From fourth to first in five days?

"What were the chances of that happening?"

In Jose we trust.

We shouldn't be anywhere near top spot, but he has managed to get us there with a dozen or so games left to play.

He is right when he says that our team can only get better.

The signing of Matic has made an enormous difference. Everyone has been saying that we needed a player of his type, why we took so long in deciding to make such a signing is a mystery to me. To be honest, I wasn't absolutely sure Matic quite had the quality we needed, but I'm more than happy to be proved wrong.
The thing is, having a player like that sitting in front of the defence takes a lot of pressure of other players and their game improves accordingly. Still a few things to sort out, but it's all beginning to take shape nicely.

I was also at the game, slow start but once the first went in it never looked like anything other than an easy win for us, which it was. Hazard was beyond fantastic and by far and away the best player on the park. Every time he touched the ball you could feel something was going to happen, Newcastle looked scared of him.

Salad looked nervous when he came on, to be expected on his debut i guess. A few bad touches and he should really have scored too.

Overall a great performance for us, top of the league and in a great place going forward, hitting form at the right time!

Sad to see Mata being played incorrectly again. Completely the wrong buy for a club with uniteds problems

How long before one of the Spanish 'super powers' come in with a world record bid for Hazzard?
Obviously, PSG could also bid for him, but i can't see Hazzard wanting to play in a much weaker league at this stage of his career.

A word about Etto.
As a short term emergency, i think he's done a pretty good job so far. Better than i expcted from him that's for sure!

Hazard will never get the same hype as Bale, but I'd expect Barca to start sniffing around soon.

Eto'o is a lot like Torres - some nice touches, but I'd never back him to score. That United match was weird.

There's no doubting Bale's a talented individual, but Hazzard has more all round talent and is a better team player than Bale!

Doesn't matter - he's not British and he's not scoring 30 yard screamers every week. He won't get as much hype and other clubs won't bid that high for him.

Talent has nothing to do with with hype, A player for Chelsea will never get the hype the same player would get if playing for Spurs, For Chelsea being a great player is taken as read but for Spurs its "XYZ player taking Spurs to the Champions League" etc, also in this case Hazzard is going along doing his job without any fuss, The things he does are something that real watchers of football like to see and appricate, Someone like Bale is more of a Youtube footballer that the casual football fan will stand up for in shock, Hazzard is a more subtle footballer, little things like his pass to Eto'o that go under the radar are his gifts.

He not the sort the player to make a big fanfare to mark his arrival on his world stage, Although he is a long way from being "world class" he is looking more and more like a player that can be and when he is he wont arrive with a massive fanfare and brass band that comes along with players like Bale but we will just turn around and there he will be with his player of the year trophy

I hope you are right about Eden, he seems to have settled down nicely after a bit of a problem with Jose at the start - didnt he miss a game?

Jose certainly seems to have made him work himself into being a better player

It was always going take time for a player like Hazzard to prove himself to Jose, He has already said he a very different player to the one he met on first day of training.

Its up to Hazzard how good he will end up being, At the moment it seems he has the tools and he is at the right club to get to where he wants to be, It just depends on him keeping his head down and doing what his manager says

Terry still out tomorrow, but Torres is back.....

Not eager for Torres to start even though he was getting in to some form before his injury. Eto'o hasn't been amazing, but he works really well with Hazard, Willian and Oscar. Eto'o has lost most of his pace, but there isn't the desperation with him or the something to prove that seems to scupper Torres and unbalance the whole team. We've finally moved away from the pass it to Torres and try and set him up thinking, it would be a shame to go backwards again.

One thing in our favour is he's Belgian rather than South American and might prefer living in London. We've also got his brother to merge into the team soon and he's married and his mrs is settled in London. Our Brazilians are more likely to be lured away by the Barcas and Real Madrids.

Agreed. Even in the recent games where Eto'o hasn't scored he's at least been linking up quite well with Hazard etc. He's been showing signs of improvement.

Shame Terry's out of tomorrow's game. Hopefully be back for the City match on the weekend.

We should beat west brom without JT if we are truly to be considered title contenders.

I think that's a very accurate observation. I've been saying for a long time that if Torres could accept his deficiencies and adjust his game, he could still be top striker. Obviously it was more difficult for him with a £50m price tag and all the media attention, but it would have been a wise career move.
I still wouldn't swap Torres for most of the other strikers in the Premiership (Giroud for example) but he spent years trying in vain to prove that he was still in the world class bracket. He clearly wasn't, those injuries had taken something away from his game and he needed to adjust with the help of the coaching staff.
Eto'o is very astute, he knows his limitations and uses his experience and guile to create openings. He was superb in the first half against Man City without doing anything spectacular. The downside is that Eto'o is clearly short of stamina, 60 mins is about his maximum. Perhaps the answer is to use them both sparingly ?

I would also like to see Schurrle given another chance as a "false no 9". He's always ready to shoot on sight, and he has pace and strength. Worth another try ?

schurrle is a bit greedy at the moment, and he is shooting way to hard usually resulting in "row z".

He needs to get another couple to settle down.

And Man City should beat Norwich and Arsenal should not let in 5 if they are to be considered title contenders.

Football is not like that (and more so Chelsea).

West Brom have done quite well against us lately (and in the past) at home.

Was less worried about the City game if I am honest.

This could be a very very tough match for us, Part of me at the moment would take a draw

We definitely play better when teams attack us, but when they park the bus it gets a bit tiresome.

In the old days though, we would lose those games by a counter attack in the 89th minute.

At least these days we are pushing to get a goal until the final whistle.

A bit greedy at the moment? He's barely played recently.

He only had one shot when he came on against Newcastle - the one where Ba wanted the ball but had no real cause for complaint as he'd stopped running. Schurrle also set up Salah for a shot too (his first chance of the two).

I think that's a very accurate observation. I've been saying for a long time that if Torres could accept his deficiencies and adjust his game, he could still be top striker. Obviously it was more difficult for him with a £50m price tag and all the media attention, but it would have been a wise career move.
I still wouldn't swap Torres for most of the other strikers in the Premiership (Giroud for example) but he spent years trying in vain to prove that he was still in the world class bracket. He clearly wasn't, those injuries had taken something away from his game and he needed to adjust with the help of the coaching staff.
Eto'o is very astute, he knows his limitations and uses his experience and guile to create openings. He was superb in the first half against Man City without doing anything spectacular. The downside is that Eto'o is clearly short of stamina, 60 mins is about his maximum. Perhaps the answer is to use them both sparingly ?

I would also like to see Schurrle given another chance as a "false no 9". He's always ready to shoot on sight, and he has pace and strength. Worth another try ?

We are still more then able to lose to a 89 minute counter attack.

At the moment the system and the players lack that little bit extra to combat defenisve football (hate the term parking the bus as its disrespectful and over simplistic), It where a top class striker would come into play.

Pushing to get a goals to the final whistle is our biggest problem, At this point we need to but I expect come next season we will be playing in a more intellenget way and wont need to dragging our feet over the finishing line

Tonight's team:
Cech (c); Ivanovic, Cahill, Luiz, Dave; Ramires, Matic; Willian, Oscar, Hazard; Eto’o.
Subs: Schwarzer, Cole, Mikel, Lamps, Schurrle, Salah, Torres.