WNDS

That's the thing; you know we're in serious trouble when Willian plays as poorly as that, and yet is STILL just about the only player creating some decent openings (e.g. Matic header, Ivanovic open-goal miss, pull-back for Remy etc.). Pedro's assist for the goal and Fabregas' pass that set Costa through 1-on-1 were the ONLY other chances we created over the whole game.

THAT was our best performance of the season. You could make a MoM case for just about every one of our outfielders bar the full-backs. Well done to the team and manager.

The match against Porto is surely going to be make-or-break for Mourinho after this; I'm not sure that he will be able to keep his job if we drop out of the CL at the group stage as well. Weirdly, though, I actually agree with those who think that entry into the EL might be the only way to prevent this awful season from having an unwelcome knock-on effect on our next season; if we win the EL, we are right back in next season's CL (and with a trophy to boot). Having said that, if we continue to play like this during the second half of the season, we can forget about winning any trophies whatsoever (apart from the obvious ones that the media and rival supporters will be all too willing to dish out at the end of the season ).

Having watched him play for the last year, I would be amazed (and delighted) if Fabregas ever manages to recapture the superb form he displayed during his first five months with us. He's always so slow in everything he does, from running to 'tackling' to attacking; he reacts far too late, and almost never attempts to shoot when in good positions. Even his passing (which was so crisp and varied when he first arrived) has become unreliable, and he barely creates anything from open play as a result of this. Unless he manages to turn things around (in a big way, and soon), he should be one of the first players that we attempt to sell; I take no pleasure in saying this, but he simply offers the team so little at the moment.

This match was a perfect example of why Mourinho HAS to start coaching his teams how to attack properly. It's ridiculous that all three of our AMs can play as well as they did for stretches of this game, and yet the team has nothing much to show for it (few genuine chances created, no goals scored). How many times this game did Pedro and Willian beat their man or play clever passes in the attacking third, only to see their good work wasted as the move broke down on the edge of the box due to a lack of player movement? It's been happening for a year now with no sign of things changing, and it's almost all on the manager.

A point is far from ideal given our position in the league table, but I'll take it nonetheless; Tottenham are in excellent form (having completely outplayed better teams than us this season), and were playing at home. I though our back five (including goalkeeper) were superb, with Ivanovic (!), Zouma, and Cahill performing to such a high standard that Azpilicueta actually looked our 'worst' defender on the day. Despite our attacking play being very sporadic and somewhat limited, I was satisfied with the performances of all four of our attacking players; Hazard showed more fire and determination than he has done in the majority of games this season and was unlucky not to score, Oscar and Pedro (in particular) put in good all-round performances with some real attacking threat, whilst Willian was an absolute beast when we were out of possession (he must have made around 6-7 tackles, and prevented Tottenham from isolating Ivanovic 1-on-1). The only players I had issues with in this game were Fabregas and Matic; the former was simply too sloppy in possession and was unable to cope with Tottenham's pressing, whilst the latter kept leaving us exposed by moving too far up the pitch to attempt tackles and interceptions. With better/more controlled performances from these two, I believe that we could have been considerably more dominant and snatched all three points.

And yet he's not looked at all out of place alongside Neymar or Douglas Costa for Brazil; he's been more consistent than the former, and slightly outperformed the latter (so far), whilst also being one of the NT's most influential players outright in the process. This is in addition to him currently being our most in-form player, as he has been for most of the season up to this point. How else are we supposed to judge him? The 'only' context we have is his level of performance for club and country.

Teixeira is actually extremely similar to Mkhitaryan in terms of his style of play and (current) overall level of quality, but he possibly has a higher ceiling due to his superior pace and versatility. Almost all of Shakhtar's best players of recent years (Willian, Fernandinho, Mkhitaryan, Douglas Costa) have done extremely well after moving to bigger clubs; I think it's definitely worth taking a chance on Teixeira.

Forced an own-goal = forced an opposition error, which is what happened in both cases. UEFA and PL official statistics count these as being assists, whereas Opta don't. 'Half-assist' is just a term I made-up to try to save myself from having to type out more words . Against West Ham, Cahill scored from Willian's corner, but Zouma apparently got the slightest of touches on the ball before it was fired into the net; Zouma got an official 'assist' for doing nothing more than getting in Cahill's way, whilst it was the delivery from the corner that actually set the goal up.

It depends upon how you define an 'assist'. Willian only has one 'pure' assist this season (for Costa vs Aston Villa), but he's also forced two own-goals in our favour (vs Swansea and vs Dynamo Kiev) and provided two 'half-assists' (both for Cahill; vs West Ham and yesterday vs Maccabi Tel-Aviv).

There are far too many under-strength line-ups being posted here. We need to win this game to both qualify for the next round of the CL and build momentum going into the upcoming PL fixtures. The performance against Norwich was actually very good; I don't believe that this is the right time to switch the team around.

I'd say we need three PL wins (or four.... or more ) before we can start hoping that this is a genuine return to form. The signs were very encouraging today.

Full credit to both the players and the manager for today's win; the tactics were spot on, Kenedy's selection at LB was a complete success, our play when in possession was very good, and the only Chelsea player who performed badly today was the one who got us the winning goal.

We'd better be using a 3-5-2 with Kenedy and Willian as wing-backs, Hazard as no.10, and Pedro playing as a striker alongside Costa. Because if we're playing our usual 4-2-3-1 with this full-back pairing plus our dysfunctional pivot.....

He did it twice during the game. He was one of Brazil best players (as usual), and made a decisive contribution yet again. Neymar was awful, though. He was so consistently brilliant for Brazil before the Copa America, and I'm not quite sure what has caused this change in his performance level with the NT given that he's currently in wonderful form for Barcelona.

Di Maria and Roncaglia were probably the two best players over the course of the 90 mins of the Argentina-Brazil game, but it was Willian who produced the best bit of individual play: "https://streamable.com/e/dm25" "https://streamable.com/e/kx5f"

This may be the case, but Willian has outperformed Douglas Costa quite comfortably at NT level so far. Costa IS more direct and unpredictable, but Willian is (currently) a better all-rounder with superior tactical discipline. Ultimately, they are two very complimentary players, as they share certain key attributes (pace, work-rate, technique) whilst otherwise being strong in areas in which the other is weak (Douglas Costa is very agile, direct, good at getting into dangerous attacking positions, and a decent crosser from open play; Willian has excellent stamina, very good long and short passing, good general link-up play, and takes dangerous set-pieces).

Official rules state that the attacking team should be given the benefit of the doubt in situations like these; there is no way that the linesman could be certain that Fabregas wasn't level.

Both Matic fouls were deserving of yellows. What I AM furious about is the disallowed Fabregas goal; that was onside!

'Very poor against Chile'!? He was comfortably Brazil's best player in that game (albeit only playing at a 6.5-7/10 level); almost all of the few genuine openings that Brazil managed to work were created by him. Also, Chile are currently one of the most well-managed and in-form NTs around, regardless of their relative lack of team-wide star quality, so damning them with faint praise is the wrong approach to take in my opinion.

It should be pointed out that this article from WAGNH is not presenting a very accurate/truthful picture of the reaction back in Brazil to Willian's performance against Chile. Whilst Oscar HAS been subject to very heavy criticism from almost all corners of the Brazilian media, Willian is one of the only players to have received praise for his efforts (even from outlets/individuals who do not normally rate him particularly highly). The views of the ESPN pundit being quoted in this article, while somewhat valid in more general terms, are not at all representative of the current mood within Brazil. People want Oscar and Elias dropped, and there is also disappointment that Douglas Costa has failed to get anywhere near the level that he has been displaying for Bayern; very little heat has been going Willian's way. And yeah, this post has been too long and involved given the relatively trivial nature of the subject, but I absolutely HATE IT when people write headlines and articles that are hugely misleading; it happens far too often.

Yeah, he was really awful in the final third. With so many of our other players being hideously out-of-form, it would be a real shame if Oscar sinks to their level. On a more positive note, I thought Willian looked good out there. He created a few genuinely dangerous openings, regularly dribbled past opponents, and displayed tidy link-up play for the most part. Hopefully he can maintain this level for a while longer.

Some excellent dribbling, but the number of promising attacks he ruined was shocking; on two separate occasions he was played into excellent positions from which to deliver a simple final pass, only to dawdle on the ball and lose possession.

He didn't play as well as he did in the previous three matches in which he scored. Apparently he was taken ill during the game today: https://twitter.com/ChelseaFC/status/650389085660553217?lang=en-gb

He looked willing and eager to me, but was spectacularly bad with his use of the ball.