CHOULO19

Best of luck to the little magician.

Can't find the stats now, but I remember reading last year that we actually do better than the majority of teams on boxing day.

As long as he's not our problem any more, he can work as Santa Claus at the local mall for all I care.

Yes, because THAT is the only realistic issue with cloning Matic!

Happy holidays, everyone! I love you all :heart: :blue scalf: :blue scalf: :blue scalf: :blue scalf: :blue scalf:

Boring Chelsea have two players in the top 5 most chances created list in the EPL so far this season:

Can't really argue with such solid logic...

Forget the start of this season, remember when he was 'past it' and becoming 'dead wood' 2 years ago? NEVER write off John Terry.

In other news, Heskey joins Bolton. Surprised he's still playing, but to be fair, his 'game' never exactly relied on pace, did it?

I agree that it wasn't as dangerous as it looked in real time, but completely disagree that it was mistimed. I am certain that he knew exactly what he was doing and that was to just hack Hazard down, because the ball had long gone before he launched into the tackle. It wasn't at Eden's feet. Yes, his studs were not up, but it was knee-high and with absolutely zero intention of winning the ball. Red all day, for me.

Bloody hell, there was more optimism on here when we played City away! It's West Ham, FFS! Yes, they've done well this season, but they have very limited players. Jose will come up with the right tactics to highlight their lack of quality. 3-0 comfortable win for us.

As much as Matic is integral to the team, those with and without stats are ALWAYS bullshit. They never have any meaningful indications because they overlook a lot of more important variables. In this case, the vast majority of the matches that Matic has missed were 1) last season when our team was fairly weaker and 2) in the CL knockout stages that he was cup-tied for and which are obviously much tougher matches to win than PL and domestic cup games.

If JT had not scored, Mikel would have got a 40-yard screamer into the top corner a few minutes later! There is no point for hypotheticals in a match like that. We only played a minute and a half before we scored and in that small time we actually did create a chance as the corner from which the goal came from was made after an excellent build-up and some very good football. So there is literally nothing to suggest that we would have struggled to create had we not scored early. I think "lucky" would be discrediting the amazing work of our medical team (if I did understand correctly that you meant the lack of injuries). That team has done exceptionally well in the past three seasons and deserve a lot of credit. But of course there is an element of luck. City are very much in the title race and I was saying so when we were 8 points ahead. They have the better squad, but we have the better manager who is capable of making most of the players over-perform. City can of course win the title, but we are still favorites imo, even if we do suffer a few injuries because 1) we are capable of performing without any one player and 2) we are top of the table with the tougher half of the season gone. We play all the typically big teams, except for Arsenal, at the Bridge in the second half of the season. Personally, I'm optimistic

Wait, I'm not saying that Mikel single-handedly dominated the midfield! The point that Barbara made was about the team as whole and my response was about the team as whole. Meaning, that the dominance of the team was evident in the numbers of Mikel and Matic. It wasn't down just to them, nor obviously was it the case that they had nothing to do with it. Both contributed a lot to that midfield dominance but it was due to a team effort. I hope I cleared that one up. Sorry, but "created nothing up front" is simply factually in correct. Aside from the goals, Hazard created 3-4 very dangerous chances in the first half, then there are obviously the two Costa chances, as well as a couple of chance for each of Willian and Schurrle where they just made the wrong final decision. In the first half in particular we really should have scored at least 1 or 2 more. All this and we were in front from practically the start. So, no, I think it's very objective to say that we did not have any trouble creating chances. And Stoke are NOT a poor side. Especially not at home. They might not play silky passing football, but they are brutally effective. I think the stat that I heard on the TV yesterday was that they have only last twice in the Britania to the top 4 teams in the past 3 seasons. Just a few days ago they completely destroyed Arsenal there. Every neutral and all the pundits hailed the performance, even the usual pessimists on here miraculously had no complaints. Must we really create imaginary criticism and belittle what was an excellent away performance just because Mikel was playing?

Silky passing doesn't mean a better performance. We played silky passing and played record number of passes against Sunderland and that was probably our worst performance of the season. In contrast, yesterday we went to one of the most difficult places in the league, looked very comfortable for about 85 mins of the 90. We did not have any issues creating. We had 13 shots, 7 on target, and created a lot of chances and really should have scored 4 or 5. I honestly can't think of many better away performances this season, not recently or two months ago. I honestly don't get what your point is here. The point was Barbara made a point that we did not dominate midfield, I used those numbers to show that we pretty clearly did because, obviously, the team whose central midfielders won all the tackles, made all the interceptions and gained back possession more is the team that dominated the midfield.

That's because puppies have a lot of energy. Cats are lazy...

We have? Yesterday was one of our best away performances this season. That's not just my opinion but what most people and all the pundits were saying. And I think it is rather evident that the reason we won yesterday was that because we completely dominated the midfield, and in particular, Mikel and Matic dominating Cameron and Nzonzi, which was very clear in the numbers: http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/15116/9617766/premier-league-chelsea-show-the-fighting-spirit-in-their-2-0-win-at-stoke-that-can-take-them-to-the-title I get why some people don't like to see Mikel in the team. He's not a very 'elegant' player and he's far from dynamic. He's not exactly easy on the eye. But he can be a very effective player and can certainly contribute to the team as he has done in the past few matches. Isn't that what matters in the end?

I read that he wrote in his blog today that it was mistake to force himself to exercise when he was ill. Not sure what he means though. Maybe one of our German members can translate that part in his blog.

Andre's defending reminds me of a puppy chasing a ball...

I remember he once played JT as a striker when we needed a goal back in 2006. Can't remember if it worked, but I bet that the opposition manager had NOT seen that coming!

Actually Jose moved Cesc forward because he wanted to start Mikel in the pivot, not the other way around (which means I was completely wrong when I said that Jose should play Oscar at 10 when Cesc is out of the pivot). He said so himself after the game and hinted at it before. He said we want to match Stoke's physicality in midfield and we wanted to play with two holding midfielders to leave no space for Bojan to operate in and to "cage" Crouch so that even if we don't win first balls, we are sure to win second balls. Analyzing the match tactically a bit, I think Mikel played an important role yesterday. He had very good defensive numbers yesterday, though obviously incomparable to Matic's who was simply world class. But more importantly, I think the role he played allowed Matic the freedom to put on the incredible display we say yesterday. That is because Mikel's discipline means that Nemanja can cover a much larger area with his pressing and tackling. He could cover for fullbacks and press higher without having to worry about leaving the center and back four exposed, especially on transitions. The two together in the middle of the park also allows us to physically dominate the opposition in the middle of the park which was obvious by the fact that Cameron's and Nzzonzi's were practically invisible in the match. It also cuts down the amount of work the back four have to do since both are so excellent defensively and almost completely annihilates the possibility of an opposition player running at our CBs which has been a major issue this season. The down side is that we lose a creative player in the team as well as a goal threat and just a body in the final third. So obviously not something for every game, but I thought it was certainly a promising experiment and I expect it to make a few more appearances before the end of the season.

I'm pretty sure that we have to pay all the players, even the ones on the bench and not in the squad....

I hope so. I was talking more hypothetical to make a point about which games I think we are more reliant on Eden in. I do think he'll be rested for Watford, though.

If I have to choose a game to rest Eden in from the next three, I'd go with the Southampton one. Of course Andre-Oscar-Willian could do the job in any match, but I just think Eden is vital against smaller teams at home.