Man of the match Eden Hazard continues his excellent run of form

Good job, Eden.  Not nearly as dominant as the last few matches, but still fun.  Got the assist on Ramires's goal, but the turnovers to successful take-ons ratio was well below the standard he's set for himself recently.  And once again, zero shots.  Just one foul won, too, although Clattenburg did forget his whistle at home. The fact that Hazard still gets rated this highly - and above Willian on the day - once again illustrates the highly subjective nature of these player ratings (as if we needed more evidence).

On the other end of the scale, the likes of David Luiz (not the biggest offender on the conceded goal), Ivanovic (not the biggest offender on the conceded goal), and especially Michael Essien - who may be an old and slow Bison at this point, but he was quietly imperious in the middle as evidenced by match leading statistics of 110 touches, 83/89 passing with several accurate switches out to the right wing, 3/4 tackling, 12 ball recoveries (twelve!) and 5/7 take-ons - must be wondering what they all did so wrong to get so little love.

While he didn't get his proper reward on the scoresheet, shut out in both goals and official assists, he was involved in most things good and nice from Chelsea.

Despite the presence of Juan Mata in the starting lineup, it was the Brazilian who did most of the central, side-to-side distribution in the attacking third, while also dropping deep to help out with timely tackles.  Winning five of six is basically Oscar territory, which is excellent.

Since Hazard has first choice left wing on lockdown, the interchangeability of Oscar, Willian, and Mata should serve us quite well in finding winning combinations in any match.  Schürrle remains the direct/spearhead option off the bench, while KDB sits firmly last choice at the moment.  Yes, that's a ridiculous amount of talent spread out among the six.  Love it!

The trouble with long shots is that even those players who are really good at them (Lampard, Bale, just to name a couple) miss far more often than not.  And Ramires is definitely not all that great at long shots - you can't chip long shots most of the time! - but on this day, his laces found the sweet spot and the ball found the back of the excellent Speroni's net.  Scrumptious.

The rest of the performance was standard Ramires: running, gunning, miscontrolling.  But we love Ramires (so we won't mention those hilarious fluffed chances - oh wait, I just did!) and since he was rested midweek, he should now be able to sprint until the final whistle of the final match of the season.