Watford vs. Chelsea, Player Ratings: Thibaut Courtois gets clean sheet reward

With his fourth Man of the Match award of the season, Thibaut Courtois moves into solitary second behind Willian (who has about a thousand) for most on the team.  That's not too bad for the young man who's most about half the season so far.

It should also be noted that while Courtois has not looked as impressive as last season — especially with regards to dominating the air-space in his own penalty area — he still only has three losses to his name (Palace and Bournemouth at the Bridge; Leicester away).  A fourth could be the Community Shield, if we count that.  Still, not the worst in what is definitely the worst season for some time for the club.

Apparently we're taking it easy with Hazard, to make sure he doesn't re-injure himself (again).  That was Hiddink's explanation why he waited for so long to make the obvious move and put Hazard on.  (There was no explanation why he didn't use the other attacking options on the bench.)

On the plus side, this should mean that Hazard will be ready for Super Bowl Sunday and Manchester United, this time, hopefully not even having to play as a center forward but rather as an attacking midfielder!

Yeah yeah yeah, Terry Terry Terry.  Captain, Leader, Legend.

If there was ever an indication one needed — you shouldn't, if you've been paying attention and listening / reading for a while — that these player ratings are more of a popularity contest than actual objective ratings (which may or may not be possible, in fairness), we only have to look at JT's score in this versus Ivanovic's.  Only one of those guys looked like he had a clue as to what to do in defense Wednesday night, and it was not the captain.

Terry, on the other hand, is certainly a master at playing to the Chelsea crowd, and he's making the most out of his current situation / predicament / sideshow.  Fascinating.