell, lol. 0-1 Costa

Luiz is starting to look a bit clownish again. Jesus...

Without Fabregas away from home, he's less effective because he doesn't get the ball in good positions/no one to find him quickly. That's another reason why Fabregas should be starting these games. Especially against a possession based team like Bournemouth. It's not like Bournemouth are a long ball, bully-ball team. Perfect game for Cesc. Anyway, let's see what happens.

We've had problems with that midfield duo away from home this season and Bournemouth are a team that are very good in possession. IIRC, they even had more of the ball at Stamford Bridge. I like to think our best XI has Cesc in it. Willian for Pedro should only be for rest purposes. Pedro has played a lot recently in physicially demanding roles. Still, I always like to see him start ahead of Willian

No Fabregas, little midfield control. Struggle to play good football. Hope I'm wrong.

Vision, yes, creativity in general I disagree.The stats I posted 1 or 2 pages ago tell a different story though. Hazard has outstriped Messi in the last 5 seasons in key passes and created chances and those stats don't lie. They are more accurate to determine creativity than assists, especially when there's a huge difference in quality between the two teams both players play for. The players that rank at the top of those stats are who you expect to be there. Great playmakers and set-piece takers. You really don't have any metric to argue against that other than a subjective opinion. But let's agree to disagree.

I'm talking about Messi in his prime. jeez, do you guys even read my posts anymore? The stats I posted show Messi's dribbling while excellent have been embellished by the greatness and the myth of the player himself. A purely objective examination shows Eden blows him out of the water. What Eden is doing this season dribbling wise is unprecendented.

Maybe, but what I pointed out is a significant weakness in his game. He's been terrible for months now according to City fans

I didn't know he did but def in an emergency situation. I doubt it will happen though, with JT, Ake and Zouma waiting in the wings.

I'm also going to state here that Hazard is our best big game performer of all time, with Drogba. Whatever happens from now on, he's already a legend at this club for me.

I disagree. Hazard's vision is incredible and is definitely in the same conversation. You're arguing for vision, I'm arguing for creativity. You don't have to have Cesc-esque full range vision to be a creative force. It's not even close between them at this point. Both Messi and Hazard high volume dribblers. Hazard has completed 125 dribbles at a surreal 78 % (!!) success rate. From my research on Squawka, this is the most devastating dribbling season in the last 5 years in all the top European leagues. Hazard is dribbling better right now than Messi did in his prime. Messi has never even come close to matching such efficiency. This season he has 84 completed dribbles at 60 % success rate 2015/2016 - 117 completed dribbles at 63% success rate 2014/2015 - 174 completed dribbles (eh) at 56% success rate (again, high volume dribbling rate at an efficiency akin more resembling Zaha than Garrincha) 2013/2014 - 143 completed dribbles at 59% success rate 2012/2013 - 122 completed dribbles at 63% success rate Some stats can be misleading but dribbling stats are pretty much irrefutable. Messi has never even done it at 70% success rate before. And that's despite playing next to some of the best players ever, ballon d'or winners, players who demand the attention of opposition defenders. You'll think he'll have more space to operate. Meanwhile, Hazard is the centre of attention. In 2014/15, Eden had - 180 completed dribbles at 64% success rate, a season were he was double marked in almost every game and getting tortured by defenders. I can post the others for the preceding seasons but you can look them up yourself. He still crushes Messi for effeciency. I don't even need any stat to know Hazard is a superior dribbler to Messi. The eye-test shows Messi fails quite a lot of his dribbles for everyone he gets right. He often loses the ball. Hazard rarely ever loses the ball when he attempts to beat players. He just simply blows past them. If we just forget the name at the back of the jersey and consider it's not LIONEL MESSI, this is not even a debatable point all things considered. Hazard is the best dribbler of his era and one of the most devastating dribblers the game has ever seen.

And hopefully Cesc keeps his place in the starting XI.

Get in, Gary! Great game from the skipper.

Absolutely shocking yet again. Nothing else to add really.... To what we've all been saying for months.

David Silva still the better player for me. If you deny KDB space to pull of his long range passes, he's pretty average. Needs to improve in tight spaces.

We still need another LWB and another RWB obviously but Marcus was great today. Stood up to the challenge and didn't hide.

Absolutely, but we both know Hazard is judged at a different standard than other Chelsea players.

Gave them way too much respect in the 2nd half. One will have thought we were playing Barcelona. But MASSIVE 3 points. Those fucking Spurs of course won in the last minute. Imagine the outrage here if we dropped points here?

He's a much better player than Willian. It's not even marginal. There's some distance between the two players.

Even before this game he was. Crazy the media hype for Kante, some even saying he's the best player in the league when he's not near that. Kante is excellent but he has flaws. Hazard is Hazard.