Mike S

weren't we kind of using a mix of marking systems last night anyway? Three chelsea players were definitely being man-marked for the first goal as opposed to the system we used to use with 8 players marking zones. Blame man-marking.

That's how I saw it too

Insua Agger Keane

The team as a whole lost their focus after the sending off. It's stupid to blame someone not even at the game for this, although plenty are of course. Up until then we were very good. Insua was superb.

at the top or near to it, yes

maybe it's just me but I reckon the second half of the season will be pretty similar to the first

heh nice backtrack. do you not reckon we should change our cbs for arsenal then?

I don't agree, we didn't stop battering them at 2-2, it was more that after about 70 minutes we ran out of steam and ideas. I agree with most of this, particularly about Gerrard - that was his best performance for a couple of months. If anything Hull were tighter on Xabi than Gerrard, and he coped with it better than Gerrard has done recently. ABout the subs, yes they should have been made earlier but I can see the reason for the specific changes - the formation had been pretty effective and Lucas is much more accustomed to making runs into the box than Mascherano. I think it was more a dedication to our plan than anything to do with Keane, but like you say 60-70 minutes rather than 87 would have made more sense

Gerrard Alonso Hyypia

Kuyt Alonso Riera

that was was aurelio

Riera Alonso Torres

Kuyt Alonso Gerrard

maybe agree, although he played okay yesterday totally disagree. For a start and it's been said many times by others, his best season so far was his second season. Also, I think he's played well this season, apart from the boro match. I thought he played fine yesterday apart from some poor shooting and set pieces, pretty similar to Gerrard really.