Chelsea v Villa

Morning all. A few thoughts from last night:

1. Marvelous is a cracking defensive midfielder but with him playing we sit too deep. Luiz pushes us forward, Marvelous pulls us back. He has a great tackle on us but it always feels like when he plays we invite teams to come and have a go, while when Luiz plays we move forward and take the game to them (and relieve the pressure on our defence). It was a good substitution last night by Smith, to take Hourihane off, but I'd rather see Luiz start matches and Marvelous come on later in a match to shore up a winning position.

2. Wesley. He's having a lot of trouble, isn't he? I still like him but a) he needs to stop falling over looking for fouls, b) he needs the ball played to him on the ground and c) it feels like he needs a partner up there. When we do punt the ball long to him it's the same as giving it straight away to the opposition as an invitation to come back at us.

3. Elmo. Cracking match.

I thought we did well, we just didn't have the players. Tammy just shows what we're missing, and shows up Wesley's faults when played in this formation.

The full match is available to watch on Amazon Prime video.

Tonight is the first time I realised Amazon had rights to any games! I think I could have watched it live.

They will also show Aston Villa versus Norwich on Boxing Day (26th December).


Some thoughts watching the 30 minutes extended highlights -

The passing and movement for our goal was exceptional. Grealish instrumental.

We keep conceding. Small amounts - right now - but persistently. Engels will probably get his place back for the next game. Konsa should not have allowed Abraham a free header for Chelsea's first goal.

We're not really creating many chances for Wesley. Two almost-chances near the end fell for Douglas Luiz, the final one a header. Earlier Grealish had air-kicked a volley attempt. Does Wesley not like headers? We have a number of players in the team who can whip in a decent ball - McGinn, Grealish, Targett, El Mohammady. Maybe our only real aerial threat on the attack during free play is not that great in the air. Worrying.

Tom Heaton kept the scoreline neat with a couple of stupidly brilliant saves. The one against Willian's free kick is probably a Save of the Season winner. They could easily have scored 4 goals but we also threatened enough that Chelsea were never completely comfortable.