kellzfresh

This is the worst passing we have done this season. No one could pass well. Kante, Luiz, Pedro were the worst passers. Terrible on the ball today, very very bad. Azpi was targeted at the back because of his height. It's a problem Hazard didn't get enough of the ball in the first half, wayanma bossed him. Costa wasn't supported at all. Alonso is a problem tactically. We have no choice but to upgrade on him. He is too much of an obvious weakness for opponents to target for us to ignore.

It's crazy how many near 30 y.o + players City have: Bravo - 33 (although he's a keeper) Caballero - 35 Sagna - 33 Zabaleta - 31 Kolarov - 31, Clichy - 31 Kompany - 30 (don't think he's played in about 2 years) Fernando - 29 Navas - 31 Silva - 30 Fernandinho - 31 Yaya - 33 Nolito - 30. That's a lot

You're right. The last thing I want is for Hazard to start dribbling aimlessly like Zaha. I always like when he dribbles into the box, which causes confusion and can lead to him cutting inside and shooting, penalties, cutbacks for another to shoot. Anytime hazard has a great game we almost never struggle. And that's why he's our most talented player, we need his consistency or another to chip in with goals and take the pressure off him like Pedro and Willian did in the last games.

As a creative player, he doesn't have plenty assists or get as much key passes as fabregas, KdB, payet, ozil and other attacking midfielders. But hazard is a different type of creative player who depends mainly on his dribbling and not putting costa through on goal like fabregas, so once the dribbling is low, he won't have his normal outstanding match performance.

Yeah by his standards he was a little bit quiet only 2 dribbles all game. But that assist was magic

One of the most consistent players ever in a Chelsea shirt. He was immense, one of the best tacklers in football, saved us from conceding more with some last ditch tackles. I'm getting an Azpilicueta shirt.

Fantastic goals from willian. Two open play goals from willian is a rare feat, fantastic. He was very bad in the first half, poor passes, poor decisions, not passing to Moses, then in the 2nd half, Bang!! He started linking up with Moses, started making runs behind for Fabregas to find him and stopped occupying space on the wing for Moses to run into. The best of both worlds from willian yesterday.

I thought I was the only one who noticed this. Either Willian is so bad in decision making in the final third that he forgot to pass to Moses open a lot or he did it intentionally. But then again, I remember him and Ivanovic having very poor chemistry and compared to Moses and pedro, it was non existent against bournemoth.

Back at Barcelona Pedro was as good as Sanchez, both in goal contribution and importance to the team. But Sanchez looks another level in the striker position now and is a better dribbler. But Pedro on form can compete anytime, anyday.

Hazard completed 13 dribbles in this match alone, it's the first time he's done a high number of dribbles since the international break and it's no coincidence that we comfortably win 3-0 Hazard needs to be on song for us to be at our best, if Costa played instead of Willian this could have been 5. Brilliant from hazard today... Keep up the dribbles and shooting.

Start from 42seconds. His left-foot is magic

When I saw this truck killing like the one in France I shed a tear. I was afraid that this type of random killing style could become a norm and it's evident now. Why will they do this to people who have invited them into their countries freely, even without going through the formal process?? Why does ISIS hateful Islamic message resonate among a lot of Muslims?? Why do they think violence is the answer to their problems??? (Russian ambassador to Turkey has also been assassinated in Turkey ) Just like that some Christians and atheists Germans peacefully enjoying their traditional Christmas period have been murdered. I just hope that the families hold on strong to their traditional Christmas beliefs and can move on from this tragedy.

This Southampton vs bournemoth game lacks quality. Bournemoth have a good system but their strikers Wilson and King are so poor, at least king is a team player but Wilson is a stingy and technically poor striker. No surprise Ake easily got into the team once he got a chance, his teammates are benefitting from a good system from the coach but they are really average.

I know hazard has less space than before, but he at least used to go to the right wing, combine with Pedro, cause overloads on the right wing and the person on the left side will find it difficult to follow hazard all the way to the right. He doesn't switch as much as before, I noticed this since the international break and it's been the same. Without hazard on song our gameplay can never be as good because costa is our only other world-class attacker. I agree that the quality of our players on the ball has restricted our passing quality in tighter spaces. Especially as Cahill is allowed more time on the ball than anyone else. But the wide centerbacks should step into midfield more often because it will cause overloads or add an extra body in midfield which let's Azpi have a chance to deliver assists like he did for Costa. Cahill is a dunce in passing and restricts this. We definitely need better personnel to help with this. I agree that teams are going long to try and bypass our pressing but still our tiredness has restricted our pressing imo. We don't maintain pressure or intensity on the opponent like before. If we keep on probing, winning the ball high up the pitch, attack again immediately . But now we get a chance and sit back for 5-10 mins before we push again. It's tiredness. The reason that I suggested the formation change is that teams are studying our weaknesses, either by overloading players on Alonso's wing like mancity did, or overloading players on Moses wing like tottenham did, or defending with 6-3-1 formation like westbrom, or going long like Middlesbrough. Now we need to surprise them sometimes, instead of coming out with a 3-4-3 which they expected to see, we change to a 3-5-2 which allows an extra man in midfield to cover overloads on our flanks and have fabregas quickly release costa and hazard. I agree that the personnel is a problem too but unless we're buying quality (Verratti, kurzawa, mendy, dybala) in this window to improve our players to play the formation better, we might have to make some surprises to disrupt people's game-plan against us

I'm sure Conte must be working out a solution but we have lost some steam in our gameplay and these are the major reasons that point to why. 1. Hazard has stopped dribbling as well into the box and has stopped taking as much shots as he used to do before the international break. When we were scoring goals he was taking an average of 4.5 shots per game and he was always dribbling into the box which meant people couldn't tackle him or risk penalties. He has also stopped switching wings to cause overloads on the right like he used to do which confused a lot of defenders. 2. Our one touch passing has evaporated. Before the formation switch, I complained bitterly on how Matic was hugging the ball like willian and slowing down our play but immediately we went 3-4-3, booom!!! Our passing was swift Matic no longer had more than 2 touches of the ball before passing to hazard, Alonso or switching long to Moses. But now the whole team don't play quick passes anymore except on the counter and it's letting defenders settle. 3. Tiredness has set in and Moses has lost form. The whole team is looking a bit tired but we used to have a dribbler on the right wing in Moses causing havoc and stretching play, leaving more space for Pedro to make runs behind unnoticed. When Hazard is the only dribbler that is successful in going past players in the starting 11, it is a problem. When we first changed formation, Moses was winning man of the match awards consistently and was a thorn in the opponents flesh. 4. We're not pressing as a team as we used to do. So we can't maintain any momentum for long and our next attack comes after a long period with opponents keeping us deep with possession. Against Everton, and the first half against manutd was some of the best relentless pressing I've ever seen from Chelsea and we need to get back to that. 5. Teams are now changing their tactics before Chelsea games. This is a problem tactically for any manager, including Conte. You can study your next opponent, watch tapes of their matches for hours and target their weakness and suddenly they have changed their formation to 6-3-1 on the day your facing them.(annoying westbrom) This is where our former strengths of Hazard overloading the right wing with Pedro, and Moses dribbling, combined with one touch passing football should have given us the edge but they are no longer happening often and is letting us get pinned back in matches. To counter teams changing their tactics, I think we should respond and play a 3-5-2 for some matches with fabregas coming in for Willian or Pedro. We get solid in midfield and add passing penetration from fabregas which will make us less predictable for opponents to plan for us.

Our best player has done it again. Consistent as hell. Fantastic header from costa

I never said we don't have quality ourselves, We have quality in our team, but not on the level of the 4 teams that got a 90+ points tally. Unless you say we are as good as arsenal invincibles player for player, if we're not as good, we are overperforming.

I was discussing with someone that we are overperforming and this is proof. If we look at the 5 teams who have had this many points, our current team is nowhere near in terms of quality. Conte is doing great work with us, at current rate we're on course for 94 points at the end of the season which is unbelievable.

Fantastic save. It's good that he's saying the right things now and showing more passion for our club on and off the pitch.

Costa placing a ball for young Bradley Lowery who suffers from a rare form of now terminal cancer to score against begovic

He isn’t the fastest but boy it'll be tough to find someone who works as hard as him if we're replacing him. He works his socks off