Carefree1991

I was one that thought that Matic was holding us back slightly and that Cesc deserved a starting place after showing what he was capable of last week. But looking closely today, Matic is the one who allows Hazard to not always track back. Matic plays on the left of the three central midfielders and when hazard doesn't track back, Matic shifts over and takes the opposition full back, with Kante and Oscar taking the positions of the two central players of how they would in a two man midfield. That's how I saw it today, and I suppose we could argue it was only Burnley. But Matic really impressed me today, as did Oscar. Great to see Moses pop up with a goal aswell!!!

The defence is at best good. But there is no excuse for the need of wanting players with better quality than what we have. Ivanovic is poor, Azpili is a right back, yes he can play left back and does a good job at it. But he is a right back, not playing him there is problem.

I think with the current squad we will finish in the top 6, potentially pushing for that 4th spot. We have same defence as last season, minus Baba which won't really impact our standings. But on the plus side we've added what looks to be a genuine back up striker in Batshuayi, over last seasons Falcao/Remy/Pato. Also added Kante, not much more needs to be said about what he brings. Plus, it looks to me that Hazard is at the races so far, which is a huge plus in our favour. Then there's the debate on Costa performing better this season, but we just never know what he's going to do on the day. The Manchester clubs are better than us it seems. Aside from them I wouldn't say any club is in a better position that us. Liverpool? Arsenal? Tottenham? All have problems aswell, in my opinion Tottenham probably with the least.

3-1

ooopppsss

Really pleased for Moses there

It's a joke how some players/clubs are protected and others treated like scum. Like someone posted earlier, I'm sure Mourinho's defensive football will now be tactically amazing and only a genius could pull it off. To be fair to TalkSport, DriveTime did pick up on the bias of MOTD regarding the Costa and Coquelin incidents.

If that fee is true then it could make sense to bring him, but not too sure at how true this fee is and where it comes from. The only reason I can think of is: that Chelsea and BMG have an agreement for him to play at BMG for the season. So the fee would be to cancel that agreement? As an inconvenience payment.

Agreed, Fabregas has played his way in and should be starting the next game. But when the starting line up was announced on Saturday it was not beyond belief that Fabregas wasn't starting.

5 minutes into the game?

Whether its through injury or not, changes were made. Fresh legs on the field. No, I can't see the problem with his changes, at least he's making them. I think it would be naive to make changes so soon after conceding on the 55th minute.

A game is 90minues though, you can't just use time to make your point seem thoughtful. In that case we won a 76min game with WHU......its bizarre and outrageous to say that. No it's not overly clever, but changes our shape and give us more of an attacking edge, which is what was needed. You can look at the majority of substitutes across the premier league and predict them. If he tried doing something different like bringing on RLC as a forward and it didn't work, imagine your reaction......you would be slating him more so than you are now. He made a change before the 83rd, changing personal. In the 55th minute, it is way to early make rash decisions, as a professional he maybe felt that too, he gave the players on the field some time to change the game themselves. They couldn't so he then changed it. What wrong with making these 'obvious' changes?

can't see how Conte is making decisions 10-15mins too late at all. West Ham scored, 3minutes later he made a substitute. Watford scored in the 55th minute, just under half the game to go, there is no need to make a rash decision at that time. He did give them 15mins and then made the correct changes. Now by no means I am saying he's played the perfect game because as a team we clearly aren't, but moaning about him giving the players some time is ludicrous.

I thought Oscar had a mixed game today, he did play some good stuff and put dangerous balls into the box a fair few times, just needs to deliver this more consistently . Similar feeling to others about Matic, defensively he is a good players, but now Kante is playing the deepest of the three and we are seeing Matic further up the pitch for us, it's hard to see what he offers going forward. There were a few times today he had the ball 20-25 yards from goal and didn't seem to know what to do with the ball. Although Fabregas did come on and changed the game, I dont feel he's the answer week in, week out. Really encouraging signs from Batshuayi today!!! Interesting 2 weeks left of the window now.

It's not vital.