Barbara

Still out of the team It sucks because I feel like Terry could use a rest. We have 9 matches this month and having no rotation in the CBs would be tragic, especially when one of them is over his 30 and has had physical issues quite frequently. It's not even about what Luiz brings or not at this point (although I do think he brings a lot), it's about we needing backup for Terry and later for Cahill when he also feels the weight of so many matches...

beautiful pics, yuvala - the ones you took. And you looked cute all 'Chelsea'ed up' seriously, it was a nice gear Happy to know you had such a great time

why they keep asking Mourinho about Manchester? This is Chelsea, if you don't have Chelsea questions shut the heck up! I hate how the press makes it about ManUtd all the time. Hazard kills the game for us, Suarez gives one of the best striker's presentation I've ever watched and still the buzz in the media is about Manchester United losing to Eveton. Now we have a match tomorrow, those useless journalists come to a Chelsea press conference to ask Mourinho about ManUtd. Gimme a bloody break!

Mourinho confirms that Luiz is out of tomorrow's game, Eto'o is back, and Oscar is better but he's not sure whether he will play. #CFC Mourinho on @stokecity : 'They have very good players, a very physical team'. #CFC Mourinho: 'This week is a hard week, especially playing on a Sunday, and then finishing playing again on a Saturday. Mourinho: 'The players will have Sunday off, as it's important for them to rest.' #CFC Mourinho on the Sunderland game: 'It's a good feeling when you are in trouble and you survive.' #CFC 'Take a look at the teams that compete from Saturday to Sunday and the ones who compete from Sunday to Saturday. It must be a big coincidence that the same teams have this schedule' 'Cole is playing tomorrow or Wednesday for sure'

I saw it and I said they had decent presentations and even mentioned one of their linkup together what I mean, if YOU didn't see in my post is that they weren't anything special to the point Schurrle can't replace either of them. Just look at the vid yuvala posted with all hazard touches in the match and you'll see that he linked up with Lampard 2-3 times, with Mata a couple of them, but most time he received the ball near the midfield line and found his way through the attacking field, receiving many of those passes from Azpili who was the closest behind him. If you replace Mata or Willian for Schurrle and Hazard keeps his level, the quality will still be there. The same way people are generalizing our defense issues - we don't have a problem defending set-pieces, we had a problem defending set-pieces last match; they're generalizing the attacking midfield in my opinion. Mata and Willian weren't even part of the top three players in the match, Hazard and Lampard were the best duo by a mile, and Azpili is a third for me, but I feel like Ramires had a better match than Mata or Willian. But as Hazard killed it and we were indeed very creative, the credit goes to the whole attacking bunch when the most creative players were Hazard and Lampard, not Hazard and Mata or Willian. Also I'm only asking Schurrle to play, I don't see how that would detract anything...

I've complained about a few things concerning Hazard this season and at the top of my mind I can remember three of them, all of which he didn't show against Sunderland. 1) falls too much - not necessarily diving, he rarely dives, but he usually falls 4-5 times a match expecting a foul to be called and it isn't because in England they allow more contact. I think after playing so long in a league where fouls would be called in that kind of contact, it's natural and sort of instinctive for him to fall expecting the foul. He is touched in most of those plays. I don't remember him falling one single time and it not being a foul. It's part of his adaptation and I'm glad he stayed stood. 2) shooting on goal. That complaint I had more often. He needed to try shooting more, to dare to take a risk. In the post-match interview Choulo posted he says it's his job to make assists. Yeah, he can assist like a wizard (I will never forget his start of season for us last year), but he can also score. I hope he keeps his shooting boots, whether he scores or not because it gives him confidence and with his dribbles and how he sneaks into defenses, his style begs him to shoot more. 3) where he dribbles. I remember complaining about it only against Southampton, but he was perfect on that against Sunderland. He's a good dribbler, but there's always the chance of the opponent anticipating it. If he's moving vertically to the attack, high pace and objectively, if he misses the ball it's just an attack wasted. Against Southampton he dribbled to try to transition from defense and that's dangerous because look at the vid Yuvala posted. Hazard is rarely marked by only one opponent. It's normally two and quite often three guys against him. If instead of passing the ball and try to transition from defense to attack passing, he tries to do it dribbling his way when he's still too deep in the field and chances of a counter-attack are slim, it isn't objective and it can be dangerous because as there are always many guys around him, he can lose the ball and we could be surprised by a dangerous attack by the opposition. It didn't happen once against Sunderland as far as memory goes. He dribbled superbly and always in the place and in the moment that would be more productive for us. All in all he improved in every single area he had problem before. People were saying he wasn't consistent enough because of that. Either he didn't dribble in the attack enough, or didn't shoot enough, or didn't dare to play more boldly, or just got stopped a few times because he felt the opponent's touch was enough to call a foul. He fixed all that, he showed the quality we all he has and I hope he and Mourinho acknowledges it - especially the last two. We need him to shoot more and we need him to dribble as he did in the attacking half. Those were the things preventing him from shining in other matches and he took care of all of them at once.

to be fair although Mata and Willian weren't bad, Hazard carried the attack all by himself. I guess anyone else replacing Mata and Willian wouldn't make us worse. They linked up, had a few passes - the best from the duo was that through ball from Willian to Mata inside the box still in the first half, but I guess Mata's shot or cross was blocked. I don't think Hazard's great match had anything to do with them. Hazard linked more with Lampard and Azpilicueta... Regardless of that is about time Schürrle gets a start again (feels like forever). I'd have him exactly because while decent, Mata and Willian didn't do anything special.

Like the beast he was yesterday Gus got it right, he was unplayable. So happy we have this guy playing for us!!!

goal of the season... I doubt anyone will do better than that...

I think in terms of scoreline, yes, we stumbled because my heard stopped and my blood ran cold when Ki the Korean kid had a Hazard moment during stoppage time and passed to the guy - that should have shot (and would probably score) and then when that guy passed back to him, only he literally stumbled (okay more like slipped) and the danger was put away. If we haven't conceded stupidly in three previous occasions I wouldn't have a heart attack at that moment and stop living at the early age of 33. Now performance wise, we were very solid and as I just said in the match's thread, even if Sunderland are the at the bottom of the table, they didn't play like that and this same side beat Manchester City in the Stadium of the Light just 10 days ago. They're playing MUCH better under Gus (although it could be new manager honeymoon more than anything else, time will say how much Gus really improved them for real). I don't pick opponents, we play the team we're drawn to play that week game and against sides playing worse than Sunderland did yesterday we've done worse this season. My fave part of the article is the pic (kidding, Lex). It seems like some sort of blue animals, standing (or sitting) there watching the beast Hazard

Eden Hazard... sublime, can't find another word to describe the kid. He's 22 and I don't have a problem with his consistency fluctuating for now, although of course I wish he played more often like this. I know at some point he will be playing like this every single match and had an odd bad match. I'm waiting that day patiently (although I do think it's time for me to already start showing improvement in 'starting' the season earlier, I expect him to have a better start next season). that's the man I keep saying is the best talent in our team, the Balon d'Oro material (for the future, the only player in our team that could run for that) and if I had been demanding from him lately is because I know that's what he can deliver. I'm going to be softer on a player I know there's only so much of a roof on their current form. If I'm harsher on Eden (and I'm not that harsh on him honestly) is because he can deliver matches likes yesterday much more often. It's just me trying to push him somehow (almost like pleading) to play like this more often. We need it. I feel like I jinxed Willian one of the few comments I had in the live match thread was about his flair and how imo in the last month I should be him and two more players instead of discussing if Mata or Oscar should be #10. From that moment on (when I commentated) he dropped some of his level. But it's still undeniable that we don't have another player like him in the team. He has class that reminds of Mata's class. He works hard as much as Oscar does. His touch and control ball is second to absolutely no one in our team. He thinks fast like Mata and simple like Oscar and he can do runs like Hazard (although he's clearly slower). We need to develop this guy, to give him confidence and minutes. He's been having those glimpses of class football because he's still adapting - just like Eden and Oscar were last year. Of course, based on yesterday this team should be Hazard + 10 other players, but I do feel like Willian should be starting much more matches for us. We need to build his momentum because he can offer us something none of our other 5 AMs can. Lampard had a magic game and I think as an unit we worked amazingly well. They were a good side against us yesterday. They didn't play as the bottom team of the table, but we worked very well to prevent them from doing anything in that match (except for distributing them goals for no reason. Our defense: Terry and Ivanovic are tired. Luiz needs to recover from injury asap simply because we need rotation. JT is by far our best defender this season, we shouldn't burn him out. He's had injury problems in the latest seasons and we should protect our most reliable defender, not wear him down. As bad as Cahill + Luiz can be I hope we get to play them at least against Crystal and Sunderland, not because I'm pointing my finger on JTs mistakes today (and last match too), but the guy is no kid anymore and we should protect him physically. I'm not going to overreact about the overall defense. We've been alternating some good and bad moments there. Brain-farts everywhere and Luiz isn't even playing. While those things are concerning, I don't think there's anything to do except ask those guys to keep concentration at all times. It used to be a problem only Luiz had and people crucify him for that. We had the same problem in the last three matches we've played from different players. What we do need is rotation, Cahill has been decent enough and I'm sure Luiz can match his level. We only have three CBs ready to play the first team (Ivanovic's been wore out in the LB, I can't count him as a CB too), we must rotate them because now it's Luiz who's injured, next we don't know... Hopefully the poor set-piece defending was an isolated event last night... I remember us being quite consistent on it so far... We've conceded a thousand corners against Basel and we were pretty consistent defending them. I think last night was a mix of bad lucky, poor decisions and mainly tiredness. We're just starting December, I hope Luiz is fit next match and the three of them are able to keep themselves our of injury for the rest of the season. It's Luiz's injury that is causing us problems now as our defenders are clearly tired. Oh and one more thing: I'm happy we've coped between four lines with being behind the scoreline. It's great we have a guy like Mourinho at the dugout who can fix things in the interval, through pep talk or hair dryer treatment, or who can come with tactics that leave our opponents confused, lost and unresponsive. But given the squad we have, the players starting matches for us every week we should be able to turn things around with those players doing it on themselves. They have quality to beat Sunderland and Southampton as they showed. It's great Mourinho can come and rescue us, but I was so happy we were able to react on our own, quite quickly, yesterday. It gives them confidence and honestly, makes me more confident too and relieved.

113 points... I feel like a rock star

officiating has been shocking... Colback should have been sent off, it seemed to have been a subtle touch on that Ba shot...

doesn't matter. Where do I sign for him to stay forevah and evah?

HAZARD YOU SEXY BEAST

Hazard awesome in the attack, our best defender... this kid is

Meu Deus... Said it's not Torres' day. Mourinho should spare him the embarrassment

this is for a second yellow and mickey mouse officiating started...

Mata is anonymous in the second and it's clearly not Torres' day, can Mourinho change it already? Although it seems our biggest problem here is the clueless defense...

and they say we don't need Luiz...

I meant a goal for us...

an early goal in the second half would be nice

it's never good to concede, but I'm happy that for once our players were able to fix their messes without Mourinho intervention. We have plenty of top players that should be able to react on their own. Loved their attitude even if it's against Sunderland... it gives them confidence and it releases a bit of pressure from Mourinho who has to constantly think of what to do to fix a team that has all tools to do it on their own

and lol @ Suarez having a 3rd career hat-trick against Norwich which is why I made him my captain this week instead of Aguero But playing like this Hazard will soon be my permanent captain in EPL fantasy. He's been amazing for us. The best player this match

GOLAZO HAZARD!!!!!