Man of the Match Eden Hazard continues to amaze

Jose Mourinho is not alone in his high praise for the 23-year-old, as for the third time in the last five matches, Eden Hazard wins your man of the match vote as well.

On a day when two-thirds of our in-form attacking trio failed to live up to expectations, Hazard put the team on his back, dragged Ashley Cole up out of his hidey-hole, and went to work on what became his third-highest-rated performance of the season.  At one point or another, Hull tried everything in the book to slow Chelsea down: pressing, parking the bus, fouling, you name it.  In the end, Hazard prevailed.

The winning goal was sublime in execution: a cut inside, a fake to make an utter fool out of a defender, and a low arrowed shot that left the goalkeeper with no chance.  Hazard now has three goals and an assist in his last four league matches.  Safe to say that Mourinho's project to create a Hobbit Cristiano out of the Belgian is going swimmingly.

For the 209th time in the last ten seasons, Petr Cech started a Chelsea match that ended with zero goals conceded.  That's 209 clean sheets, in perfect symmetry with Frank Lampard's 209 club goals.  Perhaps due to the less individualistic nature of a clean sheet, we have not celebrated Cech's achievement as much as we had Lampard's goals.  But make no mistake, it's an impressive feat.

I'd guess this clean sheet went down just like the vast majority of the previous 208:  without much drama.  Cech didn't have to make any saves like the one he pulled off last year against Javier Hernandez nor did he have to save a penalty kick like he did in the FA Cup final against Portsmouth.  Hull managed just two shots on target, both from well outside the area.  Unsurprisingly, just as we've come to know and love over the previous decade, Cech had no difficulties with either.

His actual rating was 8.2.

"What's this?  Torres scores again?"

My stepfather sent me that text on Saturday.