Man of the Match Thibaut Courtois heralds his Stamford Bridge reign with a wonder-save and a clean sheet

In Chelsea's first game of the 2014/15 season, Cesc Fàbregas shone brightly, setting the 7th highest rating in the two-year history of these Community Player Ratings.  In the second game of the 2014/15 season, it's another new boy's turn to shine and set a record.

Courtois's 9.2 is the highest goalkeeper rating over the last two seasons, a timeframe that does just cut off Petr Čech's Champions League final outing -- though not the Super Cup rematch against Bayern, which was the previous high at 9.1.  (Čech's rating in the match with the Chicharito save was 8.8, his personal highest in the 2012/13 season.)

Whatever the reasons, Mourinho's selection of Thibaut Courtois is paying immediate dividends.  Then again, is that really so surprising, considering that Courtois was already one of the best goalkeepers in the world?

On the list of things I expected from Chelsea in the new season, Branislav Ivanović being involved in the first four goals scored (in the first two games) was probably somewhere near the bottom, if on the list at all.

While he didn't get an official assist on Diego Costa's goal -- because official assist stats are weird -- Ivanović played a key role in setting up the winning goal with a lung-bursting run, an outrageous dummy that sold two defenders (and was probably unexpected by just about any and every observer), and the composure to pick out the striker.  Of course the cross was partially deflected, but as far as Ivanović crosses go, that's not a bad outcome.

It's perhaps surprising that big money signing Filipe Luis has yet to get a sniff of first-team action, but with Ivanović beasting it on the right side and César Azpilicueta being ALL DAVE E'RY DAVE on the left, perhaps it is not.

Eden Hazard makes his first appearance on the player ratings podium this season, narrowly beating out fellow goalscorer Diego Costa.  While he's not been in the spotlight as much as he's capable of -- part of that is surely due to the new signings -- he's off to a faster start this season than the last.  And that should bode well for the rest of the season.

He even took a couple shots!

(Also, if you're into the Opta "chances created" stat -- which you really shouldn't be, but we all have our vices -- Hazard had 7 of them on Saturday.  Opta credited Chelsea with 21 chances created.  We had 27 shots.  One of our goals came from the 6 shots that didn't have an associated chance created stat.  Magic!  Sorry, Branislav. Meanwhile, Fàbregas gets credited with a chance created and an assist on Hazard's goal, which was 99% Hazard and 1% goalkeeper.  Well done, statistics.)