Closed Chelsea 3-1 Southampton

[AndersonBLUE 819]

I swear people here give absolutely no credit to the opposition. Its like all Chelsea have to do is show up and a win is guaranteed. As for those calling Mourinho poor... Good Lord.... I can't think of a more idiotic thing to say, its like people have only been watching football for 4 months.

IT WILL TAKE LONGER THAN 4 MONTHS FOR THIS YOUNG TEAM TO UNDERSTAND AND CORRECTLY IMPLEMENT THE BRAND OF FOOTBALL JOSE INTENDS TO PLAY! THIS ISN'T GOING TO HAPPEN OVERNIGHT WITH THE YOUNG SQUAD WE HAVE...

Why is this so obvious to me and not to other Chelsea fans who have seen us go through 5 managers in 3 yrs???

very strange group of fans I must say.

I agree, it's very tiring being on this forum lately. Full of doubters

[quickpassnmove 924]

A weird performance in that Southampton looked good, but never really created much whereas we had a poor first half and then came out in the second half looking like a different team.

Ivanovic was brilliant today, marshalling that right-side on his own. His part in the first goal illustrates his importance at set-pieces.

Azpi always looks to do something when he gets the ball, although at times the fact that he's a rightie playing on the left is painfully obvious.

JT and Cahill didn't have to do a huge amount, but they looked fairly solid doing it and their goals were massive.

Rami was a machine. Essien really needs more games. He relies on his strength more because he can't get away from players like he used to, but he showed some nice touches. Best not to dwell on his first touch too much.

Hazard seems to be completely under-rated, but I think he's invaluable at just being a consistent protector of the ball in the final third. He just needs to start showing that magic...the x-factor that we all know he has.

Oscar and Mata don't work together well. They cannibalise each others' space and both are looking to set the tempo which leaves gaps in key areas. It's looking increasingly like it's one or the other.

Torres looked like a part of the team, rather than a misfiring outcast. Needs to add goals to his game but did well.

Ba simply caused problems for this Southampton team. He's a decent option off the bench, but everytime I see him I just think Lukaku should be taking his place in the team. Nice bloke apparently, but I have little love for him.

Lamps was good when he came on, working hard and putting some nice passes in. He recycled play well for Terry's goal and that's something we miss with other options.

So after the doom and gloom of Basel it was actually a fairly comfortable win in the end. A lot of good points and plenty to work on, but the same underlying issues remain.

Hazard needs options because he's very frequently doubled, but also he needs to lay it off more often when he can. I think he's not getting enough options, getting isolated on the flank so often. It's unusual to see Eden laying the ball off and cutting inside the right back before the centre back or CM can close him down. Something needs to change there.

[Reddish-Blue 2,231]

Good to see a solid second-half performance...when that early goal went in, I was fearing the worst.

Essien was a bit rusty but he should be able to start the odd HOME game.

JT scored against Spurs when we needed it, and he does it again against Southampton....it will be a sad day when JT has to hang up the boots

[The_Flash 1,144]

Good to see a solid second-half performance...when that early goal went in, I was fearing the worst.

Essien was a bit rusty but he should be able to start the odd HOME game.

JT scored against Spurs when we needed it, and he does it again against Southampton....it will be a sad day when JT has to hang up the boots

Agreed very sad day.

He was talking after the game on chelsea tv and said he's not he most popular person particularly with the press.

Aww don't worry we love ya John, our wonderful captain

[robdog 2,084]

Hazard needs options because he's very frequently doubled, but also he needs to lay it off more often when he can. I think he's not getting enough options, getting isolated on the flank so often. It's unusual to see Eden laying the ball off and cutting inside the right back before the centre back or CM can close him down. Something needs to change there.

Maybe bring in his brother & let him fly down the Right flank. Problem solved

[Stats 6,987]

Good win in the end. Have to admit when it got into the second half I thought it would be very hard to beat Southampton's pressing style however we completely dominated second half. Excellent work from Mourinho and the team. Gave them no time on the ball and we thoroughly deserved the victory. Nice to see Mata play the 90 mins and grab an assist. Hopefully he can keep up with more consistent performances. Nice to see Ba get his first PL goal of the season as well. Was a real handful for Southampton when he came on. Don't really have a bad word to say about anyone. Essien was quite sloppy for the goal and looked out of his depth at times but he done some aspects well. Ivanovic was a beast at RB. Looking at there team, just shows the quality of Shaw again. 18 and plays so well. Ivanovic got past him a couple times but thought he was excellent. Hope to see him in a blues shirt one day. Rate him so highly.

Also I don't normally do this but just wanted to point out that @Ryan Fong you never got back to me. You stated in the original match thread that Mata should not play and would be "eaten alive" by Wanyama. You also followed it up by stating that "it sounds arrogant but its a fact". I challenged you on both of these posts and surprise, surprise you did not reply to me. I hope you realise it was quite an idiotic statement to make and now you have been made to eaten your words. End of that but think before you speak next time please.

Bring on Sunderland!

[Tomo 21,685]

Jay Rodriguez has 3 in 4 against us now, just what we need, another bogey player.

[Blue Armour 4,168]

Today's game was exciting...

It's a good thing we were down a goal cause Chelsea probably would of played with less urgency than they did today.

I agree with other posters, Mata+oscar or Mata-hazard or Oscar and Hazard usually do work. However, its the three combined that dont work....

I think the three combined would have worked against teams that press high up the pitch and leave gaps for the three of them to exploit. (Like Arsenal/Tottenham). Provided they have the stability of defensive Central midfield behind them (Ramires+Mikel)...It would have been a good lineup for todays game if we hadn't gone a goal down and needed an extra striker to break down the withdrawn Southampton defense.

I personally prefer a pure winger in place of an AM, just to give a different dimension in the build up play.

[Ryan Fong 2,776]

Good win in the end. Have to admit when it got into the second half I thought it would be very hard to beat Southampton's pressing style however we completely dominated second half. Excellent work from Mourinho and the team. Gave them no time on the ball and we thoroughly deserved the victory. Nice to see Mata play the 90 mins and grab an assist. Hopefully he can keep up with more consistent performances. Nice to see Ba get his first PL goal of the season as well. Was a real handful for Southampton when he came on. Don't really have a bad word to say about anyone. Essien was quite sloppy for the goal and looked out of his depth at times but he done some aspects well. Ivanovic was a beast at RB. Looking at there team, just shows the quality of Shaw again. 18 and plays so well. Ivanovic got past him a couple times but thought he was excellent. Hope to see him in a blues shirt one day. Rate him so highly.

Also I don't normally do this but just wanted to point out that @Ryan Fong you never got back to me. You stated in the original match thread that Mata should not play and would be "eaten alive" by Wanyama. You also followed it up by stating that "it sounds arrogant but its a fact". I challenged you on both of these posts and surprise, surprise you did not reply to me. I hope you realise it was quite an idiotic statement to make and now you have been made to eaten your words. End of that but think before you speak next time please.

Bring on Sunderland!

LMFAO, didn't expect you to call me out to emphasis I was wrong hahaha !

I am more than happy to be proven wrong by Mata and he was very good last night.

"it sounds arrogant but its a fact"-- I was talking about Oscar being more capable to deal with physical challenges, not Mata will be eaten alive part, READ.

It's my opinion that Mata will have a hard time to deal with Wanyama, I don't need to think twice to speak out MY OPINION. And I am glad and was hoping Mata to prove me wrong and he did. You got a problem with that?

Geez, get a chill pill mate.

P.s. the reason why I didn't reply your posts is because I found that you are quite rude, stupid this idiotic that, I couldn't be arsed to reply you simple as that.

[Strike 6,981]

Better not draw conclusions over one game but this was a good win. Especially after a stupid start

[coolhead23 1,146]

Great second half performance ... Like Jose said Southampton didnt expected us to come out they way we did ...i guess most of the Chelsea fans didnt expect it specially after the way we played in the first half. Good performance against a tight defensive unit.

Had the match gone on for little longer I m sure Ivanovic would had murdered the opposition player.

[Clevemayer 764]

Voted Ramy, also it was a tight race between him and Torres.

[Special Juan 27,106]

Essien was poor before so I do not know what possessed Jose to start him yesterday and that was not even considering his mistake.

Once again are really slow and drab start at home again, I'm not sure how you change it buts it's very predictable now, especially as I had twenty pound on saints to score first.

Really god win in the end, delighted with three points, but can't hide from the fact I am worried about these slow starts and lack of choice over starting eleven.

[Barbara 15,149]

Well, I was having a bad day - reason why I stayed out of the live thread. I was in bitchy mood and my Twitter timeline is a testament to that, so I didn't want to spoil the thread just because I was moody.

It was a very good second half, but all the problems we've seen in matches such as Basel, West Brom, 2nd half against Newcastle, 1st half against Tottenham, ManUtd, Basel (home) were all there in the first half.

First of all I had problems with Essien and Mazacar when the lineup came - and I feel very backed up by their performances to have felt like that. I want Essien to start some matches for us, but those matches have to be against Sunderland and Crystal, not an ascending (although now descending) side like Southampton who had a very good defense and such a decent midfield. It felt like suicide. I said in Mata's thread physical players need more match rhythm than highly technical players. This is clear shown by Essien and Mata today. One struggled a lot with the basics of his game because he doesn't have enough matches under his belt whereas the other was able to bring his best goods to the match.

Mazacar is still a big no for me. I'm willing to see any combination of two out of the three: Mata/Oscar; Mata/Hazard; Oscar/Hazard, but I still think the three of them don't work together although on paper they should. Reality and theory don't ever walk together though. I still want to see a 4-3-3 with Oscar playing where Lamps played against WHU and Mata as an AM and Hazard can even be the other AM I wouldn't care because the dynamics would be different from 4-2-3-1. I still feel that might be our best formation and I'm frustrated that now that he's tested even bloody 4-4-2 Mourinho is yet to test this 4-3-3. I have a feeling we could shine with that formation.

Hazard needs to learn when he should dribble and when he shouldn't. A few times yesterday he dribbled in our half, lost the ball and thank God Soton were playing their worst (and most disinterested) match I've watched this season otherwise they could have capitalized our terrible 1st half. He should dribble when he's aiming for the goal whether in a counter-attack in midfield or near the box. Dribbling his way through 2-3 players in the defensive half is a bad decision and I hope Mourinho talks to him about that.

Really happy with the work from both our strikers. Can someone give Ba some red tinted glasses with aap3 logo in the middle so he always plays as well as he does against Soton? That way he can imagine playing them

Our defense was good and despite Essien's horrible mistake, why can Rodriguez run and reach that ball and neither Azpili or Iva can (except for the obvious)? It doesn't exempt Essien at all, but I guess they were still a bit disconnect from play in the very first seconds whereas Rodriguez was quite alert.

Lampard... how much I bitched when Mourinho brought him for Oscar and not Schurrle. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of the Lampard haters around here who even wish we haven't renewed his contract. He was one of the most tired players for us against Basel it was just an unnecessary risk imo. He could feel the weight of three consecutive matches in 9 days and it could have been ugly. I would have gone with André and I still don't get what he did to Mourinho as he barely featured in November (didn't have one single start) when he had an amazing October imo. I'm happy Lamps didn't feel much the amount of matches, but some of his missed passes were clearly because he didn't have legs anymore. His vision in the ball for Mata in the second goal was highly praised by me on Twitter.

As CHOULO19 reminded me on Twitter, Mata is very important for our set pieces. Set pieces are a huge part of modern football and many teams rely a lot on it whether it's corners or free-kicks. If memory doesn't fail me, Mata had 8 set-piece assists among his 20 total assists last season and he's our best set-piece taker for assists (not for direct shots though imo, then it's Lamps). Set pieces aside though, he was fantastic for us yesterday. He had a slow 1st half that could be because of Mazacar playing together and also because the team was apathetic imo, but he was amazing in the second. I hope to see him against Sunderland and who knows, maybe against Stoke too.

One last comment...more like a plead. Can Mourinho give André Schürrle playing time and maybe even a start?

[bushman 2,043]

Well, after seeing yesterday´s lineup, I thought to myself. Finally, a bit of rotation is used.

A couple of surprises Mata & Essien. I thought Essien as DM would work well. However, he disappointed me. His blunder caused the 1st goal. Oh well, mistakes are made, but he still did not play well afterwards & was pulled off rightfully so. His time at Chelsea just might be over, I feel.

As I read recently, Jose claimed not to start the 3 Amigos.It did not work again yesterday. When Oscar was subbed, things were getting better.

One thing still amazes me, Jose´s ability to change the team, from 4-3-2-1 to 4-4-2 or whatever is needed. No matter what people say about Jose, he is still a master of adapting at any given time of the game, I feel.

In the 2nd half, Chelsea were better than South by far. They were no match for Chelsea, physically, technically.

I still feel Chelsea team is in 3rd gear & getting to 4th, 5th in December. By the end of January I foresee Chelsea in 6th gear, just like BMW, smooth riding. This team has not peaked yet.

[Milan 17,835]

[didierforever 7,349]

C-L-Ls.

[MHL 47 378]

Well, it all turned out all right in the end. In 2004 James Beattie scored in about 13 seconds against us - we ended up winning that one as well. For as well as Southampton played in the first half, they created nothing. It was a decent defensive performance apart from that one brain-dead moment. Ivanovic reacted well after his 'moment' on Tuesday and was superb. I thought the Ba substitution changed the game, he did really well when he came on, with a real determination about his play. Great work rate from him.

If we can squeeze a win mid-week, we're right in there and can try and put some pressure on L'Arse, building nicely into our game with them just before Xmas.

Just an interesting little thing about the first goal from a match goers perspective, one that the TV cameras' might not have picked up. Just before S'ton kicked off JT was waving Cech out of his six yard box, wanting Cech's starting position to be higher up the pitch. Cech did nothing, if he'd had a higher starting position he'd have probably gotten to the ball before the opposition player.

Terry went ballistic at him.