Barbara

In my opinion fact remains that when Mata received the chances he did in October (more than Azpilicueta at the time had) he didn't capitalize them and Oscar just kept proving to be worth of them, so it's a combination of Oscar and Mata himself playing him out of the team. The Mata Gate is a tale. First he got injured and missed a considerable part of pre-season (as he had already lost some of it because of Confederations Cup). He was behind others physically while Oscar was growing with each match he played for us. Mata finally recovered and struggled a little in September to find his foot, but at the end of the month he had a chance against Swindon. Then he played 45 minutes in the following match (Spurs), he started against Steua and Norwich the following week, then there was international break and the first match back he started once again (ahead of Oscar) against Cardiff. It means he played in five consecutive matches for us, 4 of which starting and he should have capitalized them, but he failed. No matter how many excuses some of us are willing to give him (lack of matches, adapting to the defensive demands, lack of trust from Mourinho, lack of rhythm, etc), it doesn't change the fact he played himself out of the team. Willian was in a very similar position and while he's also in the bench right now, I feel he made better use of his chances than Mata did. I want Mata in the team as much as the next person and in a 4-3-3 Oscar doesn't even need to leave the team to make that happen, but he needs to earn his way back into the team. Two years as POTY, assists and goals from the last two seasons shouldn't play him into the team, his current performances should. Whoever complains that other players also didn't turn up in some matches or even made mistakes and still played continuously should keep in mind the alternatives to those players and their contributions to the team. When Hazard is played every single match at the start of the season, his replacements don't bring the impact Oscar does. The same with Lampard and even ivanovic (bc no matter how great Azpili is, and he is, he doesn't bring as much impact as Oscar has been bringing) . Oscar had 2-3 bad matches (one of which Mata started, and the other he played a few minutes), that was the moment for Mata to displace him. He didn't do anything that could possibly convince Mourinho that he should dropped the arguably best player for us this season to play Mata. Maybe another manager would have insisted with Mata instead of Hazard for example, but I'm not sure many would have. When your team is struggling and points are being dropped, bench the player in the best form in the team doesn't seem wise. And any manager with brains know Mazacar is a risk. It could be amazing or it could be a disaster, given the exposition in our MD when the three of them play and how Oscar is sort of sacrificed, it's no surprise it's been barely featured this season.

I picked 4-3-3 as my favorite formation for our players even before the season started. I liked 4-2-3-1 just like the next person, but I think 4-3-3 suits our players much better. I do hope Mourinho gives this formation a few more goes and maybe he'll be convinced it works better? I mean it's my personal preference and I think we played well in a few matches we played 4-2-3-1 and if he sticks with it we can still be a solid team, but the 4-3-3 is so tempting and so perfect for us!

Then I guess I couldn't express myself... I meant that as Mata's game is slower and he slows down play, why defending affects his attacking abilities? If he's deeper in the field, he'll carry the ball slowly, and will try to see the best play. If he has freedom, he'll have to wait other players to run because he - himself - doesn't run, so it's almost like if he's the second to last man in our side of the pitch, waiting for others to recover possession for us rather than himself, he'll receive the ball and either of two things will happen 1) he'll pass it to the striker, if it's a good alternative; 2) he'll wait for the team to move forward again, by either holding the ball, or slowly moving to the attacking half. Hazard with the same freedom would most likely run and dribble, leading the rest of our team to run as well, just like he did a few times yesterday. When we have possession is when Mata is the most dangerous and whether he helped recover or not that possession either by going deep when opposition has the ball or pressing high in their own half, I don't see how this affects his ability to receive the ball and do his thing. Hazard on the other hand, if he's too deep, then he has an entire team ahead of him to dribble, run by and take on. That's why giving freedom to Hazard makes sense in my head, and giving freedom to Mata - like we did for two seasons - doesn't. We end up exposed exactly for those reasons, he's slow, he favors possession football, and in waiting others to recover possession he overloads Lampard who isn't defensively good for himself, let alone to make up for Mata. The only way I see for us to have Mata as the guy with freedom, is if we have two Oscars, one on each side of him to make up for him without exposing Lampard's deficiencies defending. To have 2 Oscars we sacrifice Hazard from the team, as while Eden improved significantly his defending stats, he's nowhere near Oscar. So the question remains, who should we sacrifice Hazard or Mata because clearly we can't keep both of them free from defending. The other day I spent a long time thinking of a way to make this team work again with Mata in a way that having Mata doesn't compromise even further our weak pivot and doesn't detract Hazard's performances. Just so we're clear, I don't think the problem is Mata, but how he fits in a team that have a few problems in the midfield as it is.

Mathematics, stats and projections are fascinating to this Brazilian girl, I might as well share what I do in my free time - which right now is 95% of my time As for being short - not sure if you're sarcastic, but I'm trying to force myself to write less. It's a challenge as big as Arsenal winning even Mickey Mouse Cups...

We need a bit of starting XI stability. It's end of november and while adjustments are still expected to be done for a few more months imo, I think we could use team stability now and keep the winning formula until it exposes its weaknesses and we struggle to deliver with that. Squad rotation is for December imo when we have 9 games, including a potential dead rubber in UCL and a League Cup match against Sunderland. We'll also face a couple of bottom table teams, so in order to prevent tiredness and muscular injuries, I'd see some squad rotation then. Right now I think Mourinho wants to know what's his best team and formation and he needs to test yesterday's team against a stronger side (not that Basel is that much stronger, but Southampton on Sunday definitely is).

So, I keep my own table with all kind of stats, comparisons, results and stuff in an Excel file and as I had the data broken down by team (what? I love stats, math and I enjoy a few projections, but I don't take any of the aforementioned too seriously because football isn't a science, thank God for that) I did an analysis considering who Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City have played so far and who they're yet to play and with some formulas and subjective criteria I did an analysis to know how many of the tricky matches are already left behind and how many are yet to come. I'll be the first to say it's a flawed system by definition, as football is unpredictable as it gets, and I didn't take into consideration if it's a local derby or not to change the criteria, so if you're interested to know, here it goes. I divided all teams in EPL in four groups according to how difficult it is for title contenders to play against them: Very difficult, prone to drop points: Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City away or home; Tottenham away (red) Challenging, points may be dropped: Tottenham home; Southampton, Everton, Newcastle away (orange) Tricky, those teams may steal a few points from contenders: Southampton, Everton, Newcastle home; Swansea and West Brom away (yellow) Manageable, titles contenders aren't expected to drop points: Villa, Hull, Stoke, Cardiff, Norwich, Sunderland, West Ham, Fulham, Crystal away or home (green). I'm positive some of you will agree or disagree about some teams (hence why I said the criteria was subjective). This is exclusively from the title contenders point of view, they shouldn't drop any points, away or home from the green group and should get nearly 100% of points at stake in the yellow group, whereas the orange group is dangerous and the red group are the title contenders against themselves in addition to Tottenham at WHL, and points are expected to be dropped. Here is just the summary (there are nearly infinite worksheets in this file, it's almost as bad as my tennis file) if you were able to follow this nonsensical rambling at all: The black spots mean those teams are yet to face any sides from those groups. The lighter colors inside the table highlights the best, the worst and the intermediate according their results, whereas the same colors in the head (only darker) show the group criteria. It's a bit confusing, but here some interesting things. Liverpool are the only side to have not dropped any points against the green group away and at home. Manchester City haven't dropped points at home against any side - regardless of their caliber - but they've dropped the most points away against teams in the green group. In another words Liverpool win against the weaker sides home and away whereas ManCity have been dropped points to sides they shouldn't away from Manchester and they may or may not make up for those points beating every other side at home. Also I made a mistake in the caption (and I'm too lazy to edit the image, upload it and whats not) so let me clarify it for you. The PYD corresponds to matches played (not points), regardless of the results. I broke down in the four groups, and to offer a more realistically prospect in the last two I multiplied the red and the green group results by 2, meaning the red group is twice harder than the orange and the green twice easier than the yellow. That's why Chelsea have the best prospect. We've played the most against more difficult sides and we're played the least against more manageable sides. Arsenal and City are the opposite. They played the least against stronger sides and the more against weaker sides. The fact that City have dropped so many points even in that case isn't promising to them, although it should be said it's too early to say if they'll pay for that or not. Now, I'll be back with other crazy input and analysis in my nonsense Excel file

no, he's saying the obvious... one of the AM should have freedom to roam. Hazard is the obvious choice for having more freedom as he's the fastest AM we have now - except if André is also playing - so he's the guy who'll be our focal point in counter-attacks to link-up with our striker. It's more about letting Hazard available to receive the first ball in the counter, just like in Oscar's goal, rather than stop restricting his attacking abilities. Stamina aside, marking your opponent doesn't take away your ability to attack. Oscar, Willian and Mata, giving their style should be able to mark and still start a counter or give some splitting pass, but they aren't the guys doing the runs (Oscar does them sometimes, Mata can't because he's beyond slow), dribbling or taking on opponents. I'd say defensive responsibilities don't take away the attacking abilities of players such as Oscar, Mata and Willian. Although it should take away André's it doesn't either because he's a Energizer Bunny and has nearly as much stamina as Ramires. Hazard on the other hand seems to tire himself faster when he retreats back too much. Mourinho had decided that months ago... Hazard is the guy he's making his bets on and he's the one I'd bet too, even if I'm much more impatient than Mourinho, reason why he's a manager and I'm not. I can see how it interferes in Hazard's game for the reasons I just mentioned (he runs, dribbles, takes on opponents). Mata is a completely different player, that prefers possession, have the time to decide what to do with the ball and do the unpredictable, genial, splitting pass. What does that have to do with him going deeper if more often than not he slows down our attack (by assessing his options, although he's quite the fast thinker), by holding possession and walking with the ball rather than running? No sarcasm here or trying to be smartypants, I'm interested to know (and learn) what that could be.

Now that's the Eden I know and love. Anyone who wants to shower me with stats about the chances he created for us today be my guest because he was just the best player in the first half imo. I was doing the post-match report for Chelsea Brazil while watching it and every time I had to report an attack I mentioned him. If he carries it on, he will end the season as the player with more chances created in EPL - deservedly and truly to his actual contributions in the match. I'm just heartbroken he didn't score. He deserved it.

so when we lose to Newcastle or draw with West Brom at home we go on and on about how shitty we were against 'weaker' sides, but then we completely dominate a match against a weaker side and no credit should be given? Yeah, they were poor, yeah, that formation needs more sharpening to work against stronger teams, it doesn't change the fact though we had a very solid match, we made them look worse than they are and we were in control all the time with basically all of our players having their best match so far this season. I know we shouldn't get carried away here, but it almost makes me feel like Chelsea can't win with some fans these days, there's always the bad side of things arising. I'm quite happy myself. We struggled against Fulham, despite winning, and that was a terrible display from us imo. I'm happy today we didn't give space or chances for accidents to happen.

played in a position that flatters his qualities, this man can still win us matches and be immense. Today's match is a testament to that. And unlike other players we have in the squad that played in a certain way will pay off, playing Lamps the way we played today doesn't detract from us in the big scheme. It adds without taking away

I've missed his trademark goals x

so here goes my feelings about the match (will try to keep it short, ) Mourinho is a genius and I'm a worshiper in his altar when it comes to football praising. That formation was brilliant and I finally understood why he used it with Ramires instead of any of the AMs we had. This match was all about interchanging. 4-2-3-1, 4-3-3, make your pick because we interchanged between the two formations, but unlike other matches it had nothing to do with attacking one way, defending the other. It was like a cyclone, we just rotated it and Lampard and Ramires took turns going forward, although the two of them went at the same time many times (I guess the latter only happened because West Ham was a no-show, otherwise, I think they would stick to interchanging). That's something Wilian, for example, can't do, because he isn't a CM and Ramires is. It's also very clever from Mourinho because he capitalizes the best in Lampard and exposes his weaknesses much less than playing him fixed in the pivot. We've talked before about the AMs interchange and how it confuses the defense, but I think one of the reasons West Ham struggled so much was because we confused them with the 4-2-3-1 interchange in attacking phases and with Lampard and Ramires both playing mainly centered, creating all kind of havoc in their defense. This is variation in a whole new level - one I haven't seen in our team before. We've rotated AMs, we've rotated the pivot and we've rotated the system. As a first time experience we were helped by WHU inability to react and combat that. Poor Sam even did two, not only one, changes in 1st time trying to find a response, but were were just too good for his weak side to handle. I think if we give this formation a few more chances, it can be sharpened and it might be our best option. I just hope Mourinho doesn't bring it to Souton because I think they'll handle better with it, and it may expose us, but it's a great alternative to be our main formation for the season. Hazard was amazing in the first half. Now that's what I call a player who creates chances. I didn't check the stats, but if they tell me he was the most creative player for us, I co-sign. He played liked I expect him to be and like I've been waiting him to play and I hope he can carry on and keep improving. It was a shame he didn't score. Oscar was my MOTM. His passing is still a bit off - to his own standards - and he missed a few easy passes, but he was everywhere, tacking, intercepting, being the perfect AM if you ask me because he also created or contributed for others to create. That's the thing with Oscar playing for us. He helps us dictate matches. He may not be the one that creates us the most chances, but he's the only that undoubtedly creates opportunities for others to create chances simply because he presses, he intercepts, he recovers possession, he starts counter-attacks, he passes the ball smartly to players that will find themselves in the position to assist others. And he's been improving considerably in the wing this season. If my memory doesn't betray me, he had his best match in the RW for us in the many cameos he made in that zone today. Azpilicueta must start. Even playing in the opposite wing, he still managed that great cross for Oscar, and today he was better in the attack than I expected. In the defense he was a MONSTER. Seriously, if I didn't give my MOTM to Oscar I'd give it to Azpili, although Lampard and Hazard were also in contest. So good to see Lamps being played in a position that allows him to give us his best contributions. Mikel was flawless in the pivot and I'd say that's the way to go. Mourinho made me eat my words about the lineup (I had problems with Ramires in the RW) and I'll think twice before bitching about his lineups and just wait and see what he's cooked. Lesson learned.

Premier League ‏@premierleague 25m Frank Lampard: "I'll play anywhere for this manager. Once we went ahead our football was superb. We should have scored more." their bromance is cute, but for God's sake, Mourinho, we don't want to see Lamps everywhere, but just where he played today.

first comment before the analysis or reading any of you SUCK THAT NOVEMBER (told that twice today, couldn't help )

So many times during the match I've seen Lampard playing more advanced, as if he was an AM and not in the pivot. I'm not sure he's fixed in the pivot, I guess he's interchanging with Ramires there, and sometimes both of them are advanced. I don't know what Mourinho did, I don't know how to label this, but it's working great. Lampard seems to be closer to his better position, Mikel is giving a lot of stability, Azpilicueta is playing in such a way he can't leave the team, Oscar is being everything you expect from him and Hazard is making a great match.

but that's what I meant, I think Willian would have worked better at RW, but I can't complain given how it worked in the first half.

Mourinho wonderfulness, that's how I'll call it hahahahahaha

most of all, he silenced all of us with the formation. It actually worked. I still believe would have worked better with Willian, but man, he shut us up there. Also I don't know what's Jason problem with people supporting Mourinho, if anything tons of people reacted negatively towards the lineup and all of us - me included - were proved wrong in our criticism by that first half performance. I guess he just chose the wrong day to go against Mourinho's fans because everyone who criticized his choices today were just wrong. I still defend our right to complain about a lineup though. It's great to be proved wrong when it works

Take that NOVEMBER!

Can I finally move back to my original fave player? My bb is perfect there tonight and it won't be fair if this match ends without a goal by him and amazing defending by Azpili there right now

finally!!!!! That's the Hazard and all know and miss. I've been waiting for him to show up in the EPL for a while now. And gosh, isn't he on fire?

it's going to be hard picking a MOTM between Hazard and Oscar. Both are amazing for us tonight

my boy!!!!!!!!! OScar!!!!!!

we did at all matches in October. It's November when we started lacking the positive attitude that it decreased.

Oscar, so much love heart and clutch