Man of the match Oscar, Hazard, and Mat...ic lead Chelsea's domination over Stoke City

As far as timing goes, this one was pretty good.  Fresh on the heels of the traumatic departure of Juan Mata, Chelsea's chosen 'number ten' put in one of those performances that make you truly appreciate just what Mourinho has envisioned for us in the short- and long-term.

While Stoke offered little desire to be on the ball for too long, 100 touches from a player in the attacking band is still quite ridiculous (and he didn't even play the whole match!).  Oscar also led the team in passes and for long stretches appeared to be the only one not only brave/decisive/"simple" enough to take a shot but also capable enough to put his shots on target.  He could've even doubled his scoring on the day were it not for the goalpost.

It's a testament to the improvement and growth (as an all-around impact player) of the 22-year-old Brazilian that his name can be mentioned alongside Toni Kroos when evaluating transfer rumors.  This is Oscar's fifth man of the match award this season, putting him lone second behind Hazard's six.

Speaking of Hazard...here's Eddie!  And there's Eddie!  And now you're picking your jaw off the floor and he's blown by you, bye.

While we were back to that somewhat worrying tendency to not pull the trigger (just the one shot), this was another fantastic, fun, fabulous performance from Chelsea's key man.  What made me the happiest though were his driving angled runs from out wide to the baseline, followed by low, hard cutbacks or crosses into the box (emphasis on low).  That's a play that's guaranteed to cause havoc almost every the time, and if he continues to execute them, we will score plenty of easy goals (assuming we get a couple runners into the box, of course).

The man who makes the numbers on the back of his shirt look laughably tiny passed his starting re-debut with flying colors.  Graham already touched on the performance, so I don't have much to add beyond that.

Matic's 8.2 is the highest rating that y'all have ever given a central midfielder after a non-goalscoring performance in the two years that we've run player ratings.  May this appreciation long continue!