Some lessons from the Swansea game

-Luiz needs to stop shooting at every opportunity. We had 24 shots, of which 8 were on target; I'm betting a pretty good portion of our 'shots' was just instances of Luiz placing the ball somewhere on the moon. His shooting can range from Mikel-esque to Lampard-esque, but more often than not, leans to the Mikel range of the spectrum.

-Luiz' best attribute as a midfielder is his passing (especially long passes). He needs to produce more passes, and less shots (especially when he's within shooting distance).

-We pass without thinking. Our players don't hesitate to pass to a player who has a defender right on him, and will have almost no chance to receive and control the pass. This isn't fluid passing - it's simply speedy and careless passing. If we need a template for what fluid passing means, we could do worse than emulate Shakhtar.

-Ivanovic has to take much of the blame for today, but he has an established rapport with Cech which he does not yet have with Turnbull. This increases chances of mistakes. If Turnbull's going to be in goal for a while, their communication will improve.

-Torres still has an invisibility cloak. Bench him. Don't play him unless necessary. Make him want to leave the club, even if that means a significant drop in his wages. Has a single transfer ever inflicted so much damage on a club? From a glass half-full perspective, we are possibly the best 10-man team to ever grace the game.

-Mata is a great player. He was running himself ragged trying to fulfill his AM role, as well as doubling as a CF. Of the new bunch, he's probably the most dedicated player we have.

Anyway, I seem to remember a manager who did very well to rescue us from a large deficit in a crucial cup tie. Too bad that guy's not around. He would have done especially well with an actual striker, Demba Ba, at his disposal. No matter: we've got the tactical brilliance of Rafa to help us in the second leg.