Jase

Relieved to get the win and great to win 13 games in a row but hope this is a wake-up call of sorts ahead of a big month. It's not easy to deal with Stoke's aerial threat but the way we defended against them today was so amateurish and once again, we started too slowly. Really to up it over the coming weeks!

Not liking this approach of sitting back and only pressing Stoke when they are near our penalty area. Crouch is playing upfront and there's hardly much pace in that Stoke XI. Should be pushing higher up and get Crouch far away as possible from our penalty area and press them given they have looked rather dodgy.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/dec/30/chelsea-thibaut-courtois-batshuayi-stoke-city Club ready to offer Courtois a new contract, with the wages more than 150k per week.

One of the more dodgy refs who has a history filled with controversies.

Mike Dean will be officiating West Ham v Man Utd on Monday. We got Martin Atkinson at Spurs.

Tough to say really. We've dropped only 8 points this season and out of those 8 points, the only time we shouldn't have dropped points was at Swansea. Had we won that, we would be 8 clear now, which is a big gap but title race would be by no means over yet. In any case, I would probably only think the title win might just be possible if we still have a decent gap, say 6-7 points, at the top after the Arsenal game in early Feb (just a side note, Liverpool play all the top 6 sides by mid-March). Next month is a HUGE month for us.

Don't think that fella mentioned anything about Sanchez being a failure. He wasn't a success at Barcelona but he wasn't a failure either. He just didn't quite suit what they wanted. And when you look at Barcelona's front three since then, no one has particularly apart from Messi, Suarez and Neymar.

That is if we beat Stoke of course!

Judging a player based on goals scored in a competition is just plain stupid.

Southampton have been so hopelessly bad. They are at home, Spurs aren't in greatest of form and yet, they adopted a reactive approach, even before going down to 10 men.

Antonio Conte adds bounce to Chelsea at trampoline party for team's kids and gives staff personalised gifts

N'Zonzi is decent but he wouldn't boost this squad in any way. If we're going to spend on him, I'd rather we promote someone from the academy. We need someone who can actually help add more quality, upgrade the squad and not just in it to make up the numbers.

Call it title nerves but ugh, Liverpool are still so close behind us for my liking! MUST beat Stoke this Saturday (would be typical if Hughes goes with a back 3 like he did recently), especially when Liverpool v Man City on the same day.

Can I just say that Tony Gale was a moaning bitch on commentary? Constantly complained how every player should have been booked for every challenge and hell, he even wanked about Wilshere late in the game!

It's Liverpool v Man City this weekend. So someone will drop points there and in mid-January, Liverpool will go to United (on that same weekend, we go to Leicester and City are at Everton).

For a manager who craves possession, control and pressing, City sure aren't playing like a Guardiola side. They are good going forward but otherwise, they look rather loose and never really have full control of matches. They're playing the side sitting bottom and yet every time they lose the ball, they give good opportunities for Hull to break away and chances to score.

+ the run has also been impressive when you consider we have faced teams with different quality, different style of play and different formation. Most of them changed their formation and tweaked their style to test us and we've dealt with each of them pretty well.

I think that is pretty much certain. Can still understand if Conte doesn't want to start Batshuayi in the league but if he doesn't do so in the FA Cup, then he would really be taking the piss!

Chelsea 4-2 Stoke City PRE/POST-MATCH DISCUSSION, LIVE CHAT AND ANALYSIS 2016/17 Premier League Match 19 31st December, Saturday, 2016 Stamford Bridge 15:00 Kick Off (UK time)

Good win. Good performance. Hazard and Pedro were a joy to watch upfront. But thank goodness we played Bournemouth. Might have struggled without Costa and Kante had we played one of the top 6-8 sides.