Sheva.

When they showed his interview on MOTD, he said he guessed someone was going to be behind him so he just back-heeled the ball in that direction, and luckily Ash was there. Anyway he was immense today, should have had an assist earlier had Torres scored and looked very lively all game. Also, this is the 2nd straight game against Stoke where he has been directly responsible for swinging the 3 points in our favour - Only one Juanny Cash!

'It's the first time we have tried Mata, Hazard and Oscar together and it certainly needs more work and practice to be able to integrate them into our system,' 'But I thought today it worked very well. It's a question of time, practice and them knowing each other better. 'But I think it's great to have these players with great technical ability who are good in small spaces, because every team who come to Stamford Bridge defend very deep with a lot of men so there's not much space.' - RDM.

One more thing on Moses i haven't seen anywhere, he was good defensively when he came on. On 2 occasions he was alone with Etherington and won the ball back beautifully once, and forced him away from goal the other.

There's nothing like a "bad result" when you win. A win is a win whether it's 7-0 or 1-0. And i didn't say it was the best we played all year, i said the lineup was. And the performance actually was up there with any we have produced this season. Not many defensive lapses, solid double pivot and a lot of the ball.

This lineup was probably the best we have played all season, you're talking about balance but the only balance RDM knows is to play Ramires on the right and that would only have made it worse. A lot of times in that first half we were 1 failed pass from having a chance on goal, but it didn't happen. This 3 players are only playing with each other for the first time against 10 defenders, every chance things will improve.

Luiz had another good game today and dealt very well with all the long balls into the box. Cahill also.

Not every team will defend like Stoke first and foremost. It's not just about setting up to park the bus, it's being capable of keeping it up that many teams struggle with. We had no space most of the game and kept trying to force things through, even with all that Torres had a chance, Hazard should have done better on one instance, Mata also and Oscar had 2 shots that went slightly wide.

Just look over the years and our games against Stoke, except for that 7-0 it's always difficult against them no matter how we play or the team we use.

Playing like how? we had a lot of the ball, but could not get through their 10 defenders - not complaining about their approach, it worked for us last season lol.

Torres was the only bad player on the pitch. I don't even think he played that badly, he had some good passes to Mikel and Mata but he lost the ball too much and should have taken his chance in the first half.

Very happy with the win. We should have scored much earlier, but as we all know it's difficult to score against teams who park the bus The double pivot looked good, defence looked solid, but we were a bit narrow - still created a couple chances though. Anyway 2 goals conceded in 5 games is pretty good, top of the table = even better.

Hard fought 3 points, thank you Cole and Mata

YESSS

COLEEEEEEEEEEE

Scary..

Getting closer.

Thank you.

There's not much to complain about in terms of performance, i thought we played well but Stoke have defended pretty well. But if we continue like this, it's only a matter of time - hopefully - before we score.

Torres ffs.

Lmao Ivanovic dived.

That was not even a freekick, and they almost scored.

Good start.

Yeah i think width is important too, but not the "width" Bertrand and Ramires provide. I gave the examples of City and Spain to show there are teams that can make it work. And we can play with Hazard-Oscar-Mata.

He's not going to say much different really, because for the next couple months at least we still need Torres.