Jase

Deary me, what's with him getting caught offside today?! Think it happened like 5 times and he's trying to rival Benteke's offside rubbishness last season! And Torres!

Even though he scored the winner today but bloody hell, could have been sent off for his challenge against Benteke and again, his defending against Agbonlahor was horrific. Got sold and turned inside out by him. That was so like Cahill in recent times!

Second match of the season only and we already experienced through panic attacks and nervy moments. Never dull with Chelsea eh? Admittedly, we escaped with a few lucky decisions from the referee but then again, we got screwed quite a lot in the last run of games last season. So yeah...On the other hand, we didn't play well but still managed to get the win and at this early stage of the season, can't ask for better I guess. Winning games will always help to breed winning mentality especially for a team like ours now. Also, we have played 2 games, won 2 and have 6 points. Top of the table. No doubt we still need to improve a lot as many of our ongoing problems are still visible but players are still finding their feet under Mourinho and still yet to fully understand one another on the pitch. Will only get better collectively as it goes, I hope.

Five more Champions League play-off tie being played tonight and here are the results: Dinamo Zagreb 0-2 Austria Wien Fenerbahce 0-3 Arsenal Ludogorets Razgrad 2-4 Basel Schalke 1-1 PAOK Thessaloniki Steaua Bucharest 1-1 Legia Warsaw Have included those results in the first post. And Looks like Arsenal are through to the group stage then. Their qualification means Arsenal will be in Pot 1 for the draw while Atletico Madrid will be in Pot 2.. The second leg of those 10 play-off ties will be played next Tuesday and Wednesday.

The first half top passing combinations. Says it all...

Time to fire stats, lots of them, on this game... 1. Chelsea v Aston Villa: This fixture has produced 26 goals in the last 4 seasons with 19 of them scored by the Blues. 2. Chelsea have scored at least 2 goals in 9 of their last 10 Premier League matches at Stamford Bridge - the other was 1-0 win over West Brom. 3. Aston Villa have only failed to score in 2 of their last 17 Premier League matches - against Manchester City and Manchester Utd. 4. Aston Villa have only kept 1 clean sheet in their last 21 Premier League away matches - 1-0 vs Sunderland in November. 5. Aston Villa have not kept a clean sheet in last 23 Premier League matches. Their last clean sheet came back in December - 0-0 vs Stoke. 6. 2 - Three of Chelsea's last four Premier League games on a Wednesday have ended 2-2. [via OptaJoe] 7. Jose Mourinho has won 1 and drew 1 of his 2 encounters against Paul Lambert. Chelsea faced Lambert's Wycombe side in 06/07 League Cup SF. 8. Jose Mourinho has faced Aston Villa 7 times in the Premier League and won just 2 of those meetings - W2 D4 L1 (8 in all competitions - W3 D4 L1). 9. At Stamford Bridge, Jose Mourinho won 2 and drew 1 of his three Premier League games against Aston Villa (won 3 and drew 1 in all competitions). 10. 4 - Jose Mourinho has won none of his last four Premier League matches against Aston Villa (D3 L1). [via OptaJoe] 11. 16 - Christian Benteke is the leading goalscorer in the Premier League in 2013 so far (16 goals). [via OptaJoe] 12. Frank Lampard has scored 13 Premier League goals against Aston Villa, his most against any single opponent. (via BBC) 13. In the 2009/10 Premier League season, Lampard's 4-goal haul against Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge made him the 3rd highest scorer at Chelsea. 14. In the 2012/13 Premier League season, Lampard's double against Aston Villa at Villa Park saw him became Chelsea's all-time leading goalscorer.

Not wanting to drive this thread off topic but just because the club see fit to set the ticket prices as it is, it doesn't mean they are right and every fans should not moan about it because they have the right to do so. And anyway, to associate women with being typical of moaning seems a tad...typical and somewhat disrespectful. If anything, guys also probably moan and complain as much these days, if not more than women and in this case, I don't see what's wrong with fans, guys or girls, moaning about ticket prices.

Erm, they already did...back in January. Spurs are now signing Willian from Anzhi...

Conflict of emotion and feeling...

Unlikely. It will require us to do really badly and more importantly, the teams below us in the coefficient ranking to do extremely well. If this happens for next few seasons, then yeah, we might well drop into Pot 2 but definitely not this 1 season alone. And it also kinda depends by how poor you mean there...

That's because there are other teams who have done better than Dortmund over the past few seasons. Here's how UEFA calculate the coefficient: Apart from last season, Dortmund hardly did anything of note in Europe in recent seasons in terms of getting wins. Hence, that is why they are where they are in the pot allocations right now.

That's because their UEFA coefficient is average. It is based on their results in Europe which until last season, they didn't participate for a couple of seasons and even when they did before that, they didn't exactly did well in European competitions.

Have to say some of the passes he made against Hull was brilliant. Executed quite a number of great ones, be it short or long passes, and that was something we have hardly seen from him in the past. Hope he keeps it up!

It’s nearly that time of the season once again where the Champions League season will kick off in a month’s time. And that means the group stage draw is not far off as it will take place next Thursday on 29th August in Monaco at 4.45pm UK time. As you may also have noticed there, the draw is done one day before we face Bayern Munich in the UEFA Super Cup. (You might be wondering why another thread is created for this when a Chelsea-related European thread already exists but since that one is being used to discuss about the Super Cup game, created a separate one first and will later merge this with that thread once it’s over.) Just like every other Champions League season’s group stage draw, 32 teams will participate in the competition and they will be allocated to 4 pots based on their latest UEFA Coefficients which can be seen here. A team will then be drawn out from each pot to form a group of 4 teams and in total having eight different groups with four various teams in them. And remember, teams from the same country cannot be drawn together in the group stage as well as in the round of Last 16 until the quarter finals come about. We have drawn into Group E alongside the following opponents: Group E 1. Chelsea 2. Schalke 3. Basel 4. Steaua Bucharest The group fixtures: 18th Sept (Wed) - Chelsea v Basel | Schalke v Steaua Bucharest 1st Oct (Tue) - Steaua Bucharest v Chelsea | Basel v Schalke 22nd Oct (Tue) - Schalke v Chelsea | Steaua Bucharest v Basel 6 Nov (Wed) - Chelsea v Schalke | Basel v Steaua Bucharest 26 Nov (Tue) - Basel v Chelsea | Steaua Bucharest v Schalke 11 Dec (Wed) - Chelsea v Steaua Bucharest | Schalke v Basel You can see the full drawn groups in the spoiler tag below. Below are the full pot allocations for the 32 qualified teams: Play-Off Tie Results: So, what are your thoughts on it? Who would you want us to face? Which team needs to be avoided? Discuss all of it here. P.S. I will be updating this as it goes along.

Here's a bit of fun fact: 1. In the 2009/10 Premier League season, Lampard's 4-goal haul against Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge made him the 3rd highest scorer at Chelsea. 2. In the 2012/13 Premier League season, Lampard's double against Aston Villa at Villa Park saw him became Chelsea's all-time leading goalscorer.

Chelsea TV currently showing our 7-1 home win over Villa from the 09/10 season.

OK. Think I'll just go with Muzhap's suggestion then. Time to toss the coin then...

That's because they are still adapting to Guardiola's tactics, style of play and what he demands of them. Nothing new with this circumstances. At least they are still winning games even though they are not at their best yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1JTnbvgKBk

For those that wants to hear Mourinho on Hazard, see 10 mins 35 secs onwards. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1JTnbvgKBk

Are we really gonna get all paranoid now of this conspiracy theory that Jose doesn't like Mata every time just because there aren't any news or questions about Mata?!

Somebody, somewhere should post up a video of the PC on Youtube soon. I'm sure a member or two here will post it up once it's on Youtube.

Yeah. Think that question came from a Belgian journalist. Has happened before even in last season's press conferences IIRC.

I remember Cole also called Hazard as Eddie in one of the post-match interviews last season. Think it was the one after the Wigan away game.