Oscar

[Thomas Williams 166]

Poor.

I disagree, had one of his shots been a foot closer and scored, or one of his neat little passes ended in a scoring opportunity, we would be lavishing him in praise. Recently he has been out of form but he was not playing bad today. He was getting bullied a little bit and but the ref should have called more, and in general he was linking up well and creating opportunities. Aston Villa defended very well today and the team as a whole didn't put any chances away.

Poor is way too extreme in my opinion, he wasn't phenomenal, but far from poor.

[didierforever 7,349]

I disagree, had one of his shots been a foot closer and scored, or one of his neat little passes ended in a scoring opportunity, we would be lavishing him in praise. Recently he has been out of form but he was not playing bad today. He was getting bullied a little bit and but the ref should have called more, and in general he was linking up well and creating opportunities. Aston Villa defended very well today and the team as a whole didn't put any chances away.

Poor is way too extreme in my opinion, he wasn't phenomenal, but far from poor.

Did he create a goal scoring oppurtunity? I can't remember any!!! When a team that starts torres as a striker, has its no.10 not scoring/assisting or even creating chamces, then it's always going to struggle for goals.

His link up play today was good, but again how maby goal scoring oppurtunities did he create. Moreover any good link up play of his is over shadowed with his abysmal end product. What was he EXACTLY doing when hazard found him in the box from the short corner. How was that not a goal??? Either put your laces thru it, or just square the ball but don't just give it straight to the gk. Poor for me.

[Vybz Kartel 1,613]

Thought he had a decent game, but his heart looks like its set at the world cup already

[BlueLyon 9,359]

Yeah I hope that WC is problem about his form, because he played well for Brasil and I dont think it was coincidence.

He doesnt play ''bad'' realy, but for a #10, he realy plays like shit. Yes he is different kind of playmaker, but one thing is to be allround modern #10 and Oscar is not that atm. He lacks vision, makes terrible passes, doesnt give shit, tries all kind of unsucessul things and creates zero goalscoring chances in recent games.

[Sheva. 5,373]

0 goals and 0 assists in his last 10 apps. (8 really because he barely played vs City and Gala) but that is really awful.

Last season he started badly and ended on a high, this season he's doing the exact opposite.

[manpe 10,855]

Still having difficulties adapting to the league. Must be patient with him, the potential is there.

[Blue Armour 4,165]

Well with Ramires and Willian out...the spotlight could very well be on Oscar against Arsenal (unless Mourinho goes 4-3-3 with Lampard and Mikel coming in). This could be the chance for him to step up again.

[kellzfresh 7,226]

Can't even shoot with power or on target again. Can't say its because of not having competition from mata, bcos he is not guaranteed a starting spot now either. Hes just playing like he has lost interest.

[Barbara 15,149]

I don't think he's lost interest, I don't think he has extra motivation to play for Brazil or not enough to play for us.

That boy is first and foremost a very professional player. His dedication and work for the team are exemplar, and yes, he's struggling with the physicality more now than in the past because he's more tired now with the accumulation of matches on him in the last two years (by far the player in top leagues that played the most, I stopped keeping tabs of how many).

And this isn't me defending him or making excuses. It's just the way it is. The problem is he (along with others, Willian and strikers for example) might be what separates us from the title. That's the suckery about being almost there. If we were still #3 in the league, as we were for most of the season, we wouldn't be so mad at him (and others) because the expectations would be smaller. But now we actually have a shot. Nobody (or very few) thought we'd have a real shot when the season started. There were those people who've always said we were ready simply based on how much money we've spent in the last few seasons (money doesn't buy you stability, winning spirit, character, maturity, tactical settlement, among other issues we still have with this squad), but if we ignore them, the reasonable people were saying we'd step up, improve compared to previous years, but I remember many of us saying the title chances were small.

The thing is the title chances aren't small anymore. They're quite big if you ask me. We've lost ground yesterday but we could regain it next week - I'm positive City will start dropping points. Fact remains, we still could do it and if we don't, we may look back to defense mistakes that cost us draws and defeats, but mainly what may separate us from the title is our attack. Hazard can't (and won't) free us from jail every time. Although he links up amazingly well with Eto'o for some reason Samuel doesn't play away matches and they're half of our remaining fixtures. It's easy and obvious to talk about that shitty player that currently dishonors our #9 jersey, but our AMs are starting to compromise too. Oscar bailed us from jail when the season started and we need him to do it again. I'm not saying he will deliver (I'm not that hopeful), but if we want to win this title that is now within reach, we need him to step up. Willian is more difficult because he's still adapting. Schürrle needs to be more consistent and I'll tell you what, Hazard needs to be more objective. Just because he's by far our best player now (although I think if we talk really about current time - as in the last few weeks - Azpili and Matic are realistically our best players now), it doesn't mean there aren't aspects of his game he can't or shouldn't improve. I know one of the biggest aspects of his games is his dribbling, but we need him to be more incisive - for many reasons, and one of them is because the rest of the team is lacking. If the rest of the team was okay, we could cope with Hazard holding the ball way too much as he did yesterday. He has the quality, he just needs the confidence to go for the shot (although he desperately needs someone to link up to, sometimes he dribbles and holds the ball simply because there's nobody for him to pass). I'm not even criticizing Eden as I'm criticizing the others, I'm being practical and saying what we need from him.

We need Oscar to be more incisive AND creative AND powerful. We need Schürrle to be more constant, more decisive and even more technical. We need Willian to be about the same things, but I can't see him being able to deliver those things. If those 3-4 guys don't do that, we won't win the title, simple as that. Then we go back to what I said first, if we were depending on them to play like that so we'd be assured the #2 or #3 spots, we'd be less demanding about it - after all that's all we've been chasing the last few years (not even that as we finished #6 two seasons ago).

This team already progressed with Oscar as #10 and the table standing is the biggest testament to that, but now we're being teased with the TITLE possibility here and we're naturally inclined to demand more because when there's a title at stake the natural thing for a player to give is to walk that extra mile, to convert his motivation into ability he might not even have or can't have physically. I feel those boys - and then I include Eden in the criticism - don't have the winner spirit and that character yet. What Terry, Eto'o, Lamps and others have coming from their pores, those guys (Oscar, Willian, Hazard, Schurrle, Ba, Torres) don't have and they can compromise exactly because of that if they aren't in form (and most of them aren't, Hazard is the only in form player we have in the attack).

So while I understand why Oscar may be facing a dip of form, the motivation to win the title should make up for the lack of legs, tiredness, struggles with the physicality. I see Matic, Azpili, Terry, Cahill, Lamps, Eto'o and even Iva bringing that to the table. You can see they're over-performing and that must come from a motivation place as they're all tired at this point (especially the older ones). That's something Luiz normally doesn't lack and that's why I think it's a blessing in disguise that we won't have Rami for a few matches because if we replace him for Lamps or Luiz we'll add another player that has high motivation to just win. If we add Mikel though, we're even further screwed imo.

Oscar has to step up, simple as that, regardless of what's been keeping him down. It's time to show character.

[Vybz Kartel 1,613]

Well with Ramires and Willian out...the spotlight could very well be on Oscar against Arsenal (unless Mourinho goes 4-3-3 with Lampard and Mikel coming in). This could be the chance for him to step up again.

Think Willian's red will be rescinded

[Jase 43,479]

Think Willian's red will be rescinded

You can't rescind a player's red card if he's sent off for 2 yellow cards. Can only do that if it's a straight red.

[Stingray 9,441]

Oscar has to step up, simple as that, regardless of what's been keeping him down. It's time to show character.

Now that is one huge truth, I gather.

[The only place to be 11,313]

The Southampton game was on the January 1st. Since then how many league games has he been good in? Newcastle at home?

Honestly, I don't hold out much hope that he's going to have another good game this season. I wouldn't bet on him scoring a goal between now and May, and I'm not sure if he'll even assist a goal. And then he's off to the World Cup.

So this young man who had a great start to the season and then faded badly in the new year because he's being overplayed is going to have another summer filled with football and high expectation. When's he stop playing? When do we actually stop making excuses and judge him? When do we stop talking about Oscar in terms of the Juventus match or the Southampton match and talk about him purely in terms of his last match?

[Polo7 3,496]

Play Hazard as No.10 and Oscar can be second choice. He has simply not been good enough in 2014.

[Gilvorak 3,734]

Knew the Mata sale was going to bite us in the arse. We've basically become a one man team since Oscar lost his form.

His influence on games has been practically non-existent since the goals have dried up.

[Vybz Kartel 1,613]

To be honest there has not been a sign of his creative potential for a while, even when he was on form, he was finishing off chances not creating tht many, I see him more as a central mid than a number 10, sorry for trhe Mata comparison but when he was sh*t this year he still created a lot of goal scoring chances even thgh they were missed by our strikers which a proper 10 shld do. Oscar has his different qualities I understand but surely he can do better than he is doing at the moment

[The only place to be 11,313]

Knew the Mata sale was going to bite us in the arse. We've basically become a one man team since Oscar lost his form.

His influence on games has been practically non-existent since the goals have dried up.

With Oscar we've still been defensively strong enough to pull out wins. I don't know what Mata would've done for us but whatever he might've given us going forward would've been negated by his lack of workrate when pressing the game.

But there's always going to be a few who crawl out of the woodwork to say 'I told you so' and they'll be rubbing their hands with glee if we miss out on the title.

[Vybz Kartel 1,613]

The Southampton game was on the January 1st. Since then how many league games has he been good in? Newcastle at home?

Honestly, I don't hold out much hope that he's going to have another good game this season. I wouldn't bet on him scoring a goal between now and May, and I'm not sure if he'll even assist a goal. And then he's off to the World Cup.

So this young man who had a great start to the season and then faded badly in the new year because he's being overplayed is going to have another summer filled with football and high expectation. When's he stop playing? When do we actually stop making excuses and judge him? When do we stop talking about Oscar in terms of the Juventus match or the Southampton match and talk about him purely in terms of his last match?

Whats concerning is that he seems to show up for Brazil more than for CFC even if pple argue he is tired. It might just be coincidence u never know