Dion

This. Even if it was too risky to smash it to the sidelines he could have smashed it backwards and give them a corner, trying to dribble with a first touch from his weak foot was risky and it didn't pay off.

It wasn't a good pass from Iva by any means but even then that goal is mostly on Courtois, his decision to try to dribble past the player was one of the riskiest he could have made. He redeemed himself later on but that goal is at least 90% on him.

It's real simple, Fabregas relies on passes more than anything, when we face teams that are using at least 9-10 players inside and around the box to defend and our own players are not clever in their movement he can't excel. We saw a few glimpses of first half of the season Fabregas in the second half when we attacked with way more intensity and better movement. On top of that, most of the players in front of Cesc prefer to play with the ball at their feet, their first instinct is not to make runs (bar Costa, who seems to position himself wide often in the matches for some reason – making us have 0 runners inside the box), I mean, Hazard does it occasionally but you can see clearly it's not the first thing on his mind, the same with William, and Oscar really isn't a pro footballer right now. Our offensive moves are really lacking, I'm not sure what our players do during training but they're certainly not being coached in the way we build our attacks – slow, predictable, no overlapping, no one running into space.

Cuadrado looks rusty as hell.

Almost too easy.

But to be honest Oscar was playing better back then. He's improved a bit defensively but seems to have regressed in every other department. Most people have short memories but he used to outperform Neymar regularly in our NT. And I don't mean like in 1 game every 5, but really all the time. He used to be the best player in the team by far. He's never played to that level with us but he's never been this far from his best level either. Not even when he had just got promoted to São Paulo's first team. And he doesn't even have those kind of performances for the NT anymore. Also, every time he takes a dip in performance at one point in the season his good performance level becomes actually a performance when he didn't play like shit, not when he's actually played well. In his first season with us I can even remember a few times when he dribbled past several players, now he can't even seem to control the ball. It's almost like he's turned into another player. Baffling. Just for comparison, some highlights from Oscar from the times of his first season: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srPfezr8Ni0 2:16, for example, he has a good first touch in a difficult ball, dribbles past his marker and scores. Now I'd struggle to see him showcasing a single one of those skills, never mind all three of them in the same play.

Yeah, I was kinda surprised with how much joy pretty much every other football fan has received our elimination.

They're really lacking content to publish.

That's how it's always been. When the player is on form 4 good games becomes two months or more, if he is performing badly then 4-5 good months become 1 or 2 good games in the entire season and so on.

Hazard also has more minutes played, their output per minute should be very close. I don't think the difference in goals is only due to that. Alexis has very good goal instincts.

Every game is important to win the league, if beating the big ones was all that mattered we would have won the league last season. Regardless of that, from the top of my head I remember he has at least one good game against the bigs in Manchester City, I think he even scored that game. He's also on fire in the champions league and his stats in this season are not too far from Hazard's (same amount of key passes per game, a very respectable number of successful dribbles per game - probably one of the best in Europe after the likes of Hazard, Robben and Messi, almost as fouled every game as Hazard), while at the same time having a better work rate, he averages 2 tackles and 1 interception per game in the PL, he runs all day long and never tires, he's like a mix between Willian and Hazard plus the killer instinct that both seem to lack, very underrated player tbh. Hazard has better passing, dribble and ball control over him, even then it's not by a landslide. It's impossible to consider Eden one of the best performers and not Alexis.

Sanchez has been phenomenal this season, his overall play is almost on Hazard's level but he takes the edge for producing more at the final third for me. I think no other player is having as big a impact for his team as Alexis. But I could see any of Hazard or Cesc overtaking Sanchez depending on how they perform until the end of the season.

If we were to use Hazard, Willian and Cuadrado together, I'd rather have it like: Willian - Hazard - Cuadrado. Perhaps that could improve Willian's productivity goals-wise since he's right footed (meaning he would be playing inverted winger, which suits him more - given that he likes to cut inside) and at the same time it shouldn't affect his dribbling too much, since dribbling on the flanks is easier than in the middle. Hazard, as our best dribbler, shouldn't have too much trouble in the middle. My only concern is Cuadrado + Ivanovic, since I'm not too sure about Cuadrado's defensive ability and work rate. Also not too sure how that would affect playing Fabregas + Matic.

I've watched some compilations of him playing today (those sort of 'every time player X touched the ball in the match' videos) just to be sure my memory wasn't tricking me and there's one against Bayern Munich which is particularly relevant to the comparison with Oscar. In that game he was literally what Oscar has been for us in most of these recent matches, he scored once or twice (not too sure, just got home after working pretty much the whole day - exhausted as fuck), but the amount of misplaced/intercepted passes and the amount of times he lost possession trying to dribble is mind blowing, I was truly shocked. I won't be too harsh because it was Bayern after all, but that's the typical Oscar performance of recent, poor overall game but contributing to the score nonetheless - except the very last games Oscar couldn't even do that, but you get the point.

To be fair, while it is undeniable that Firmino is more creative, has better dribbling and way more flair than Oscar (which makes watching him more pleasant), the few times I could watch him play he missed A HELL LOT of passes, if you get annoyed but Oscar's inconsistent passing you all would go crazy watching Firmino. Still, Firmino is a good player, has a very good work rate and the defensive side of his game is at least on Oscar's level if not better. All in all, I consider them similar players, although I believe Firmino wouldn't be near as good if he was in Oscar's shoes (as Chelsea's nº 10) playing in the EPL.

To me the surprises are Southampton and Everton. One positively and the other negatively.

8 points clear would have been good. On a side note, Atletico Madrid 4-0 Real Madrid?! Holy shit!

That pass attempt was Fabregas-esque.

There, your wish has been granted.

I just woke up, would any kind soul link me a good stream? Edit: Never mind, found one.

Maybe that would have made the deals we got for them harder to pull off or decrease the amount we got for them. At the same time I wish things would have been different, I'm not all that disappointed with how things turned out. KDB, for instance, he looks like a great player but the money we got for him helped us build the squad we have now, a squad that got us to the top of the table, and we're not even certain KDB would have eventually start performing the way he is right now. I think the board and Mourinho have made good deals as of lately. If the money from Andre is well spent I won't complain, even if I liked the lad.

Sad to see him go. I still had hopes for him and always liked him better than Willian, too bad it didn't work but this deal was probably in the best interest of both parties. Sort of similar to how I felt about KDB leaving. Have a feeling that he will perform way better in the Bundesliga.

Lampard looks motivated to scored against us.

Zouma playing like a boss.

Well, that didn't last long.