so how did we really perform?

finally we see some sort of fluency from AVB's chelsea, especially in the first half. watch the match again if you're really that pessimistic and you'll see at times our passing and movement was mesmerising. mata and meireles were terrific, with the former proving to be our own 'david silva' in the making, exhibiting some beautiful link up play and creativity. the portugese mohawk tattooed man looked a bit pensive at first, but gradually grew in confidence and began to hit those pinpoint forward passes. his pressuring and tackling were not too bad either. is he a massive improvement from mikel? i'm not won over just yet because mikel makes some wicked forward passes as well but the difference is he usually sprays them over the top instead of along the ground. raul did provide that superb through-ball from near the halfway line and oh my what a finish that was from sturridge.

danny boy actually took some time to get into the game, but one thing for sure when that chance came he was ready and dispatched it with some style. on a side note the commentators were creaming themselves when rooney struck his hattrick via a neat finish but couldn't care less about danny's audacious back-flick goal from a tight angle...with his weaker foot. nothing less expected from them i guess. studge will get better as he racks up some more minutes, and if there's one thing i'd like to see is more dribbling from our talented striker because he definitely has it in his locker to go past defenders. a beautiful cross-field pass for JT as well so that counts as an assist.

ashley cole and bosingwa were very tidy in defense, but also provided support upfront when needed. one thing i noticed bossy has definitely improved his timing and strength when challenging for aerial balls because some of the headers he won were magnificent! both of them had a near perfect game, although sunderland's goal could've been prevented if bossy was closer to that korean dude. JT showed some predatory instincts with that cool finish after mata (who else?) hit the post with a superb free kick. oh and there's only juan MOTM! 

now for some negatives.

lampard really looked to be tiring towards the end, and made some awfully sloppy passes as a result. our defense still doesn't look secure, with the JT and ivanovic partnership not really convincing. that last minute goal had our captain seething and rightly so, because it was brana who failed to mark bendtner more closely.

romeu had an uneventful debut but i'm not too pleased he made his bow ahead of josh this season. torres was poor when he came on, same as malouda with both players too keen to impress AVB rather than work for the team. a bit baffled too by AVB's decision to take off the one player who was most likely to help nando out in attack. nico did not do enough to warrant another start vs leverkusen imho, as his biggest contribution was only winning that freekick that lead to terry's goal, and missing a fantastic chance crafted by mata. sadly, nico is not a huge upgrade on torres atm. 

collectively we seemed to deteriorate from the 70th minute onwards and i have to put some of that down to AVB's subs which seemed to make the team more defensive, and invited more pressure from sunderland. put into perspective he was probably aiming to give some rest to studge who lacked match fitness, and mata who played the whole match (i think) for spain's euro 2012 qualifier. overall there was still room for improvement, and we need to learn to keep our stranglehold on matches better. but some of the stuff we played was no doubt an improvement on the last three matches, and keep in mind this was against a team quite intent on parking the bus who managed to snatch a point from anfield.