Chelsea might not have thrilled this season, but in true Jose Mourinho style they are grinding out results.
Pat Nevin was on Off The Ball last night to discuss the fallout from their smash and grab victory over title rivals Manchester City.
He believes Mourinho is starting to get to grips with his squad:
"From Chelsea's point of view, I think Mourinho now knows he has a team capable of listening to what he wants. He's getting the very best out of his best players. The obvious ones are Hazard who is playing brilliantly, Torres playing phenomenally and Ramires playing as well as I've seen him," said Nevin.
"There were other little things. Frank Lampard basically destroyed Yaya Toure. You wouldn't have thought that was Lampard's game to be a deep-lying midfielder capable of stopping someone like Toure. Mourinho can be absolutely delighted that his program is ahead of schedule."
In recent seasons, Fernando Torres has had occasional peaks to temper the many troughs he has experienced.
But Nevin thinks there is something different about him even if his goal saw him capitalize on a mix-up between Joe Hart and Matija Nastasic.
"Wasn't it Arnold Palmer who said the more I practice, the luckier I get? Torres got lucky but that's because he kept putting himself in the right place. He didn't get lucky earlier in the game when he would have scored one of the great goals of the season by smacking it off the crossbar from an unbelievable angle. In times gone by, you might have seen the confidence drain away when he missed chances, that ain't happening now. He just looks stronger and up for it."
As for Manchester City, Nevin thinks captain Vincent Kompany's absence is key with the Sky Blues looking a different proposition when he is marshalling the defence. Nevin mused about playing Micah Richards at centre-back or even bringing Yaya Toure back there to solve the defensive issue when their leader is out of action.
But there is also the spectre of Joe Hart who is a shadow of his former self, or at least a shadow of the goalkeeper he was hyped to be.
Nevin pointed the finger of blame at Hart for Chelsea's winner.
"He shouldn't have come out. It was a terrible mistake. He was thinking that he had to get out there and tidy things up because he's not got great confidence unless Kompany is in there. But there is no getting away from the fact that was Joe Hart's mistake," said Nevin.
