MrExcalibur100

We've been shocking in the last 15 mins. We've lost control of the game completely.

Lloris barely had a chance to save it. It was shot with a lot of venom and was beneath him. Shows how much you know about football.

Ah, I see. I don't know why I assumed you lived down south or something.

Long journey, that. I've never been to the North-East before. I hope you and you kid have a good time and enjoy the game!

So many falsehoods and awful points that have zero to little correlation. Just for the record Willian has played 53 games for us and has 5 goals. I'm not interested in who is the better player (it's clear to me that Oscar is easily better), but Willian's inefficiency, decision making, lack of a footballing brain and the fact that his defensive contribution doesn't negate or compensate for those things in the long run. Oscar too has his his problems, as do Costa, Hazard, Matic or Fabregas but the point is, Willian has more and is lagging behind the others. In general, too much favouritism for personal favourites goes on too much on this forum, which is frankly bizarre. We all have our favourite players but there's a limit to it. Praising one player to put another down is not what Chelsea fans do. At the end of the day, the team is what's by far most important.

Like who? Schurrle? He's not worth the extra 5-6 goals now that we have real strikers.

When we start losing matches, we can have this conversation, until then, I'll enjoy the wins.

At times is the key word there. Even for our best players, that can't be helped because of our style of play. It's normal and not just us. Fabregas can be guilty of that at times and that's because he's a high risk high reward type of player. His ball control isn't also in the level of a Hazard or Willian but arguably slightly above Oscar's. I'll rather Fabregas stay positive with his passing and link up play than be a negative passenger or a woeful passer. I don't think the same applies to Matic though. Guy is just a straight up monster. The only time he loses it is when he's trying to make ambitious forward passes, but that's rare. No one dares rob the ball off him or even attempts to. At the end of the day, the reward is that we're doing fantastically well in every competition and playing beautiful football for the most part. That will definitely be a concern vs a Bayern or a Real though. We'll probably have to throw in a Ramires in against those. But we won't get hurt against the lot we're facing in the league.

We won't miss Matic that much since we're going to be playing vs an Alan Pardew Newcastle team. They'll defend deep, let us have the ball and play on the counter. As long as Mikel holds his position and doesn't get involved with our attacks, I'll be fine.

A lot more is an exaggeration, it's not like comparing Oscar's ball retention skills to a Hazard or a Fabregas, which will be fair. Thing is Oscar doesn't have the same ball control as Willian, it's not so much about execution of passes but getting dispossessed of the ball. Their pass completion rate is roughly equal (Oscar 85% Willian 86%) and Oscar is creating twice as many chances avg. 2 KP per game compared with Willian's 1 KP per game. Oscar might lose the ball easier, but he's a far more efficient player. But you're right, Oscar needs to get physically tougher and improve his ball retention skills, no doubt. He can be too sloppy for my liking. Yeah, the Ol' Willian, stepover then push-ball-forward trick. It rarely works though as he hardly ever gets his cross in. I remember one working in the QPR match but that was more of an anomaly than a norm. He tried that with Luke Shaw vs Man United and Shaw anticipated it and snuffed it out easily. Van Gaal does his homework.. Infact, he was completely neutralized in that game by the 19 year old kid.

Not only you, Barbara and not only this game but every other game. But he works hard off the ball, keeps the passing game flowing and we're amazing this season so his many deficiencies aren't limiting us a great deal, unlike last season. The fact is I can count on one hand the amount of great games he's had all season. Schalke, Maribor and Aston Villa and that's it. Sunderland away was him being the best of a very bad bunch + he'd played less minutes this season than many of his colleagues and was unsurprisingly fresher for that game.

Willian's problem is not just lack of goals, but that he makes the wrong decisions too often. It will be understandable if he were 21 or 22 but he's 26 now. He's also very predictable in the final 3rd. His skill set is very basic, any decent defender who has watched tapes of him can easily mark him out of a game. Great technique, speed, long passing range and work ethic but he lacks too many vital things to be a great player. He's a useful player to have in the squad due to his work ethic, every Chelsea fan knows, appreciates and sees this, but there are players who can improve us out there in the summer; Ditto going from Ramires to Fab and Mikel to Matic.

Remy reminds me a bit of Anelka. I hope he gets to show himself more during this congested fixture period.

I'm not contesting that fact, I never even brought it up, but we're playing at home not away at their place. I prefer we dominate possession at home. That also conserves energy as opposed to chasing the ball.

That's a stretch. Sample size too small.

Fab off. No yellow card

We seriously need to keep the ball better. 38% possession. No need for that at all.

Co-commentator : Unashamedly pro-Tottenham.

Typical Willian.

Terribly biased commentary on NBC by some ex-Arsenal clowns. Is there any other channel showing the game?

Willian has to blast that.

The Drog does as the Drog does.

DROGBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Class goal by Eden, mind.

I stand by it.