Dion

Nice pass from Willian. I like this formation.

We look so eager to win from the very beginning today. Awesome.

Holy shit Hazard to Fabregas, the magic happening.

And great effort from Iva not letting it be a throw in.

It looks like Luis wants to earn his place in the starting eleven.

How is the team and me in particular doing in the TalkChelsea FM save?

Watch Swingers (1996), it's the ultimate guy movie. I love it and imo it depicts very well men's friendship and just life the way it really is. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117802/

Oscar played more offensively on saturday. Until the moment Ramires came on, Fabregas was playing mostly deep and Oscar ahead with little if any interchangeability. You may remember that Oscar had a few shots on goal against Swansea and was generally playing around the box, which he had not been doing as frequently in the other games. I think Brazilian commentators mentioned it during the game too, I could be remembering it wrong though. I prefer the Oscar that appears everywhere he's needed on the pitch, I think that's one of his biggest qualities, I don't like it when he seems too focused on trying to score.

Matic has made very very similar mistakes against Everton. I've watched us against Everton with Barbara and there were a few times when Matic left the player he should be marking to chase the ball just like Fabregas did in that analysis. The whole system of pressing is malfunctioning right now, a lot of times players are chasing the ball when they should be holding position. It was even worse there because there were times Matic would do it and other times Fabregas would do it, so they had unmarked players and spaces all the freaking time. Our midfield against Everton was even more of a mess than against Swansea as it seems Matic was a little bit more disciplined in the latter, maybe Mourinho has already spoken to them about it and is trying to fix it.

Maybe on the outside. His voice seems a little bit distressed. I don't think anyone would be ok dying so young. You may come to terms with it because it is inevitable but I don't think anyone would ever think it is fair. It's really fucked up to die so young and not be able to do anything about it, think about all the stuff he still planned to do or the dreams that he still wanted to fulfill. If I found out I'd be dying soon I'd probably try to remain calm but I'd break down at some point. Just like the car scene in that movie "50/50".

I like raspberry and blackberries but blueberries nah. All of those are kinda hard to find here in the northeast though. If you ever come to some nearby city I'll show you some tropical fruits.

What the fuck, Barbara. You really should try them. You can probably find all of them, maybe not those two and umbu, in Campinas. This is outrageous, those foreigners know more about our fruits than you. Cajá is one of my favourite juices ever. How can you even live with yourself not knowing the taste of some cajá juice.

I'm not sure if it is the easiest. Windsurf looks to be the hardest to me. The point is the wind was REALLY strong yesterday. Yep, he loved it. They're also impressed with how many different delicious fruits we have. They have tried cajá, cajarana, cupuaçu, graviola, mangaba, caju (cashew), acerola... I bet not even you have tried mangaba and cajarana. I couldn't find them umbu though. And maybe they haven't tried jaca (jackfruit) and atemóia before either. There are just so many they should taste before going back to their countries.

Don't get me wrong mate, but Dion was clearly the better player

That's true. We told you about the Polish guy, I had forgotten. Damn. Why do I always forget the things I tell you? He cut himself in the kite surfing, HAHAHAHHA. I just had a feeling he would mess up and I was right. There was also this time when he jumped and the wind took him too high so he crashed really hard into the water, HAHAHAHA. But I liked them both. Ahmad tried pork for the first time in his life, apparently it's forbidden in Jordan but he was curious to try it out.

@Barbara, so... this weekend I was busy because my brother came over and he brought with him some lads who are in Brazil for a month in their med internship. One of them is from Poland and the other is from Jordan - Łukasz and Ahmad(?). I took them to try kite surfing and kayaking (?). And we also went to this bar where we got drunk and invited some strangers to sit with us at our table, it was funny as fuck. Talking to random stranger people seems to be a new trend in my life right now.

But I've been around, dear. It's just I'm more active in match days or immediately after the games. There's not much to do afterwards to be honest, just pointless rumours or people from the media trying to find silly stories about our players - Diego Costa "punched" someone.. should he have seen a red? Fabregas, defensive liability? Etc. Besides, I've been busy this weekend. I'll make a post about it in the pub so we don't derail this thread. And then Choulo won't have to move the posts (that even Jason was okay with) for derailment

Well, I did say the pivot was slow, as in both of them

Problem with slow defenders is that they rely too much on positioning. Once someone misplaces a pass when they're transitioning to an attacking stance or once they're caught in a fast counter they can't do much. That's precisely why Matic should avoid misplacing passes, our pivot and cbs are slow and Matic is usually the midfielder who is deeper, if he loses possession it's like there are only ours cbs and fullbacks to defend and huge spaces for them to cover with limited pace.

Despite being slow as shit, Pirlo can still give you a good defensive shift based on positioning alone. It's no wonder he's the epitome of the regista / deep-lying playmaker. His defensive stats are crazy for someone that slow. Go check them out. Last season he got 1.4 tackles and 1.3 interceptions per game (Serie A) and it was a bad season defensively by his own standards. The guy is a monster. If Fabregas can reach Pirlo level of defensive performances he's going to be crazy good.

Fabregas is playing the role of the deep-lying playmaker. He's not weak defensively for that role. His defensive stats are about on par with Modric's so far in this season - they both have 1 tackle in average per game and Modric has 0.4 more interceptions per game, but Fabregas has 0.3 clearances over Modric, so it evens out. The only thing Fabregas has struggled with is avoiding being dribbled. He has been dribbled 2.3 times per game, in that aspect he should improve. And we didn't even find the correct balance or chemistry in the midfield. Those stats can only improve over time.

Add to that the fibonacci sequence - 1, 1, 2, 3... (those were the number of goals he scored in each game)... next are 5, 8, 13... Man City prepare your anus. Illuminatis confirmed.

Well, that makes a lot of sense.

You can tell he's a former Arsenal player

I think this is exactly what everyone could ever possibly want. This hunger to kill the game, to prove he wants to contend for best player in the world. In all honesty the only reason I didn't give him MOTM was because of Costa's hat-trick. Had Costa scored only two I'd probably have given it to Eden. If he puts performances like this one in at least half of the remaining games of this season there's no way we're letting this title slip from our hands. And if he can produce numbers along with it he may have a shot somewhere in the top 3 of the world this year.