Missed the first 5 minutes...and a Torres goal.

Missed it too, supposed to be a peach. 3-0 up after 33 mins, cant do much better than that! Luiz is playing brilliantly, he should start in midfield every game.

Luiz is so clearly a midfielder. Not an anchor man, but he's definitely more suited to being in the middle.

Looking good so far.

Welcome back, Frank

Fantastic performance, we could even get a couple more goals yet.

Great to see Piazon get an assist within a minute of making his Premier League debut

edit: Wow! What a finish from Hazard!

Great performance, dont get carried away though, Villa were very very poor.

Norwich away next will be a hard game, our players should be up for it and confident, but hopefully wont be too cocky.

Indeed. Villa were wide open.

8-0 victory. Not a bad start to Christmas

Brad Guzan played quite well, but we made every other Villa player look abysmal today. great performance from everyone. Solid in defence, fluid going forward, 7 different scorers, an assist and a penalty won - but missed - by a player making his debut.......could have easily gone into double figures.

Nando's header was ridiculous

To think after the opening couple of games some Chelsea fans mocking Rafa for playing boring defensive football LOL.

Christmas is getting better

Rafa has sorted out our defensive problems, RDM was pretty much going all out attack and it just wasnt working. Now we seem a lot more balanced and difficult to beat, and with all our creative players we will create chances and score goals too.

I think you will be hard pressed to find a fan who says Rafa hasnt improved us, because he obviously has, other than the two dodgy games against Corinthians and West Ham, hes hardly put a foot wrong. Clearly is good with tactics, whereas RDM was questionable at times.

Doesnt mean us Chelsea fans have to like Rafa as a person though,, and i still cant see him staying on beyond this season. Jose or Pep will come in.

Well if there isn't a Chelsea fan out there who doesnt think Rafa has improved you, whey not move on and support the team and forget the Di Matteo 16 min chants :sleep:, Rafa out signs.

I can understand Chelsea fans may not feel like singing Rafa's name but it's the club you love and he's making your club better. So just leave the managerial appointment, I mea like you say it's only likely to be a short tenure anyway!

Its a difficult one, he has widely been disliked by chelsea fans from his time at liverpool, clashes with Jose and calling us fake fans. RDM also won us the CL so many think he was harshly removed, so the RDM chants will probably go on. Interestingly i never heard any rafa boos today, so there isnt as much venom now. The result obviously helped. Never really saw any rafa out signs either.

I think there's a good chance Jose will come back given he's likely to get the sack at RM, and I thin SAF will do at least one more season at Manchester United. However, there is no way Pep Guardiola is coming to Chelsea. He won't want to come to a club which is so choppy/changey regarding the manger and someone like RA which wants instant results.

If Jose goes somewhere else (i.e. gets sacked before the season ends) and Chelsea don't get their reported second choice Klopp (which is also unlikely) then Rafa may well have to stay. Still looking at this result (8-0) Rafa is not doing a bad job at Chelsea, and now Chelsea could be considerd potential title contenders given Manchester United's potential to drop more points this seaon, and Man City only really showing their best in the second half of games could end up costing them as well.

Works both ways though, Jose wasn't exactly dignified to Liverpool fans, yet he'd be welcomed by a fair few . Rafa was an opposition manager at the time and there had been some tasty clashes between the 2 clubs and none of what he said was really THAT bad? I can understand you not welcoming the appointment sure, but by your own admission you can see the improvement already so you can just stay with him (without cheering him) and see what he can bring you?

Glad there were no boos but like I say RDM chants at 16 mins is a bit weird and pointless. I did get told Rafa out signs were on show, maybe not many thoug so maybe not too big a deal.

Rafa has Torres firing too who'd have thought it!

How has anything been sorted ? We're playing more direct football but we haven't played enough games yet to prove we're more balanced and difficult to beat. Two god awful draws vs City and Fulham, and then a defeat to West Ham was a really poor start. Thumped Nordsjaelland which was the pure minimum, and then finally picked up our first three points in the league against a poor Sunderland side. Headed off to Japan where we weren't prepared at all for the final once again. Lets see where we are at the end of January. If we can go on a winning run I think the majority of fans will be converted.

Sounds like a great game..and I missed it.

Watched the highlights, that was certainly some header by Torres, how far out was he ?
Just watching the best bits, it's difficult to comment on the game as a whole. It looked like one-way traffic, and we could have had 10, 11, 12, if we had taken all our chances ?
Still, it's a great confidence booster for everyone. There were some lovely flowing moves, even if we did catch Villa on a day they will want to forget. They beat Liverpool at Anfield last week didn't they ?

As for Rafa, I agree entirely with Leo in his previous post. It's too early to say with any certainty that he's made that much difference. I salute the fact that he's playing Luiz in midfield, but wasn't that forced on him by injuries and suspensions. Either that, or he's been reading our thread.

Torres has improved..a bit. Though being cruel, you might say he couldn't get much worse. But he's getting goals, and that's what Chelsea pay him for.
All right, I will give Rafa credit for tightening up the defence. Robbie did appear to have lost the plot in that respect, we looked a shambles at times.

But the reason I'm not over-excited is that Liverpool often looked great during Rafa's reign, only for him to start tinkering around and take them back where they started. Liverpool fans won't agree, for some reason they worship the ground he walks on. But Rafa could probably have taken them back to their previous heights, if only he had learned to leave things alone when they were working.

Could easily have been double figures. Villa were beyond awful, but it's still great to see us keep going instead of sitting back on a lead. Goes to show that it is always better for us to keep piling on the pressure rather than inviting it.

Solid in defence, solid and creative in CM, attacking players causing constant threats to opposition defence......fairly perfect day for us, but you can't judge the manager on games like these. Thumping Leeds and Nords should be expected, as should beating Sunderland and Villa.
He's known for needlessly tinkering with his teams, so only time will tell if what he's getting right is through luck or judgement. I tend to believe that if managers know what they are doing then they don't piss around for the sake of it.

No - I won't really disagree with that. Rafa took us all the way to a CL win, a final and 2nd in the league, but sometimes he just over cooked things when they were pretty near perfect as it was. You could see what he wanted but it was just that he looked for things to be to perfect.

But - he's got a much stronger squad with you guys and isn't looking to do anything long term. I think given the length of time he'll be with you he'll do everything you need done. He'll tighten things up, instil some discipline and confidence within the players, get the best out of people and help push on to either make certain of top four and even see if the PL is still an option.

Thanks Ninjy, sounds like a great performance, even if Villa were atrocious.
I wonder if two from Mikel, Oscar, Lampard, Luiz and Ramires could keep us going for the remainder of the season in those problem positions ? It might be better than rushing into a panic buy in January, and we have other players out on loan.
We will still need a striker with Sturridge on his way out. Again, I would prefer we waited and went for the best, unless we can persuade Falcao to make the move. I don't know the terms of Lukaku's loan, and apparently he's happy to stay with WBA until the end of the season. That is a difficult one, even if Torres continues to impress, we will still need cover.

Or maybe we won't. I think we need one CF, Demba Ba will do. And we are definitely short of DM's. Essien and Romeu are out and Mikel is off to ACON. We don't have a natural DM left! This means trouble against tougher teams than Villa who rarely tested Lampard and Luiz defensively.

Yes, Rafa might be in the right place at the right time. Ironically, right at this moment, we probably need a bit of experimentation..and I've never had any doubt about his tactical knowledge, he's totally absorbed with the game.
We have the players, and with a couple of additions the potential for creating a great team. We just need to find the right system to get the best out of them, while keeping everyone happy. Providing he doesn't upset the key players, Rafa's appointment might turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
That's my hope anyway, with fingers firmly crossed.

Yes, I agree. I just don't want us to go out and buy anyone who happens to be available, with time running out at the end of January. I would also like to see if we can really convert Luiz into the midfielder that I (and many others) always thought he could be.
If we are able to buy some really top quality players in January, players who are going to be part of Chelsea's future, that would also be great of course.

We must get in one striker to replace Sturridge.
An absolute must.