Newcastle vs Chelsea: Thoughts from St James’ Park

– Probably Chelsea’s best performance of the season. For all the criticism Andre Villas-Boas takes for the fragility in his defence, his side are starting to attack with the creativity and originality associated with his Porto team. Steps in the right direction.

– Mike Dean’s failure to dismiss David Luiz was disgraceful. Dean can offer limp excuses about Demba Ba ‘not being in control of the ball’ if he likes, but he’s fooling nobody; Luiz stayed on the pitch because the referee wasn’t brave enough to send off a Chelsea player so early in a game. If the refereeing as a collective body want to hear the end of the accusations about favouritism towards the bigger teams, then this kind of decision has to stop reoccurring.

– This felt like the tipping point for Newcastle. The collapse at the end, the obvious fatigue of the players; it’s been such a good such a good start, it would be a dreadful waste if they slumped now.

– Tim Krul was obviously excellent, but when your goalkeeper is making so many one-on-one stops you have to ask questions about your defence. Yes, Newcastle lost Fabricio Coloccini early, but the home side’s main issues were in their full-back channels – as good as Daniel Sturridge and Juan Mata were, neither faced much resistance. You can perhaps excuse Ryan Taylor on the basis that he didn’t have the usual support of Jonas in front of him, but Danny Simpson was made to look very average by his opposite man and Gabriel Obertan predictably offered nothing in either direction. Alan Pardew needs to have a bit of a rethink against teams that posses such attacking depth.

– Oriel Romeu and Ramires were both excellent for Chelsea – Romeu in particular seems to have every attribute you could want in a holding midfielder. Without banding about the lazy ‘new Makelele’ comparison, he showed the kind of discipline and care for the ball that Chelsea haven’t had in that position since the Frenchman left.

– David Luiz is just not a centre-back. I’ve heard a couple of commentators complain that he’s being judged too early, and that he frequently produced defensively excellent displays for Benfica – which is essentially a justification of his price tag. Well, so what? It’s the Portuguese league and he was playing for one of dominant teams in it – it’s a false reality. Just like with goalscorers, buying defenders from inferior leagues is always a risk, because there’s no context for their ability. Why Chelsea are willing to sell Alex and play this clown in the first-team is beyond me.