Amid all the focus on Jose Mourinho's provocative pronouncements, David Luiz's revenge on Chelsea and John Terry running like Linford Christie to surround the referee during the Champions League exit top Paris Saint-Germain, it has almost been forgotten how peripheral Cesc Fabregas was last night.
In the early part of the season, he was fantastic, orchestrating the best of Chelsea's forward forays.
But since his form has dipped, there have been accusations that he has a trend of fading away in the second half of seasons when it comes to productivity. Indeed, some claim that is one of the reasons why Barcelona decided to let him leave for Stamford Bridge in the summer.
So in this graphic, I've put his pre-New Year stats for goals and assists on the left, with the second half of the season on the right, going from the start of the 2004/05 season to the end of the last campaign at Barcelona.
Goals are not in brackets, while assists are:
Picture by: Mike Egerton / Empics Sports Photography Ltd. La Liga and Premier League stats only. Stats from Transfermarket.co.uk.
The stats above do show a trend of tailing off as the season goes on, particularly at Barcelona where it is almost at a ratio of 2:1.
There have been seasons where he has had a better ending than beginning, for example 2006-07 and 2008-09 where he scored and assisted more in the second half of the campaign.
In actual fact, his first three seasons at Highbury and the Emirates, show him doing marginally better in terms of goals and assists in part 2 of the season.
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