₦airaland Forum

2 in 2 minutes!!

Hazard!!

We need better crosses from Moses!

FBS:
This Ref na were.


@donjazet, na by force

ommentaries :
14' Chelsea take a throw-in in the opponent's half of the field
13' Yannick Bolasie from Everton pulls Cesar Azpilicueta
12' N'Golo Kante controls the ball with his hand
12' Pedro Rodriguez of Chelsea passes the ball to a team mate.
11' Ramiro Funes Mori relieves the pressure with a clearance
11' Marcos Alonso puts in a cross
11' Victor Moses puts in a cross
11' Phil Jagielka relieves the pressure with a clearance
11' Victor Moses puts in a cross
10' Phil Jagielka relieves the pressure with a clearance
10' Eden Hazard puts in a cross
10' The home team have had 68% of possession compared to the away team's 32%
9' Diego Costa comes back onto the field.
9' The game is restarted

entaries :
9' Diego Costa is injured and is taken off the field to receive medical treatment.
8' Diego Costa is down injured and receives medical treatment on the field.
8' Play has been stopped because there is a player lying on the pitch.
7' Diego Costa from Chelsea directs the ball behind the defence, but it's intercepted by an opponent player.
7' Ashley Williams from Everton trips Eden Hazard
5' Maarten Stekelenburg comes out and claims the ball
5' Marcos Alonso puts in a cross
5' The home team have had 71% of possession compared to the away team's 29%
4' Romelu Lukaku from Everton passes the ball in the box, but it's intercepted by an opponent player.
4' Romelu Lukaku from Everton runs with the ball.
1' It's a cold day for playing football.
1' The pitch is in fantastic condition today and the players are enjoying the surface.
1' Everton kick-off, and the game is underway.
The referee starts the match
Before we get underway, the players and crowd observe a minute's silence

This match is gonna be tough for us
Everton are mirroring our formation, which might expose our weaknesses.

Does this mean that Willian has lost his place in the team permanently?

The teams: Chelsea v Everton
Antonio Conte names an unchanged side from the one which won the previous three league outings.
Cesar Azpilicueta, David Luiz and Gary Cahill are again the three-man defence with Pedro continuing in attack with last weekend's goalscorers Diego Costa and Eden Hazard.

For Everton, goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg is back after injury, Phil Jagielka returns to their side and there is a place for Tom Cleverley.
Chelsea are expected to line up in the following 3-4-3 formation:
Courtois; Azpilicueta, David Luiz, Cahill (c); Moses, Matic, Kante, Alonso; Pedro, Diego Costa, Hazard.
Subs: Begovic, Aina, Ivanovic, Terry , Chalobah, Oscar, Batshuayi.
Everton:
Stekelenburg; Coleman, Jagielka (c), Williams, Funes, Oviedo, Barry, Cleverley, Barkley, Bolasie, Lukaku.

Subs: Robles, Holgate, Lennon, Valencia, Davies, Deulofeu, Mirallas,
The referee is Robert Madley

Comments here are head-spinning

Chelsea's financial loss on missing out on the Champions League revealed.

Chelsea missing out on Champions League qualification implies a massive 65m loss.

Chelsea failed to qualify for the Champions League after a disappointing 2015/16 Premier League campaign
West London super-giants Chelsea have missed out on a staggering €65m qualification bonus by missing out on Champions League qualification for this season. The UEFA revealed these numbers after they put out a list of financial documents that read the television money each club earned from last season with the approximates for this term. Chelsea went into last season as the reigning champions and just didn't click under manager Jose Mourinho, with Hiddink brought back to the club to steady the ship, as they finished in a surprising tenth, not just missing out on the premier European club competition but the Europa League as well. The club lost out on two N’Golo Kante’s in terms of money, due to the club's terrible tenth place finish which resulted in a large financial loss for Chelsea.

However, the Blues just wrapped up two massive commercial deals with Nike worth €60m and Yokohama Tyres worth €40m balancing their expensive spree in the summer with the acquisitions of Kante, Luiz and Alonso to name a few coupled with the loss of television revenue. Although the club isn't in financial peril, the staggering loss of income comes after Chelsea topped the earnings from television revenue for English clubs for five consecutive seasons. Manchester City could change that statistic towards their favour due to Chelsea's failure to qualify for Europe, the first time since Roman Abramovich took charge of the club. In a shocking Premier League campaign last season that saw Leicester crowned champions, Chelsea endured the pain of missing out on Europe to London rivals in Arsenal and Tottenham, with City completing the top four. Since Chelsea’s dismal last campaign, Antonio Conte has come into the club and resettled them somewhat as they currently sit in fourth place with four wins on the bounce in the league. Conte’s arrival at the club has brought stability at the back with his shift to the back three and aggression all over the field for the entirety of the ninety minutes. Conte and Chelsea, given a minimum goal of reaching the Champions League by Russian owner Roman Abramovich, get set to welcome an excellent Everton side under Ronald Koeman.The Toffees have had a brilliant start to the season as they look to put a dent in Chelsea’s Champions League hopes and increase their chances of breaking into the top four, in what could be an equally enthralling season as compared to the last one.

timbros:
Hahaha....I just saw this on twitter.

This is Paul Scholes Fenerbahce vs Man Utd team sheet....notice what he did to Mourinho's name below. Now look at the top right...can you decode what he scribbled there?

I can only see "big worry". correct

Antonio Conte’s Chelsea have revived with four successive Premier League wins and clean sheets but must now confront a player they had hoped to re-sign when Romelu Lukaku returns with Everton. The fees being quoted for the Belgian over the summer had been mind-boggling. As it is, he stayed at Goodison Park and Diego Costa is thriving again at Stamford Bridge. “Diego is not only scoring the goals but working a lot for the team,” said Conte of the division’s leading scorer to date this term. “I’m seeing a complete player in Diego.” Theirs will be an intriguing tête-à-tête. Dominic Fifield
Kick-off Saturday 5.30pm

Venue Stamford Bridge

Last season Chelsea 3 Everton 3
Referee Robert Madley

This season G7, Y39, R0, 5.57 cards per game
Odds H 4-7 A 5-1 D 3-1

Chelsea
Subs from Begovic, Eduardo, Ivanovic, Aina, Oscar, Mikel, Willian, Terry, Chalobah, Fàbregas, Loftus-Cheek, Batshuayi
Doubtful None

Injured Fàbregas (thigh, 19 Nov), Zouma (knee, 19 Nov), Van Ginkel (knee, Dec)
Suspended None
Form LLWWWW
Discipline Y23 R0
Leading scorer Costa 8

Everton
Subs from Stekelenburg, Mirallas, Deulofeu, Gibson, Holgate, Davies, Dowell, Koné, Valencia, Lennon
Doubtful Koné (knee)
Injured Baines (hamstring, 19 Nov), McCarthy (hamstring, 19 Nov), Besic (knee, Feb)
Suspended Gueye (one match)
Form WLDDLW
Discipline Y19 R0
Leading scorer Lukaku 7

bigkesh:
Mourinho should have gone on a Sabbatical after his second spell

These days he is just doing rubbish and nonsense....That Feneyoord game was the most annoying

Agreed, maybe he just had the urge to prove he still got it in him and the lure of the competition and the new managers was just too overwhelming for him to look away but as each day passes, that seems to have been a very bad decision.
You look at mourinho now and you see a very moody man!, someone very unhappy and sullen, this is very different from the man who turned heads when he first came to these shores, the arrogant, confident, boisterous man. His looks alone exuded confidence and belief to his team and fans but now, he simply looks soulless and lifeless, that spark isn't just there anymore. But as a Chelsea fan, I can only be glad we got the best out of him and since he has is now a rival, LONG MAY THEIR WOES CONTINUE!

May this guy rot in the deepest abyss of hell. Read book, Una no go read. Dey here dey do aro baga. fools

pamcode:
Oh common forget this guys we have our own problem to worry about. Case in point: Betrand Traore.
He seems to be in a horrible form with his coach and club legends critcising him.

http://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2016/11/3/13505716/bertrand-traore-ajax-amsterdam-chelsea-loan-progress-report-success

Wow! This is certainly something to be concerned about. How many goals has he scored since he moved there?

bigkesh:
Beat Barca in a knockout game 2x with all at stake like Jose did then he can talk
Not winning second legs after being raped in the first....same thing he did with Bayern


Barca completely relaxed,they knew they had no pp,play a serious Barca

Where was this Pep at camp nou or Calderon or Santiago.....Its not about winning,it winning when it matters

I don't know what you guys are saying but yesterday's game was a serious game. Just give pep the credit.

larride:
First leg

Barca 4 - 0 City
Pep is a brilliant coach for sticking to his philosophy and coming out to play Barca.

City 3 - 1 Barca
Pep is a tactical genius for beating Barca.

I wonder when we will start calling Mauricio Pellegrino and Eduardo Berizzo genius for beating this same Barca team.
Barca are very beatable and Pep deserved his victory last night but to be shouting upandown calling it tactical genius na something else. Do not compare the Barca treble winning team 2 years ago to this Barca side that has Digne and Andre Gomez playing for them.

Yes, but it's been a very long time I have seen a team go toe to toe with Barça and actually outplay them, create more chances than them and force many errors from them. Yes yesterday might have been city's lucky day or Barças bad day, but credit should be given when due and when the time comes for criticism, na we dey here!

All in all, it must be said that baldiola was very brave yesterday. Mancity despite their many brain fart moments still outplayed Barça from about the 35th moment down to the end. I was shocked seeing Barça on the backfoot for most of the game, they took the game to Barça, forced errors from them, closed down the spaces quickly and utilized their chances. Credit should be given to fraudiola his work with Mancity is already showing, all they need is consistency and they will be world beaters.

But it must still be said that sometimes, there is still some form of bravery that may be stupidity, it may have worked yesterday against Barça, but that doesn't mean it will still work for them next time.

Chelseafan1:
We have begged you to stop posting these articles, it's boring and too lengthy, if you can't stop, reduce it to once per week or twice, u just dey do strong head like weyrey....

Ogbeni, park go one side make we see better comments jare.

Ogbeni, calm down! all these lazy readers sef
Anyways, I don hear, no wahala

Victor Moses Has Become the Embodiment of Chelsea's Resurgence

When Antonio Conte arrived at Chelsea, he found a squad in desperate need of rejuvenation. Almost to a man, the Blues had underperformed the season before. Players like Eden Hazard and Diego Costa, renowned as among the top stars in Europe, had played nowhere near their best as Chelsea charted the worst title defence in Premier League history.
Just three months into the 2016/17 campaign, the Italian has indeed revived Chelsea’s ailing stars. With Sunday’s win over Southampton their fourth successive victory, the Blues’ stars are shining bright once again. But one player’s resurgence has come as more of a surprise than most.
Many Chelsea fans might have forgotten Victor Moses was even on the books of their club heading into this season, with the Nigeria international farmed out on loan three times, to three different clubs, since making the move to Stamford Bridge in 2012. He has become a key player under Conte, though.
That was underlined by his performance at St Mary’s Stadium. While Costa and Hazard scored the goals, making the highlight reel, Moses was arguably the best player on the pitch. But it wasn’t as the attacking midfielder he was signed as. He was used as a wing-back, and to great effect.
It wasn’t an isolated case. Conte has used Moses as a wing-back since switching to a back three following last month’s 3-0 defeat to Arsenal. The Italian has seen something in him, finding a position for the Nigerian where nobody else had envisaged for him.
Tactically, Moses is integral to Chelsea’s new 3-4-3 shape. Without him, the whole thing would falter. Without him, they might not have notched four successive wins over the past month. He is crucial to both the Blues’ defence and attack, filling in as part of a back five when needed and springing forward on the attack when Chelsea have the ball. Conte has found a use for his versatility.
Of course, Conte is a coach who has long favoured a 3-4-3 formation. He used it with both Juventus and the Italian national team, so it should not be much of a surprise that he has reverted to default in times of trouble at his new club. At Juve, Stephan Lichtsteiner was used as a wing-back on the right flank, becoming a tactical lynchpin for Conte. Moses is being moulded into a similar figure at Chelsea this season.
"I have not played there before but I have just got to listen to what the manager asks me to do in that position, and the way he wants me to do it," Moses said after Sunday’s 2-0 win over Southampton, as per Lyall Thomas of Sky Sports. "Every game we play I just want to keep on improving. The more games you play, the more experience you get in that position. I'm really relishing it at the moment and enjoying it.
"It's very important to understand your team-mates. I have got Cesar Azpilicueta there, the spare right-back, who is behind me, and he communicates with me and really helps me out to make sure I am in the right position.
Defensively we all work as a unit in training and every day in training the manager is on top of us to make sure we are solid. He's also very helpful on the touchline. He talks to you to make sure you're in the right position.”

Of course, the Blues' structure down the right wing needs more than Moses to work. The Nigerian is required to dovetail with both his defensive and attacking team-mates, and that is perhaps the most impressive part of his resurgence. This is the first season in three years that Moses has featured as a first-team figure at Chelsea, yet he has slotted in seamlessly.
"It's very good to link up with Pedro or Willian, too,” Moses continued. “They know when it's time for me to go or when not to go. We speak to each other and we look at each other's movement to make sure we are doing the right thing on the pitch. I'm feeling happy, I'm feeling excited and right now I'm looking forward to every game.”
The turnaround in Moses’ career is quite remarkable. Loan spells at Liverpool, Stoke City and West Ham United did not hint at a player with a future at Chelsea, and yet with one managerial change he has become central to everything at Stamford Bridge. It might be that Conte one day turns to the transfer market to find a more illustrious replacement to fulfil the Nigerian’s job in his 3-4-3 formation, but for the moment, Moses is enjoying a renaissance.
Not so long ago, Conte was fending off questions over his future, but now he is clearing a space on his mantelpiece for the Manager of the Month award that is surely coming his way. Chelsea are now considered title contenders, with the Italian’s team just a point off the top of the Premier League.
Moses isn’t the only one to have benefited from Conte’s shift in formation. Cesar Azpilicueta is another who has found himself playing a somewhat different role, operating as one of the back three while also joining in when Chelsea hit out on the counter-attack. It’s a blueprint that blurs the lines between defence and attack, making the most of the Blues’ squad. Conte might have devised the most modern of modern football systems, with Moses the epitome of it.
“I think that this role is very important in this system,” Conte explained after victory on the south coast, as per Sam Cunningham of the MailOnline. “You must have good stamina and quality to play as a wing-back. I ask my wing-backs to do offensive and defensive duties.”
For all that they have found their groove over the past month, there remains a sense that Chelsea are still a work-in-progress under Conte. They are far from the finished product, but Moses is emblematic of how the Italian could mould the Blues. If he can improve one player so drastically, imagine what he could do to an entire team given time.

http://m.bleacherreport.com/articles/2673133-victor-moses-has-become-the-embodiment-of-chelseas-resurgence

FBS:
@donjazet, we are here to read real peoples posts,which is the real fun and not some copy and paste info. Enough with it already.

Thanks for understanding.

Please clarify on what you mean by "real people", the players and pundits or just nairalanders? I don't understand what you mean.

Sky Sports power ranking.

Nathaniel Chalobah Exemplifies The Good In Chelsea’s Loan Strategy

The 38 players Chelsea have out on loan this season has been a significant rod to beat the club with. We’ve seen the negative headlines about talent hoarding and how Chelsea are putting business strategies first over that of their players’ development. Having so many individuals on temporary moves away from Stamford Bridge helps keep up transfer values, not to mention bumping up the finances on the back of loan fees being received. There are success stories, of course; Tammy Abraham’s goalscoring form this season with Bristol City being the biggest headline. Then there is Nathaniel Chalobah.

The 21-year-old midfielder is back at Chelsea now. He’s on the other side of the loan cycle having played for six different clubs, including Watford and last season, Napoli. As each loan move took place, so it seemed that Chalobah drifted further from Chelsea’s thoughts. Once the shining light of the academy, he was at risk of becoming another statistic. Other names became more prominent in his absence, including Ruben Loftus-Cheek. Whereas Loftus-Cheek has been in and around Chelsea’s first-team squad for the best part of three seasons, the playing time hasn’t been forthcoming. A year younger than Chalobah, in terms of their collective experience and development, the gap is much wider than a simple 12 months. Loftus-Cheek has played less than 20 times in the Premier League; Chalobah has over 100 senior club appearances to his name. We saw the benefits of that in midweek against West Ham United, which is why Chalobah was the only academy product on the bench again for Chelsea’s impressive 2-0 victory over Southampton on Sunday.
Antonio Conte sees plenty in Chalobah. There’s his ability in the middle of the park for one, but those 100 or so appearances across his loan spells are among the most vital. Not only have they given Chalobah experience, they’ve instilled a self-confidence that Conte is feasting on now.
Chelsea’s loss to West Ham in the EFL Cup was a disappointment. It smacked of a wasted opportunity for the Blues to continue the pursuit of a trophy that seemed realistically attainable this term. With no European football to speak of, it’s just the Premier League and FA Cup they can win now. With questions still remaining about this season, becoming champions is a massive task in Conte’s first campaign in charge, especially after last year’s collective failure. Still, Chalobah impressed at London Stadium; not on the back of his performance, but more for the way he conducted himself. He didn’t appear as a 21-year-old rookie. He had something more about him as he barked out his orders from midfield, demanding others fulfill their duties and get into position. With fellow academy graduate Ola Aina alongside him as a wing-back, there was no shortage of Chalobah offering encouragement on his teammate’s full debut either. He looked like a senior player. Chalobah’s display spoke of a player who is beginning to find comfort in his surroundings. He didn’t appear nervous, which has always been a point of concern for Loftus-Cheek. His talent is without question, but Loftus-Cheek has never quite given a performance in the senior team that shows us he believes he belongs alongside Diego Costa and Eden Hazard. He’s too polite, almost. He’s quiet and doesn’t impose himself like he has in the junior ranks.
In the few appearances he has made this season, Chalobah has been the antithesis of Loftus-Cheek’s placid style. And that’s getting him noticed by his manager. Conte hasn’t given Chalobah cameos for minutes this term; the manager has used him at pivotal moments in matches. Conte sees him as someone who can make a difference. That happened in the 3-0 defeat of Leicester City a fortnight ago, when Chalobah entered the fray at a time when the champions were threatening to get back in the game. It was 2-0 and Chelsea needed to take control of central areas once more. The answer for Conte was Chalobah and not only did he help restore Chelsea’s stranglehold on the game, he claimed an outrageous assist for Victor Moses to finally kill the game off.

There’s more to it than just those loan spells. It would be doing Chalobah’s ability an injustice to suggest otherwise. When we compare him to Chelsea’s other academy prospects who have hinted at breaking through only to fall at the final hurdle, however, we have to take notice. For all the criticism we level at the club, the sight of Chalobah’s emergence tells us the loan system is the extension the Chelsea academy needs if we’re ever going to see youth dominance cross over into the senior game.

Five Phases Of Chelsea’s Improvement

As Chelsea found out last season: a winning team can become a losing one overnight, but the opposite journey can take a lot longer to successfully complete. Only now that Chelsea are on the other side of that 4-0 demolition of United, is it possible to piece together the hints Conte has dropped in press conferences to reveal the journey he has taken the squad on – something that can neatly be divided up into five phases.

Phase One began back in the summer, and was all about conditioning. If you strip away all of the modern commercial aspects of pre-season, it exists for only one reason: getting the players in shape. Every manager knows this, but in the case of a new appointment, this is slightly nuanced. Longer serving bosses will be able to use the benefit of their squad knowledge to compare each player’s pre-season progress with performance at the same time last year. That luxury wasn’t available to Conte, who flitted straight from his job with Italy at the Euros to an unfamiliar new league. His first task was to get the fitness and comfort features in place, so that players would actually be in a shape to play their first match on the opening day.
That is where Phase Two kicked in: Observing.
Seeing players in pre-season gives away little: essentially, you are watching unfit people playing against unfit people. Once that fitness was restored, Conte took it upon himself to watch how the team performed when following the previous manager’s tactical blueprint. As we saw, against poorer opposition, results weren’t bad; but when it came to the tougher sides, like Arsenal and Liverpool, they were disastrous. But Conte knew that he could not improve things unless he could first see what was going wrong. If we understand anything about his past it is this: he is not a one-size fits all manager, and he uses different solutions in application to different problems.
Phase Three was therefore an obvious step: Changing.
This is a phase that will have been active for some time before we saw the physical implementation of it, at half time against Arsenal. But in the run-up to, and more dramatically so after the defeat to Liverpool, he seems to have shifted training to accommodate a model using three at the back. Since that went into active mode, at The Emirates, not a goal has been conceded.
Which takes us on to Phase Four: improving.
Conte seems to have decided early-on to concentrate his efforts on putting this plan into play with a relatively small first team group at Chelsea. There have been complaints from the stands about a reluctance to delve down into the squad, and a hesitancy to use substitutions for tactical gain. That seems to be because the time has simply not been there to take the whole squad group up to the same level. There will be those who are still in earlier phases in the plan, and with the side now performing well, he should have time to go back and progress their development. The improving phase is almost continuous: it is not something anyone simply enters and exits, and very rarely can you point to a match and say that the work is done. Some reading this, particularly those who have studied the psychology of change management, may recognise the fingerprints of Abraham Maslow on all this.He was an American psychologist, who is best known for his Hierarchy Of Needs: a study of what motivates people, and how to get the best out of individual personalities. His theory, published in the 1950s, put forward the idea of a pyramid of requirements: starting with basics such as food, water and housing, and rising through other needs to a point where the individual was happy and fulfilled. It is one of the best known, and most respected psychological theories – and it is exactly the sort of strategy one would expect a knowledgeable and learned manager to put into play to bring about positive changes.
So, if Conte is following this blueprint, what comes next?
Maslow put it at the very top of his pyramid, and he called it ‘self-actualisation': a theoretical stage which may never be permanently rested at, but is the ultimate goal of the four phases before it. In football terms it is probably best summed up as ‘the perfect performance': rare, and always least likely to come to those who simply stand and wait for it.
That is Conte’s Phase Five: exactly what we saw from Chelsea against Manchester United on Sunday. His job now is to bring the rest of his squad up to that level, and to keep them there for the rest of the season. If he can find the key to doing that: then very little will stand between his Chelsea, and all they hope to achieve.

http://www.umaxit.com/index.php/columns/the-five-phases-of-chelseas-improvement

Azpilicueta shows off monster stats again
Lots of Chelsea players have benefited from Antonio Conte’s formation shift, with the focus so far coming on the wing backs and Eden Hazard’s improvement in the tweaked system.
But quietly at the back of the side, Cesar Azpilicueta is thriving as a centre-back. While Costa and Hazard may have stolen the limelight with great goals, the win against Southampton was built on the defensive work of the Spaniard.
Corralling Southampton’s attacking pace is no easy task, but Azpi managed it in style. He made 9 tackles, 7 clearances and an interception to finish the game with an 8.13 WhoScored rating. Add to this 38 passes at a 92.1% completion rate and you have a truly complete performance.
Azpilicueta has been a favourite for almost every manager at Stamford Bridge since Rafael Benitez, and that doesn’t look like changing anytime soon with performances like this. As a top class man-to-man defender, playing in a back three is ideal for the former Marseille man, and he looks set to have the best season of his outstanding career in Blue so far.

Emaprince:
O boy, this Kante is a very shy guy.

Good point made by Ibime on kennedy. I think kennedy will do a better job in that wing back both defensively and in attack..

I thought I was the only one who noticed. The way the team celebrated his goal against manu elaborated that.

Chelseafan1:

Liverpool actually has the worst defence amongst the top 6 so am not really surprised

Telling stats and numbers from Chelsea’s win over Southampton

Chelsea soundly defeated Southampton 2-0 on Sunday, carrying on their great Premier League form. Here are some telling stats from the game.

Chelsea have ended the month of October with four consecutive wins, three of which have been secured against teams that finished finished higher last season. Eleven goals have been scored and none conceded.
On that note, here are some key stats and talking points from the Blues’ victory against Southampton at St. Mary’s.

Diego Costa wasn’t really at his marauding best, even though he managed 4 shots on goal. His long range curler against Southampton was his 8th Premier League goal of the season, but only his 2nd from outside the box since he moved to Chelsea in 2014 (his first came in the first game of the season against West Ham).
His goal scoring run is further made remarkable by its consistency; his 8 goals have been scored in 7 of the 10 games he has played and none have come from the spot. There is little doubt that he is one of the best goal-scorers ‎in Europe right now.

‎With every spectacular performance, Victor Moses is making Jose Mourinho’s decision to send him out on 3 consecutive loan spells even more baffling. He was the club’s best all-round performer on Sunday.
Offensively, he played 3 shots and made 2 key passes (both 2nd highest of all Blues players), one from which he set-up Eden Hazard’s (and Chelsea’s first) goal. He also completed 4 dribbles (no other teammate made more). He did all this without shrieking his defensive duties, making 3 tackles and clearances each as well as 1 interception. He is comfortably becoming the face of Antonio Conte’s side!

While Eden Hazard’s quality has never been in question, there have been‎ doubts about his ability to make the leap into becoming an elite player in the class of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, largely due to his selfless nature.
Well he is becoming more selfish now! He is averaging more shots per game this season and hit 3 on Sunday, scoring once, his 5th goal of the season, which ensured that he has now scored in 3 consecutive league games for the first time since joining Chelsea in 2012. He also created a game high 5 chances, registering an assist for Costa’s goal.
Chelsea’s loss to West Ham in the midweek EFL cup clash served to highlight some weaknesses in the side, one of which is the fact that Cesar Azpilicueta, despite his obvious adaptability, is not a very capable wing-back. But like Moses, he has clearly taken to his new centre-back role in a back 3 like a duck to water.

He was by far the best of the 3 centre-backs, registering a game high 17 defensive actions (9 tackles, 1 interception and 7 clearances). He was also tidy in possession, completing 89% of his 38 passes – the 2nd most accurate passes by a Blues player behind N’Golo Kante.

To highlight how impressive Sunday’s victory was, Chelsea were the last (and only) team to defeat Southampton at St. Mary’s in the Premier League in 2016. The Saints had gone 9 months without losing at home prior to Sunday’s game.
Antonio Conte’s 3-4-3 system is gradually bringing out the best of Chelsea, both defensively and offensively. With 4 wins out of 4 games, 11 goals scored and none conceded in October, there is little doubt whatsoever who the manager of the month should be!

Griffon:
Meanwhile, I must say I love the cult-like culture I see in this team. Conte is so clear about what he wants and simply don't have room for those unwilling or unable to fit his exacting standard.

It is binary, there is no middle ground. Only those who fit extremely well with his core ideology and demanding standards are good to start. If you are a misfit you get expunged like a virus.

Just look at Mikel, Fabregas and JT.

This is what makes a manager and to be honest I'm happy to have this man around.

Conte is a bargain right now. And the fact that he is this ruthless will definitely help him in the long run.

airmark:
David luiz just needed a coach good in human relations, who would sit him down, tell him the quality he is made of and what is needed to improve on to make him the best defender in the world. Though i knew luiz would become good, but not this soon. I am really impressed with conte's inputs and the players readiness to work.

You can't have stated it better! He looks so good so far being at the heart of the defense.