TorontoChelsea

I agree that he doesn't deserve an automatic starting spot anymore, but I don't think many people do. As far as one-touch football, Lampard can play that just fine (his pass to Mata was a gorgeous example of that as was his pass to Ramires against Barca) but I don't think you can have long-term success playing just that type of football in England anyway. It's just too easy to defend. That has actually been our biggest problem this season-the reliance on individual moments of brilliance for our goals rather than building up play into an attack. You can pass the ball around all you want, but you have to be able to break down the defence. You need to be able to switch the attack over, to have an aerial game, to be versatile to win. As far as Lampard not having any legs. He covered more distance than any other Chelsea player against Juventus and again last night. He doesn't have great speed, but the deep-lying midfielder doesn't really need to be fast. And yes, there are definitely people on here who are seriously slating Lampard. In fact, I'd say after Mikel, he's probably the most hated player on here. I'm not saying he should be starting every game, he definitely shouldn't be and I trust RDM to keep using our squad well, but if people can't acknowledge when he plays well, something is wrong.

This is what's called confirmation bias. Lampard was probably our best player in the first half. Not only was his assist brilliant, but he frequently opened up play with excellent passing (including a couple of incredible passes to Moses on the left). He wasn't as instrumental to the team in the second half, but overall, he ran more than any other Chelsea player, passed well, timed his runs well, interplayed well with the attackers, drew a couple of fouls, and was solid defensively. The "moving the ball too slowly" stuff was just nonsense as well today. He moved the ball well all game. The issue with our ball movement came from not having a deep midfielder who was able to link up the play and then from Moses making a lot of poor decisions in attack The desire to see Lampard have bad games has reached an insane level. I swear, there are only like 10-15 people on here who actually seem to watch the games.

His defensive positioning was never his strong point but it's been poor this season. Part of that is that because we are playing such a tight formation, we rely on our fullbacks to give us width in the attack and Brana has been a big part of a number of our goals but yes, this is something we need to sort out at some point. (Hopefully by getting more width up front).

I agree that playing without a true DM would be risky against better clubs, but it wasn't remotely the problem tonight. Our (limited) defensive problem was due mostly to us not pressing them when they were in possession. They were then able to bring the ball up unmolested. The chances we gave up: 1-Shot from about 20 yards out. Cole horrible pass and then Ramires horrible tackle. Shot went sailing over net. 2-Moses was slow on closing his man who was able to get a pass in to someone Cole was marking who made a nice cross to Nordstrand but Cahill got there first 3-A shot hit off Lampard's head and deflected out. Moses was a little late in closing but the shot was about 30 yards out and low and an easy save for Cech. 4-Ramires was badly beaten by his man who took a shot from outside the box that went wide 5-Ivanovic let his man get behind the D (also, poor communication so they didn't know) and he hit a free header over the bar. 6-Ivanovic was out of position and his man got way too central and then Luiz probably should have marked him closer and he took a great shot that hit the bar and then rebound came to one of their players and hit Cole with the shot. Of those, #2 wasn't even a shot and #3 was an easy save and even #1 would have taken a ridiculous shot to have scored. We're talking about really conceding 3 good chances. Ramires made two awful defensive plays, but they were his usual kind made by chasing the ball instead of playing the man and getting beaten because of it. His positioning was fine, he just made two bad decisions. Ivanovic had bad positioning on two plays. Mikel does allow us to pass the ball up the field better as he drops deeper and then hands it off to a more attacking player, but I think people have got insanely obsessed with the double pivot and look at that area as the cause of all of our problems even when it is fine. Again, this isn't a combination I'd use very often, you need someone who is excellent defensively and very conservative in the DM spot.

Mata has a lot of good free kicks. Every single one I've seen Luiz take before this one has been poor, most of them awful.. This one was fantastic though. Unstoppable.

Thought Ramires was pretty bad in the first half and excellent in the second. He is solid defensively, but he has a problem where he chases the ball instead of positioning himself against the player. This leads to risky tackles where if he misses, the player is able to get by him and create an odd-man rush. (As happened against Arsenal where he made an awful attempted tackle on AOC which led to the Giroud chance.) Of course, when he gets those right, he can break into attack with incredible speed.

There was still a lot of passing that went up to the build-up of Mata's goal, then it took a lucky bounce. The other two goals were both great three-man plays. Also, we created more chances to score this game than I think we have in the previous 4 or 5 combined. Not too surprising based on the competition, but still nice to see. The lack of creating chances has been my biggest worry so far this season. I still think if Hazard starts instead of Moses, we score at least 3 more goals. It wasn't just his misplays, there were also a few times when Torres or Oscar had great incredible runs and were basically unmarked and in on goal if Moses had passed but he just put his head down and ran. I'm not going to overreact because everyone has bad games, but that was one of the worst performances I've seen from a Chelsea player this year.

Another positive-three of our goals were actually built up by team play which is something we've been missing. Our goals have mostly been one piece of brilliance for a goal or one brilliant pass for a goal.

Something interesting-We built up from the back today. Cech usually has a passing rate of about 55% because he hoofs the ball upfield but today it was 92%. Probably due to the way Nordsjaelland play, but maybe something to watch for.

Scoreline flatters us a little, but we did deserve the 3 points. Good result and some real positives. Biggest negative for me was Moses who was awful. Not sure why he and Mata were on their off sides.

Juve and Shakhter draw. Great result for us there.

Luiz scores from a free kick!

And it's so simple. Why doesn't RDM just say "don't do those long balls". It's basically like kicking the ball out of bounds.

He was dreadful. If he had had a good game, I think we would have scored about four goals by now.

We've played well, could have had a couple more goals. Moses' vision has been poor in this game, needs to see plays developing better and for the love of god Luiz, stop hitting long balls up the field. They never work!

It's hard to judge from RDM's lineups what's actually going to happen. When we have played with Oscar, Mata, and Hazard in the front three, we've generally actually played more defensively because Oscar drops deep. We're off to a great start so am not going to question RDM at all and it seems a perfectly reasonable lineup to me anyhow. (Good rotation while keeping strong side.)

Welcome! (great year for the Falcons so far...)

One of my best friends is a die-hard White Sox fan and he's just pissed. I'm a Tigers' fan so I'm not. If you've ever watched a White Sox broadcast, you'll enjoy this. http://deadspin.com/5946320/science-proves-that-hawk-harrelson-is-more-biased-than-every-other-al-broadcaster-combined?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews. Oh and Steven Fletcher is a good striker. (I actually think being Scottish works against him in terms of perceived value. It's odd. British players are overrated and underrated at the same time. )

Bingo....I follow baseball and it is easily the best sport for statistical analysis because every single thing can be broken down because players have individual outcomes. Because of this, the sport is filled with a tremendous number of useful statistics that managers use to their advantage all the time. In team sports, it's a lot more difficult because you can't isolate individual plays the same way If player A takes a shot from point X in the box and scores and player B takes a shot from point X in the box and doesn't score, it doesn't mean that player B is worse. The cross into the box for player B could have been awful and the cross to player A perfect. Maybe the two keepers are Casillas and Taibi, etc... There are useful stats of course, but there is no substitute for watching the game. But as SeB points out, even these wackier stats can still have value if they are overwhelming or just as a tool to "confirm a feeling".

You're right. I was looking at expected goals. Anyway, it has something to do with efficiency...or scoring goals...or at least football. I'm pretty sure of that.

It's simple...RDM is the man to take us forward until we have a poor result in which case he should be fired immediately until we win again when he should be given an extension until he plays players I don't him to play when he should be fired, etc...

It's how many more goals they scored than you would expect them to score based on where they took their shots...or something like that....so Fletcher scored 4.1 more goals than would have been expected from the positions he was in when he shot. It seems to me a very difficult stat to believe in simply because every situation is different, but I think that's it.

And he shouldn't be the one launching those 40 yard passes up the pitch either. He does those long balls forward about 2 or 3 times a game and I think pretty much every single one just turns the ball over to the opposition. On Saturday, he had one particularly awful one that he just lobbed up in the general area of Torres. He's a very good defender but when he tries to be the attacker, well, that's just not his game and it's detrimental to the club, That first free quick Luiz took, I hate when anybody takes those directly on goal. Straight on goal from like 45 yards out. You're not going to score,you're not going to get a corner, if the goalie doesn't handle it cleanly, the attackers are still too far away and the keeper can just pounce on it, you're unlikely to get a deflection. I don't know why people ever go for goal on those.

We don't know. We just have to wait and see. We were looking pretty good this time last year as well so I'm not going to go crazy but we're off to a great start even if we definitely have a some work to do.

As others have said, goal was not Mikel's fault in the least. Some goals are obviously one player's fault (like Cech's mess-up against Redding) but a lot of goals are because a couple of players made minor mistakes and this was one of them. A little too much space here and a little too much space there and presto, goal. Mikel and Ramires did make a complete mess of the play leading up to the Giroud miss though but it was a miss. Still, Mikel played well as he usually does.