Willian

[iceboy 992]

I don't understand why he stops when he has the ball?

[Rapkun 668]

I don't understand why he stops when he has the ball?

He doesn't have the vista nor the football intelligence to spot the right pass when he gets the ball. He retains it at his feet waiting for someone to ask for a pass or tries to outspeed a defender and then randomly cross the ball. Normally, any good footballer knows what to do with the ball before he receives it. That's obviously not the case with Willian.

[The Skipper 20,593]

I was very circonspect when I read your assumption, so I decided to do the research and verify it.

First of all, I dont see where you count two pre-assists for Wilian vs Swans. First goal, no pre-assist ; second goal Oscar's pre-assist (Wilian's pass is pre-pre-assist ^^) ; third goal no pre-assist ; fourth goal Willian pre-assist ; fifth goal Hazard's pre-assist.

So as for my research, I based it on the video below + Highlights against Tottenham, Watford, Newcastle and finally Swansea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyu-PD-nnHs

The research is a bit incomplete because in the first video one can't always see who made the pre-assist. For some I looked at a highlight video of the game, but couldn't find some of them. But I dare say that 90% of the pre-assists are taken into account in my research.

As for the methodology, I counted as pre-assist every last pass before an assist EXCEPT when it is clear that the last pass before the assist had nothing to do whatsoever with the make-up of the goal. For example I considered that Terry giving an easy 5 yards pass to Fabregas in midfield, then followed by a 40 yards pass from Fabregas who spotted Costa's run does not count as pre-assist from Terry. It's all thanks to Fabregas imo.

Also, I counted a pre-assist even when the pre-assister is also the scorer. For example Hazard's goal against Tottenham, with a beautiful one-two with Fabregas : Hazard is credited one pre-assist, even though he also scored. Seemed fair to me.

So here are the results :

Hazard : 14 pre-assists

Fabregas : 6 pre-assists (four of them are from corners : Fabregas takes the corner, someone heads the ball toward the far-post, and another one pushes the ball in the net)

Costa : 4 pre-assists

Ivanovic : 3 pre-assists

Wilian : 3 pre-assists (one against Maribor, the quick corner against Newcastle, one against Swansea... and that's all)

Oscar : 1 pre-assist

Luis : 1 pre-assist

Cahill : 1 pre-assist

So, your assumption is wrong, Willian is nowhere near leading the "pre-assist competition", Hazard is by far the leader.

And I have been quite gentle with Willian, because I counted a pre-assist against Maribor where it shouldn't have been counted. It's a pre-assist for Filipe Luis, who crosses for Hazard, and it ended up with an own goal of a Maribor's defender : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pB2OXKAGFA

2m10 in this video you can see the goal I'm talking about, I thought he deserved to be credited a pre-assist because he helped set-up the goal very much, but technically it is not a pre-assist.

Some observations from this research : Oscar has only one pre-assist (the one against Swansea for Fabregas' assist), and Matic has none ! I really didn't expect these results from both these players.

Excellent post pal.

[Cescy 40]

...

Thanks for this. Hazard's stat is even higher than I excepted.

Should it not be 2 for Oscar though? @0.53 of your video, he plays a through ball to Ivanovic who gives the assist to Costa.

[JDY 1,290]

I don't understand why he stops when he has the ball?

It can be good and bad at the same time. Why lose the ball unnecessarily doing things 100mph like a Schurrle or Oscar tend to do? But at the same time you can slow the game down and kill momentum, like Hazard also did sometimes.

[Hkibou 622]

Thanks for this. Hazard's stat is even higher than I excepted.

Should it not be 2 for Oscar though? @0.53 of your video, he plays a through ball to Ivanovic who gives the assist to Costa.

This is one of the goals I was talking about, we can't see in the video who did the pre-assist, I myself didn't remember it and was unable to find highlights of Leicester's game which revealed it.

I trust your memory, so I edited the post. Thanks !

[Vybz Kartel 1,613]

Has this retard ever played well for us in a big game?? Such a liability for us , would rather we start Ramires as a RW because his more of a goal threat than Willian

[yuvala 2,167]

Honestly I thought he did quite well compared to the rest of the team

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,733]

Honestly I thought he did quite well compared to the rest of the team

He didnt play bad at all.

He didnt play good, but he didnt play bad. Willian is that type of footballer it seems. Rarely plays bad/Rarely plays good. Just an average workhorse.

Serviceable when the other attackers are good and meh when they aren't.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

Honestly I thought he did quite well compared to the rest of the team

Our best outfielder by a mile.

As Ivanovic constantly went AWOL, he was doing a brilliant job for us at the back.

[hamad138 190]

Wtf are u smoking, he wss the worst player out there

[kellzfresh 7,226]

Terrible in the first half, but better than all our attackers in the 2nd half

[WNDS 502]

Has this retard ever played well for us in a big game?? Such a liability for us , would rather we start Ramires as a RW because his more of a goal threat than Willian

Last season, almost ALL of his best performances were in the big games; Liverpool (home), Man Utd (home), Man City (Away), PSG (home) etc., he was immense in all of these. This season he has yet to produce to the same standard in many games generally, but he saved us (and Ivan) countless times today with his interceptions and blocking of crosses. No, he once again didn't produce going forward, but who did? Every attacker/midfielder and even some of our defenders spent much of the game playing hopeless passes and mis-controlling the ball. For me, today showed why he should remain a part of our squad in the future, if not always/often being a member of the starting 11 itself.

[Rom2013 446]

He did well today. About pre.assists ... let's count also pre-pre-assists. Or pre-pre-pre-assists.LOL

[BlueLion. 21,491]

Wtf are u smoking, he wss the worst player out there

[zolayes 14,489]

Has this retard ever played well for us in a big game?? Such a liability for us , would rather we start Ramires as a RW because his more of a goal threat than Willian

you call him a retard .. they say it takes one to know one .. but you know FUCK ALL

[hamad138 190]

Am I mad lOl?

Willain was shocking for me, what did u see to call him decent ? Everyone wanted to sub him off because he screwed every counter.

Or maybe its just me lol

[zolayes 14,489]

Am I mad lOl?

Willain was shocking for me, what did u see to call him decent ? Everyone wanted to sub him off because he screwed every counter.

Or maybe its just me lol

just you and Ben Johnson