Rahman looks shaky.
Loftus-Cheek looks good.
Fabregas....I haven't seen him and I don't think he's been mentioned at all.

Rahman improved as the game went on.
Loftus-Cheek unlucky to be subbed so early.
Costa looked a bit better.
Willian played well.

Not a great performance, but a solid win.


Don't understand why we saw the Zouma free-kick routine again. Hope we're done with that now.

As expected can tell nothing from that win (apart from Villa might be down by xmas).

Still too many players making very poor decisions.

Can see why Baba has not started until now. Still needs a lot of work on the training field to get use to the league and his teammates

Not great but a wins a win and that's all that was needed.
Costa looked much fitter.

A much needed win, and if Mozza can turn it all around convincingly, I'll be a happy man. No sign of Falcao, and I don't remember anyone on this thread welcoming his arrival at the club. Many supporters have called for RLC and Rahman to be given a go which has happened. Villa at home isn't the hardest of fixtures but they battled and didn't roll over.

Over at City, Sterling had a blinder, and he was first on my list early summer to bring in to relieve pressure from Hazard and offer something different. Was it R'mond who said he won't amount to much and is no Robben?!

Excellent business plan, Invest £49m + at least 160k per week basic wage on the base on one good season (which ended in failure) and his nationality and age to relive pressure and offer something different.

Also, nice to see Ramires bringing some stability and discipline to the team. A player I have never written off. R'mond? views?

But remember, along with Lallana and Kane, he is world class.
No further comment allowed from me. He complains

Even if was that good (which he is not and as yet have seen nothing to say he will be nothing more then a decent player for a top team) he would still not offer us any value for money.

Take Willian for example yes you could say if he was worth 30m surely Sterling is worth his fee but you also need to take into account wages. Willian is said to earn 80k per week where as Sterling is said to earn 160k. Totally unacceptable when you look at what our current players are earning. These players have actually done something in football. Also with what we have seen from Sterling one decent season and he would be knocking on the managers door asking for a new contract/pay raise.

Eden is already a better player and has more potential then Sterling has and yet is said to earn only 200k.

I'm flattered that you follow my posts.
Yes, I did think that Ramires had probably lost somthing over the past year or two. But I was a big fan before that, and nobody will be more pleased than me to be proved wrong.
Sterling ? Yes, he got a great hat trick yesterday. So did Walcott at the end of last season. I stick by what I said, I don't think he's another Arjen Robben.
That doesn't mean he's not a good player, perhaps a very good player. He's in a very good side, on paper the strongest in the PL. Time will tell, but I think he would have been a great buy at around £30m. The other £20m was presumably for his birth certificate.

Did you go to the game yesterday ? I didn't see any of it apart from the short highlights on MOTD. Did any individual performances stand out, good or bad ? I've heard Baba Rahman was very shaky during the first half hour or so, do you think Jose will forget that experiment for a while ?
I also gather RLC was playing a more attacking role with Fabregas alongside Ramires, seems strange to me. Surely the idea should be to groom RLC to play alongside Matic ?

Baba was very shakey, he showed some improvements as time went by and there was small bits that showed there is a decent player there but he still needs some work on the training pitch before we know what we have got.

RLC was decent but since he is young and English some people seem to have a much different understanding of the meaning of the word "decent". Tactically the sub at half time made a lot of sense. But a massive step in his education.

The only real positive from a individual POV and I think has already been mentioned was Costa looked fitter and more Costa like.

From a team POV we looked slightly better and was able to take advantage of some of Villa's mistakes which the last few weeks we would have been unable to have done plus made less major mistakes ourselves. We are far from being back but we have not gone backwards like we have for the most part this season

Thanks Don. I was ploughing through the hundreds of posts on WAGNH but some of the comments there are so bizarre you don't know what to believe. Always good to get the view of someone you can trust.

Taking yesterday's game as a starting point and with West Ham playing well this season hopefully we will be able to tell more from that a much better indicator of our progress

A good performance from someone doesn't negate the criticisms aimed at them. If Ramires can up his game in the same way that Willian has I don't think too many would have a problem with him. But it's hard to see him doing it after 2-3 poor seasons.

How long, exactly, does a player have to be bad before it's okay to suggest he might not get better?

who was it who used to declare that ramires and willian were two completely useless players?

Me, and i stand by that!
I always said they were ok for mid table/euro league level teams. We now look every bit a very average mid table team, so they are at their level. The rest of the team is so poor they are making themselves look good.
Neither would be anywhere near good enough for a top team playing well!

But Willian has played constantly well for us. It might not be the type of football you like to see but that's nothing to do with if he has "played well" and contributed to the success of the team.

Football is not a form of reality TV where populist opinions count for anything (no matter how much the comics try to turn it into that).

Your opinion (or anyone's else's for that matter) are not facts. The only fact's are is he has played at a certain level consistently to ensure that his team has been very successful. This is proven by the fact that the team he currently plays for (and was a regular part of) are the current league champions.

As you might expect, we will never agree about Willian. You say he was never good enough for a top team playing well. Forgetting Real Madrid. Barcelona and possibly Bayern Munich, I beg to differ. In the EPL, just off the top of my head I would take Willian over Navas (Man City), Depay (Man Utd) or Oxlade Chamberlain (Arsenal). With Sterling the Jury's still out as far as I'm concerned. Alexis Sanchez is a better player, I'll give you that.
By the way, I'm talking about his contribution over 90 minutes in a game, and playing 40- 50 games a season. A moment of brilliance every so often and then disappearing has never impressed me.

Ramires is a completely different type of player. At his best he was a manager's dream as a player. Totally unselfish and prepared to run himself into the ground. He hasn't been quite at his best for a couple of seasons, but if he's returning to his early form (as many are saying) he will again be an invaluable member of our squad. You can't just rely on players like Fabregas when the chips are down, even Cantona recognised the need for water carriers, every team needs them.

Pedro and Remy haven't travelled with the squad, so Hazard will surely be back in tomorrow.
I hope that's the only change.

Think they picked up some small injuries so with a game at the weekend prob sensible to leave them at home to ensure they are fit if needed

For all the ridiculous criticism comments about Benitez get from some 'supporters', Chelsea's best player, Britain's best player and one of the best players in the world has no problems with him at all. Hazard appears happy with a move to Real, where he might get rested every now and then, and where the team attacks as much as defends.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...drid-move.html

Build from the back, agreed, but why is Mourhino so reluctant to attack? Barcelona do it and are the best team in the world, followed closely by Bayern under Pep Guardiola who also attack predominantly, and have Muller, Lewandowski AND Costa, not to mention Robben (former Chelsea player who didn't get on with Mourhino - again!), Gotze and Ribery.

Ok, no doubt the likes of doon will say that they don't play in the PL. But Man City AND Man Utd have won the PL, and are the leading teams now playing attacking football. What is Jose's problem?!

As long as he is successful (which he is) what is the difference?

But he isn't at the moment is he? Same, same, same isn't working..