TorontoChelsea

It is based on nothing more than a hunch, but I think Mourinho likes pairing Oscar and Lampard and will generally start Mikel in the middle when Mata starts there. Oscar's defensive ability allows Lampard to get forward but Mata may require a true defensive midfielder. It's about balance.

Top of the table without one of the best players in the Premier League is a pretty impressive start. I think they still have holes so I don't see them as contenders, but I think a fight for the last CL spot is a possibility.

Great game. Shelvey involved in all 4 goals. He certainly is an entertaining player!

The thing that makes it so crazy is that the #6 attacking midfielder barely would have played anyway. He would have started maybe 10 games all year and most of those in domestic cup games.

For the record, I have no problem letting Moses go he wasn't good enough to be a top-4 attacking midfielder for Chelsea right now, but the whole situation to me summarizes what's wrong with big spending clubs in general. Moses was very good at Wigan, their best player. We bought him, started him for 12 games under 2 managers in the Premier league and he's suddenly not good enough to even be our 6th attacking midfielder so we spend 50M pounds to buy players ahead of him and now he'll almost certainly never play for Chelsea again. It's the impatient buying players of the videogame world.

I'll also add this as a good place to look. http://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/2/England-Premier-League

Was poor but everyone has bad performances and it's his first Premier League game ever. The worry for me is that his speed just doesn't seem near the same as it was which negates a big part of his game.

In these features last year we had 9 points, outscoring our opponents 11-1 and that's not including Hull City at home-a newly promoted side. It's early and it's a long season and nobody should be panicking but obviously our start is not as we had hoped. (Both in terms of points and in terms of quality of play.)

Disgraceful is way too harsh but he was awful and in that exasperating way that Luiz manages to be, He is such a great interceptor of the ball as a central, I don't see why he thinks he needs to lead the offense as well which is a role that is completely destructive to the team. There were maybe 10 times where he is not just out of position, but insanely out of position. Like the "where the hell are you going?" out of position. Sorry David, you're not a winger or an attacker and when you're caught on the wing or deep in opposition as a central defender, it puts the whole team out of position and makes us extremely vulnurable. It's frustrating because he is a fantastic CB when he stays at home and a great benefit to the team, but when he plays like this, he's an extremely negative player.

He's still most very good but he needs to be rested now and again. He's started 7 games in 4 weeks. He was terrible today. If Chelsea don't trust Bertrand to back up Cole then they need to go out and buy...another attacking midfielder.

Very disappointing not so much in the result but about how disorganized we looked. I didn't get the Torres sub for that reason as well. Eto'o was clearly gassed and should have come off but putting Torres and Eto'o on just confused an already messy side. We should have finished better with Schurrle and Eto'o being especially responsible and probably deserved a draw overall. I think despite all those chances we really only had one good strike at goal (that was Ramires' shot that was well saved by Howard).

Actually one of our best players today (not saying much I know) but many people have already decided he's a major problem with the team so I doubt he'll get any recognition. He had a couple of bad plays but had a lot of great tackles and some very good passes as well. He led the team in tackles, interceptions, aerial duels, and passing percentage. He was also one of the only players to actually seem to know his position on the pitch and stay in his lanes.

You've had an amazing life then.

Luiz having one of his playstation games. The whole team just looks off and out of position. .

The overreaction is ridiculous. We were the better team in a tough game for the first 45 minutes and couldn't finish and then conceded. We're not going to win 38 games 7-0. Keep doing more of the same except hope for better finishing and we'll be fine. If that doesn't work, Mourinho can make changes in 20-30 minutes.

Atkinson called a free kick instead of playing advantage. Nothing wrong with the goal-line system.

He might be a player who needs a lot of playing time to stay at the top of his game or maybe he just needs to be a focal point of a team to be effective. Either way, he seems to be going backwards.

It's possible. Moyes is channeling Hodgeson by going with less talented lineups in order to maintain shape. I don't get Ashley Young at all. Utterly mediocre player no idea why he's starting for ManU or England. @kellzfresh. There's nothing to understand. Some players are just more prone to injury than others.

Last season, we were very lucky to beat Everton and they did not have a better squad. They had a few players out with injury and suspension. No Meireles, Fellaini, Gibson, or Coleman who were all regulars. They really badly outplayed us early but couldn't finish. We should win but a draw wouldn't be shameful in the least.

I hate this myth but it never seems to die. Defense doesn't win titles (also a myth in the NFL, but never mind that here). Money and talent wins titles and overall offense, not defense is a recently a much better correlation with winning titles. You could say offense wins titles and be accurate (or even better "goal differential) you couldn't say the same about defense.. Last 4 years in EPL Winner's rank in scoring and goals allowed 2012-2013- 1st, 5th 2011-2012-1st, 1st 2010-2011-1st, 3rd 2009-2010-1st, 2nd Anyway, Mata and Hazard are very different players IMO Hazard is much more suited to play the wing and has shown more defensive responsibility than Mata is capable of but, like 99.9% of players in the world, lacks the offensive vision Mata has. (Not saying his isn't good, it is, but Mata's is sublime.) Hazard also uses his speed to try to beat and dribbles past players whereas Mata uses more his quickness to maneuver into space to create for himself and others and isn't really a big dribbler. Hazard is at home cutting in off the wing on his favoured right foot. Mata isn't that sort of player at all. In fact, I am not sure really what characteristics they have in common as players and what's making you say that they are basically the same player is baffling to me because they have almost nothing in common other than that neither is particularly good defensively and they are gifted offensively (and they play for Chelsea). Hazard has more in common with Schurrle and probably Willian than with Mata. @Barbara-that's not the comparison (about how Oscar will develop). The comparison is between players right now and right now Mata is a vastly superior offensive player to Oscar and a vastly inferior defensive one.

Chelsea are a team that just spent 32M pounds on a player they didn't really need, I don't think they'd risk harming the team for a salary negotiation with their best player. I can see Hazard and Mata working fine together with a real right-sided midfielder, the issue for me is more Oscar versus Mata. In a 4-2-3-1, Oscar is useless anywhere other than the #10 and that's really the only place Mata is good for (or on the left but he drifts in a lot anyway). It's a choice between offensive dynamism, scoring, creativity, and weak defensive work and shape, versus excellent work ethic, defensive diligence, and uneven offensive production. (Mata and Oscar have now played 36 and 37 games in the Premier League since the beginning of last season. Mata has 12 goals, 12 assists, Oscar 5 goals and 5 assists). I am pretty sure Mata will still play a lot and if we are ever down in a game he will be one of the first subs brought on when he doesn't start, but Mourinho is a manager who cares a lot about defensive responsibility and balance so Mata loses out. (and I think Chelsea and football as a whole is a lot less interesting without Mata playing regularly)

That was different. Everyone knew Mata was our most important player and that he badly needed a rest. He had trained and played a little at the Euro and then played in the Olympics were his last game was 10 days before the Community Shield (and he missed our entire pre-season). He had had no rest at all. There was an international break in September that Mata wasn't called up for an RDM saw this as an opportunity to give him a major break by not starting him 2 games. The Confederation Cup ended over 2 months ago. Mata has had a very long break already. He doesn't need rest. He needs playing time to get back into game shape.

We're the last team that can call players "mercenaries". You really think all the players we've bought come to use because they love Chelsea? The term is silly in football. Players go where they make more money just as anybody would switch jobs if another company offered to double their wages. I never get why supporters act like players should somehow be different than all other people and play purely for the love of the club/business. We all get why Sturridge left. He wasn't getting a chance to be a striker and he thought he deserved a shot. He's not a Chelsea player so I am not going to support him, but I don't see how anyone can begrudge him leaving.

Happy Birthday! Have a fantastic year.

This is a key point. There are many more top keepers than there are top clubs in the world. It's simple math. Teams only need one keeper of quality. I don't worry much about replacing keepers. It's also very difficult to judge keepers because so much of their success is based on the team, more than any other position. When you're on a team that is giving up 2 shots a game, you're going to give up fewer goals than a keeper who is facing 4 shots a game. (That's not to mention quality of shots, how teams defend corners, etc...).