Styles

Pace 8/10? lol It should be 11/10.

It's official, Mata is a red.

His social media tags would suggest otherwise. Plus it'd be better for marketing and stuff I suppose. Chelsea #10 has a better ring to it than Chelsea's #17.

I'd love to know what Mata's open-play assists numbers actually are. He seems to have a lot of assists from corners and freekicks which beef up his tally quite a bit in my opinion. I don't really take too much stock in assists anyway to be honest. For example Mata gets an assists for this Hazard is 40 yards from goal when he recieves the ball, he has to beat a player and then smack it into the top corner from 35 yards. It's a great assist if you play fantasy football I guess.

Stop sitting on the fence and tell us how you really feel!

Jason Burt is a known bullshitter. One of the worst in the business. I'll wait for somebody with a little more credibility.

Looks a cracking player from the FOUR games we have played against Basel in the last two seasons. He'd be a very smart transfer.

Agreed. To think Oscar is this good now at 22 you can dream of him becoming a truly world class player if he continues to develop. And for the record, Mata is a very good player and I'd be really sad to see him go.

He already is in my opinion, and one of the best managers in the world seems to think the same too.

Chelsea > Manchester I'd rather live, play and win in one of the best cities in the world, with a stadium in heart of the city instead of in the middle of an industrial estate up north in the pissing rain.

I'd love to take credit for that but it really was only a matter of time. Oscar wasn't going to continue to play RW forever.

I agree to some extent but Oscar has already shown the capacity to do that, for Chelsea and Brazil. He is at an age where his offensive game will continue to improve. Do you think he's the finished article already and that there is absolutely no scope for improvment?

I think some people are finally starting to see exactly what kind of player Oscar is (they're incredibly late btw, he's been here for 18 months) and they're unhappy that he isn't the super-silky, tricky Brazilian player they thought he was. No, in fact it turns out he's a very good all-round footballer, tactically aware, hard-working player and that doesn't fit their idea of a #10. They prefer a #10 who is really good at playing through balls and creating chances. It's a matter of preference. I'm very happy with Oscar personally and believe he will get better at creating for others. He's too good and smart not to, and what's he's contributing to the team now is more than good enough.

Here's hoping that was his last game in midfield for us.

Hopefully he takes his chance.

Interesting line from one of the match reports on the Guardian: I'd agree with that. His tactics are straightforward, it's his man-management skills that make him a great coach.

It's not Azpilicueta vs Ivanovic any more, it's Ivanovic vs Ashley Cole. Ashley is only playing now because Ivanovic is injured. Once he's back Azpili will play LB again. Ashley Cole is the weak link.

And that's skinny little Oscar setting the screen. When Lukaku comes back it'll be very different

Eden is a big basketball fan. It makes sense because there's one part of his game that is almost exclusive to basketball. I've actually seen him demand a screen and use it to his advantage when taking players on. He did it perfectly against Liverpool; he pointed to the spot he wanted Oscar to stand, Hazard made his move and Sterling ran into Oscar. Hazard got away and took a shot on goal. Here it is at 6.10 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2frw0ICPPzc He's done that quite a few times and it almost always works. In fact I wish we 'ran that play' a few more times.

I'm starting to think that too. I think we should be producing our own English core by the way but that's another discussion. Rodriguez looks like a very technical player, with amazing crossing ability who can combine well with Hazard. That has to be our priority, even more so than having an English core in my honest opinion.

That's from 2001, so adjusted for inflation that's just under £46m today. We got Cech for £7m in 2004, just over £9m when adjusted for inflation. What a deal.

The videos show his anticipation and awareness of when to push up and intercept. The way we're pressing now teams will have to be very accurate just to work the ball into threatening areas, let alone be in the final third and carve us open. The pivot and front 4 are really starting to put teams under immense pressure.

You could already see early in the season that the pressing had rapidly improved. My biggest gripe a few weeks ago was purely because of that, we showed the ability to be proactive but in some games were content to sit deep and be more reactive. I'm pleased to see us on the front foot more often than not and have no real complaints. The identity has become much clearer and things are starting to look more rehearsed as opposed to playing like strangers which we have done for most of the last few years.

Sheesh, one thing I didn't expect is Chelsea supporters talking crap about the big man in the build-up to the game. Guess I was wrong.

Boga injured?