Styles

Deserved. He has been the most consistent of all our players and is a big reason why we're going to win the league. Feel a sense of relief he wasn't robbed like Drogba was in 2010. Yes, I'm still pissed about that.

His song is very catchy; don't confuse that that for any special admiration. Willian is an afterthought for most Chelsea fans.

Unsung hero. Compare the love guys like Azpi get for more or less the very same effort, work-rate and desire to play their part. This guy deserves his medal as much as anyone in the team.

His whole game is about quick change of direction at speed and short passing; being confined to the RW limits him so much it's ridiculous.

I'm amazed he wasn't taken off; that was a massive blow. Kid is made of strong stuff, fair play.

Luis would be perfect.

Willian is having a very good game.

Honestly, I don't understand why you'd be so nervous. We have a healthy lead and only a collapse for the ages would see us blow the title.

As for the team, I didn't expect Solanke to feature so I'm not upset at that. Interesting to see how we line-up. I'd play Willian left, Oscar right and have Hazard through the middle picking up the ball wherever he sees fit.

Genuine LOL

What about freedom of speech, eh? #jesuisvybezkartel

Yup. Do we look for them or for more functional role-players?

No way. Filipe Luis barely gets a game and he's a 29-year-old that cost the club 16m. If Ake was the back-up Azpi would never get a break; he would have to play through injury / loss of form.

And that's why ultimately all the comparisons with other superstars aren't fair to Hazard in my opinion. No disrespect to our guys but they just aren't comparable with some of the all-star lineups that these other teams have. Neymar, Suarez and Messi is a fucking ridiculous front-line for example; that's pure fantasy football. You pair up Hazard with players of comparable skill and talent and I'm sure he'd be an even bigger threat than he is now.

I agree that we played well in the first part of the season, but the drop off from that football to what we have played in the last 4 or so months has been huge. We don't look like even half the team we did at the start of the season. It seems as if Jose reverts back to type at the first sign of adversity which is ultimately my issue; he did it last season and he has done it again this year. And this is an excellent post by Clockwork: We are never going to have the absolute perfect squad. We are always going to have injured players and / or lack a certain type of player in the squad, so to use that as an excuse as to why we cannot play well or have to play such dreadful football for such long periods of time just doesn't cut it.

Yeah man, I'm actually embarrassed for even having this silly back and forth. Oh well, it's Sunday so that's my excuse.

Incomprehensible waffle like the vast majority of your posts. If you want to me address something you just have to ask nicely; there really is no need for all the passive-aggressive posting that you do. Fabregas has proven me wrong for the most part just like I, er, hoped he would. There are clearly some issues with the midfield still but Fabregas has had a largely successful season for the club. I rarely even speak about Fabregas on here. I genuinely can't remember making a Fabregas related post recently, and I'm pretty sure I haven't posted in this thread that much either so I don't understand what the whole point of this is. If you want to engage me in some sort of argument or whatever that's cool but please do better than this. This is pathetic, even for you.

I've only now just realised what an incredibly sad individual you are, but let's entertain this. First of all I don't understand what the first four or so quotes have to do with his passing, and especially the balding comment but whatever. Now the reason I asked for quotes is because this: Does not equal average passer. Here's some context: in the very same quote, which I believe is supposed to be the smoking gun, I said he is excellent at making through-balls. That's clearly not the trait of an average passer. Fabregas, however, can be incredibly sloppy in possession at times which is what I was attempting to put across in that post. Fabregas has just come off a period of form where he gave the ball away cheaply a lot in games. I still stand by that comment that his general passing, especially when pressurised, leaves a lot to be desired. So, me trying to convince people 'over and over' again that Fabregas is an 'average passer' has amounted to one actual post taken out of context and a few others that have nothing to do with anything. Pathetic.

Find the quotes; let's provide some context. Otherwise please stop chatting shit.

OK, so what's the point of watching entire games and dedicating so much of your time to something you don't actually care about? Why not just read the final result online or wherever and forget about watching the game?

I agree to some extent. But the thing is we can do better than that. You say we don't have the players, but we have enough right now to do better than that; for example we have a quality footballer in Luis on the bench and he can't get a look in. Yesterday we had 30% possession and 71% passing accuracy. Those are dreadful numbers no matter how you look at it. And for Mourinho to say after the game he spent the entire week preparing to play this way and how happy he was the game panned out the way it did was depressing. The first 30 mins was a complete and utter shambles. There is no way anyone can convince me that this is the way we should play. Playing well (or better than that) and winning isn't mutually exclusive.

I watch Chelsea play almost every game. I miss maybe 2-3 games per season at most, and considering we play upwards of 55 games per season that is a lot of football. So, why wouldn't I be obsessed by the way we perform? We have had perhaps 2 decent performances in nearly five months of football. It seems some people genuinely don't give a shit about anything but wins and trophies and yet they want to portray themselves as some sort of super fan.

People are only happy with these tactics when we win. They see it for what it really is if we lose or draw. These same tactics saw us outplayed and humiliated at home by 10 man PSG. I don't remember seeing many 'set up perfectly' comments then. There was a moment in the game yesterday where Fabregas was pleading with the defence to push up higher and engage the opposition further up the field. I have seen Costa do this numerous times in games. These tactics have a short life.

No surprise to see Oscar performed better than usual. This is the kind of game that suits him i.e. very little possession in a scrappy, tactical affair; so he doesn't have to worry about much beyond pressing until he has exhausted himself. His assist was great so fair play to him. Oscar, Cahill and a few others thrive in these 30% possession games.

Hazard is the only interesting / enjoyable element about our play 85% of the time. It is mostly shit sprinkled with moments of brilliance by Hazard. I can't even imagine how awful we'd be without him.