El P.

To say Moses will go, and not to mention pappa Mikel at all... Dude. (they won't go, ofc)

It's hard not to be subjective when comparing him in terms of quality with the likes from 'that generation', because of theirs legendary status, but he has potential to surpass them all. Club never had player like this. Masterclass performance against Burnmouth, Pedro was good but not even close to what Eden produced there. He is literally creating space with every step he take. For himself and his teammates. And yes... Costa is in great form, and he scored a lot of goals for us, but let's not fool ourselves - Hazard is the best player of this Chelsea generation, by far margin.

The thing now is - whoever comes, he is coming into well-oiled system, in great group of players. He is coming into A TEAM. He is perfect type of player (not perfect player, just perfect TYPE, even more perfect than lets say - Griezmann who is not creative as James I would say, but a better striker) for our right attacking spot. Also, he is left footed, which is great. Has no real danger of losing the spot to Pedro and Willian. Has all protection in the world behind him and great coach in Conte. So, if he will ever live up to his full potential - it will be with us, it will be in a team like this one. EDIT: Also, has Hazard as his partner in crime with whom he could create unbelievable partnership.

LOL. Leave Conte out of this shits, one of the classiest guys around. (Title is misleading, of course, there was no dig.)

He is always very good, but tonight he really stepped up. Amazing performance!

Courtois 10/10 Azpi 9.5/10 Luiz 7/10 Cahill 7/10 Moses 5/10 Fabregas 8/10 Kante 9/10 Alonso 6.5/10 Willian 4/10 Costa 3/10 Pedro 4/10 We are really hopeless without Hazard, really awful performance attacking-wise. Guys must improve, we are struggling in attack for a really long time now - counter-attacking goals aside. Great job by defense tho.

Where R U?

As already said, we really need this guy. There is no better available CB in the world.

We are overachieving a bit, yes. But, we don't even need to be the best, we just need to be better than others, at least for this season. M City - Team in depression, mentality problems, results nowhere to be seen, awful defense with even worse goalkeeper, suspensions. Insecurity all over the place. Liverpool - Clearly lacking of quality in many areas, a lot more than we do. Don't even know how they got so far with players they have. Team that relies heavily on pressing, scoring a lot and Klopp's great tactics. Still don't know the name of their goalkeeper. Arsenal - They strike me as the most serious title contenders, actually. Team is together for a long time, they brought Xaka and Mustafi, they are scoring at will. For now I see only them finishing above us. But, it's Arsenal, and it's Wenger.

Need to put him on bench and make Luiz captain as soon as possible. Him wearing that armband and making that kind of errors, mostly often being the worst player of our team is not really what we need.

To anyone saying that Conte was 'outcoached'... Guardiola used 3-4-3, with no true wingbacks (Sane and Navas). It's something like we employ 3-4-3 with Hazard - Costa - Oscar upfront, and Pedro and Willian as wingbacks. It gives you a lot in terms of attacking, and sure, it will leave your opposition without of ball for big part of the game, and you will create a lot of chances. But your defense is left stranded then, and there's no balance in the team. It's THEIR luck Hazard didn't score that chance at the beginning. It's THEIR luck we didn't exposed that shambles defense earlier with top scorer of the league and best player of the league in our team - because ONE good attack/counter-attack is enough to score against them. Let that sink in for a moment. Conte, bravo maestro!

Not sure if it was Drogba or Diego for that goal, and that says a lot. Superb!

I know, but I don't want to ditch Azpi.

We don't need him. Kante is better, Matić is good as him, I would say. Don't want to play all 3 of them in middle, that would really lack creativity. And also - Matić + Kante > Radja + Kante.

Verratti + one really good new CB. Azpi on right-back, Alonso on left with one new LB (as back-up, or starter). Maybe new winger, don't know. We shall see how will Zouma turn out to be this season, maybe he could be the answer. Courtois Azpi - Luiz - new CB / Zouma - Alonso/new LB Kante - Matić - Verratti Willian/Pedro/Moses/new winger - Costa - Hazard This would be good alternative for 3-4-3, maybe it will be better for long term. With new CB and Verratti who is also good defensively, we wouldn't need 5 at the back, and it would add so much needed creativity from middle. We would lose Moses and his runs, but creativity from the middle is way more important. Alonso would still be able to overlap with Hazard on left, that rock-solid midfield would be able to cover whole field.

Yes, and it would be a good platform for system flexibility. 3-4-3, 3-5-2, 4-3-3 with this players, you name it. 4-2-3-1 is gone for good I hope.

It would be pity if we would drop Matić because of him. Verratti is better, for sure, but Matić is also great. But, I would rather drop Matić than play 3-5-2 with Matić - Kante - Verratti, that's for sure.

Terry has brain-farts too, just like any top defenders. I'm not worried about that. And even if we let one goal in because of him, we have good attack, we can recover. Also, in 3-4-3, there is always someone who will cover defense for him. Anyone bar Hazard, Pedro or Costa, actually, whole team is dynamic. Luiz is risk, but much needed and affordable one.

One big task for Conte is to figure out formation he wants this team to play, by summer. Should we stick to this 3-4-3 and get some great wing-backs, or try to switch back to 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 and pursue some more creative midfielders? You cannot go into transfer market not knowing would you buy to improve 4-3-3 or 3-4-3.

Yes, and even then we didn't dominate any top side in the middle of the field. And played abysmal second part of season. Yes he had 18-19 assists, but still. Fabregas is in a way what Casillas as a GK was at his last years at Real Madrid. Living on his glorious past, being child of Madrid (or Barca), playing for best time ever Spain side, being THAT player which we all saw as a immortal football legend... There is a reason why he failed miserably at Barcelona. There is a reason why we can't truly dominate any oppositions for years at the middle of park with him playing. It's no coincidence or "different system" for that. It's reality.

I could agree that Pirlo had a lot of protection (Vidal-Marchisio / Gattuso-Seedorf-Ambrosini), but I don't think Pirlo and Fabregas were ever at the nearly same level. Fabregas, with the same amount of protection, would still not be close to Pirlo, IMO.

This. How can anyone even compare Pirlo with Fabregas is beyond me. Pirlo is God, my friends. Pirlo, Xavi, etc. Fabregas is nowhere near that level, and never was. Pirlo was good in 3-5-2 because he has godly good technique in all aspects of creative game, and he played in Serie A. Fabregas is one very overrated player.

With this 3-4-3 we really could not know which players we will need. Only thing for sure is that we need one central defender and right winger, anything else depends on formation. If we plan to stick with 3-4-3 we need wing-backs. Not just back-ups, you can't rely on Alonso/Moses for good, at least not both of them. Matić and Kante are doing too good together to replace some of them.

Header was strong and went straight to the post. Not much he can do. That header was more powerful than most of Fabregas' leg-shoots actually.

This game was great for Conte to see some things. Never, ever play Azpi as a wing back! 3-4-3 relies on attacking threat from wing-backs - because there is no real threat from the middle. And when you have Azpi there... Well, yeah. Not his fault. Aina is right-footed as I remember, he wasn't good at the left wing-back. Oscar was himself, Willian was so poor in attacking third. Conte maybe should've tried him as a wing-back. Bats was awful once again. I feel like he is not getting critics as he should, because he is such a 'cool guy'. He is no better than Falcao/Pato/Remy for now, only advantage compared to these three is that he is always fit. I wonder how would Zouma fit in 3-4-3 alongside Luiz and Azpi... Terry can't do it, Cahill will get exposed sooner or later. Only positives are Luiz, who was immense once again, and Chalobah who wasn't bad. Kante was ok too. If we don't have first XI to play 3-4-3, we should switch to 4-3-3 with Matić-Kante-Chalobah. I see no other way.