dmode

Dude, stop it. Cesc DID NOT LOSE THE BALL PLENTY OF TIMES. As everyone else has pointed out that he had 90% pass accuracy and the 10% misplaced passes are long difficult balls he was playing. Also, your posts are getting pretty annoying. Here's a day, when Chelsea beats Arsenal 2-0, and you roll in with a hate agenda and waste the last 5 pages trying to convince everyone else that one player was "atrocious", the same player who provided a crucial assist, controlled the game, and created chances. Admit it, you are slightly unhappy that Chelsea lost with Fab playing a crucial role.

You are describing the forum reaction after your "analysis"

No that's not what you said initially. That's your changing tune after getting massively called out

Give it up man. Your biased and terrible analysis has been badly exposed. Fabregas was excellent today. Go get a beer

hahahahahah...not sure what was so funny. Anyways, you, and not me, need to watch games and analyze them. I gave you facts and data and you came back with anecdotes like "37 touches were far far far more impressive" and generic rambling. Really, a midfielder playing for Chelsea has only 37 touches with 50% accuracy, and that doesn't bother you ? On the other hand, another player has 100 touches with 90% accuracy, and you think that player was a failure ? Oh boy. In fact, this was one big game where Chelsea had a higher possession % and controlled the midfield better than many other big games in the past. Remember, City's 2nd and 3rd goal came from pretty unusual circumstances. One was a header from Kompany in the 79th minute and another was rocket shot from far out. Let's face it, teams get lucky with headers from corners and long shot attempts. No amount of brilliant midfield play will stop those. As for Barcelona CL stats, it is pretty irrelevant. Because Cesc almost never started in Barca's CL games. In the fact the 4-0 thrashing in Munich, Cesc did not play a single minute.

You will play with a midfield combo of Matic and Ramires ?? That Ramires who completed 50% of his passes and had only 37 touches against Man City. Compare that to consistently 100 touches and close to 90% accuracy for Cesc and you will quickly know why Mou plays him every game. I also think he was defensively ok against Man City and made some crucial tackles. Infant led the team in tackles. Let's face it, unless Mou buys Koke or Pogba, Chelsea's success in linked to Cesc

Ramires was the third best player against City ? I have heard this sentiment in this forum before and I cannot believe people think this. IMO he had a terrible game and was one of the primary reasons we lost. I looked at who scored for the match report. Ramires' passing accuracy was 57.9% with only 37 touches and 19 passes. And he was on the pitch for almost 70 minutes. These kind of stats are completely unacceptable from a Chelsea midfielder. Compare that to out of form Cesc, who had 100 touches, made 86 passes with 87% accuracy. And people think Cesc is out of form.

Baba's immediate priority should be to delete all naked pictures of Mourinho from Iva's hard drive. Only way for him to get a start

I do see a long term place for Cesc in Chelsea. Juventus has been pretty successful by fielding a team to cover for Pirlo's limitation. Chelsea is going to buy a big name midfielder, if not this year, but for sure next year. Who knows, Mourinho may switch to 4-3-3. in big games

Please stop. He is not. We just won a game with a man down and scored 3 goals against a decent side. Stop moaning

There are no easy players in the market to replace Fabregas. You can either go for a strong CM and lose creativity or you can go for a creative player and lose dominance. And all of them are going to cost a lot. What Chelsea needs is Fabregas to get back on form. Even off form he made that two passes to Costa, one was a goal and the other was a near goal. He is that effective. You are just not going to find another player in the market readily available and with that kind of ability. Also, note that he looks worse in off form than other players because he is constantly making risky passes behind the defense. He is anticipating runs and putting the ball there, so when the run doesn't happen or the ball doesn't have precision, it goes nowhere. If Chelsea is to win the league he needs to be back on top of his game One way to really transition during his bad form phase could be to play 4-3-3. With straight up Matic-Mikel-Fab midfield. Willian can be sacrificed without losing much

I think he was ok, not that bad. Obviously people here translate an OK performance as shocking. I think next week we will see a different Matic and Fabregas. The lack of wins was creating a mini panic. This win will help. Also, note that the duo was doing fine when Chelsea went on the 3 goal streak. Terry's red changed all that.

How was this a shocking performance? Ok, he gave away a penalty, but any aggressive DM will sometimes give away a penalty l

You guys are overreacting. Fabregas will be fine in a couple of games. Just need that momentum. Even today he created the third goal and set Pedro up nicely. Not sure why he has become so slow though. Is the fitness team looking into it ?

Just on a different league compared to other wingers. To think that he cost almost the same as Cuadrado says something about the transfer market

Just cannot have a player playing that high in the pitch with such poor finishing

This makes no sense. Hazard and Fabregas were the better players today. It's not their job to defend against Aguero

First half was awful. Chelsea actually did pretty well in the second half and closed down Aguero and Sterling. Created a few chances too. Zouma coming on made the back line solid. Needs to be a starter going forward. Costa should see the bench IMO. Such a drama queen. He loses possession in the final third, breaks our attack that leads to a dangerous counter. Ivanovic- not sure what to say. Seems everyone except the board knows that he needs to go

Ivanovic is a joke

Costa is terrible

Costa is so much drama

Great post. My thoughts exactly

I thought he was pretty good in the second half, when he went deep to get the ball. That one long pass to Falcao was genius, good chance Costa would have scored from that. And that ball to Hazard was pure vision.

This was actually one of the better performances in a big game for a while. We should have scored a couple of times. My biggest concerns are our forwards. They look in dire shape. And Azpi looks out of form. Two games in a row he has conceded

Cesc came to Chelsea, turned things around, and won the PL. Rakitic would never have that kind of influence in any other team than Barca or Real. He is playing behind Messi in God form and Neymar, Suarez. His main job is not to fuck up. He doesn't need to do anything special, but pass the ball to Messi or Iniesta. Cesc is 100 times more important to Chelsea and most other teams. Creativity, assists and goals wins you games.