WNDS

Turan is certainly (much) more comfortable playing on the right than Willian is (due to his almost Hazard-like levels of technique), but I simply cannot agree that he has anything approaching genuine pace; he's about as 'fast' as Oscar is, maybe even a little less, and I can't see Mourinho willingly choosing to play such a player in wide positions. Turan's main strengths are his brilliant technique, vision when in possession, short passing, and general work-rate; it would be an utter waste of such a player (an older, stronger, much more technical version of Oscar) to shunt him off to the RM where his ability to influence play (even when interchanging positions) would be diminished. He works (or worked) at RM in Atletico's system, but I very much doubt that he would be as effective for us in a similar role if we continue to use the 4-2-3-1; we attack, maintain possession, and defend using very different methods to those employed at Atletico, even if there are superficial similarities between our approaches (e.g. priority is given to defending, the defence plays deep, domination of possession is not viewed as essential etc.)

I just can't see Mourinho playing someone as slow as Arda Turan in the role of a wide-midfielder/winger in this current Chelsea team. Besides, what many people appear to be forgetting/ignoring is that Arda Turan's natural position is CAM; he has been deployed in wide positions at Atletico due to Simeone's liking for playing a 4-4-2, and this has had a negative impact upon his statistical output in terms of both goals and assists. IF we were to get him (it seems unlikely at the moment), I'm fairly certain that he would end up playing as our 'number 10'.

Some awful behaviour from their players (Vidal, Jara) coupled with plenty of diving and 'sympathetic' refereeing decisions has got me rooting against Chile in this tournament. A shame, really, as I admire the way the team plays its football.

I suspect that the only way we're going to be able to get Pogba is if Oscar goes the other way. Juventus have already expressed interest in acquiring Oscar, and without a player-swap being part of the deal, the transfer fee we would have to pay is just too high. Pogba's arrival would mean an inevitable switch to a 4-3-3, with Pogba slotting-in alongside Matic and Fabregas in the midfield three. Given that he isn't a winger, Oscar is probably the odd-man-out in this scenario (more so than Cuadrado), and I feel that it's highly unlikely that he will be be content with starting most games on the bench.

Although he WAS in the Copa America squad until ruled-out through injury, Marcelo has been called-up for less than half of the Brazilian NT matches played under Dunga, and has started in only one game so far (a friendly vs Chile a few months ago). Luis has played the most minutes of any player selected by Dunga, and has generally done very well as the starting LB, showing good defensive ability and providing 3 assists; he's very much first-choice, and is currently the player that Dunga seems to trust the most. Despite this, I would anticipate that either Miranda (another big Dunga favourite) or Thiago Silva (former captain, and back in the team ahead of David Luiz) is selected to be the captain in Neymar's absence.

It was no coincidence that Willian gave his worst performance for Brazil under Dunga when he had seemingly been instructed to remain wide on the right, and so been denied the freedom he is usually given to influence Brazil's general possession play. We know from his performances at Chelsea that he is rarely influential in attack if he is deployed in this way, so it should come as no surprise that this is also the case when he is playing with Brazil. He WAS very poor against Colombia, but it says everything about how terrible Brazil were that he was actually the 'best' (or 'least outright bad') of the four players who were selected to start in the attacking positions; Fred was (somehow) EVEN MORE of a non-entity than Willian was, and seemed to be having a competition with Firmino and Neymar to see who could lose the ball the most per minutes on the pitch, Firmino missed an almost-open goal and did nothing else of note for the rest of the game, whilst Neymar refused to pass the ball to team-mates time and time again in favour of dribbling into oncoming tackles. Fred MUST be dropped from the starting 11, and Douglas Costa deserves to start (along with Coutinho). With Neymar suspended, Willian might as well play on the left behind whichever of Tardelli or Firmino impresses more in training over the next few sessions (neither has done enough in the two matches already played to merit starting). When Neymar returns, whichever of Willian, Douglas Costa, and Coutinho impresses the least against Venezuela should be dropped to accommodate him. Simple.

With the possible exceptions of Luis, Miranda, Alves, and Coutinho (and even these four were far from great), Brazil were absolutely woeful against Colombia. Neymar, for all that he's clearly Brazil's best player at the moment, is currently far from being captain material; he's far too easy to provoke/upset/annoy and is now possibly suspended for the next two games as a result of this. Fred looks a decent, hard-working squad player, but nothing more; he isn't capable of being a genuine replacement for Oscar, and so shouldn't continue to be selected in the starting 11. Firmino SHOULD probably be given another chance in a starting role, but will have to improve massively upon what he just showed against Colombia, as he was possibly the worst player on the pitch. I have no idea why Dunga set his team up in such a rigid way in the first-half, as it meant that Brazil's attacking players were often completely isolated when in possession, and were therefore very easy to shut down and dispossess. Willian (LM)-Coutinho (CAM)-Douglas Costa (RM) behind Firmino (ST) should be the attacking line-up deployed until Neymar is available to return (or until Brazil are knocked-out). Colombia were absolutely brilliant for most of the game, and particularly in the first-half; they pressed Brazil aggressively high up the pitch, and closed down the passing lanes with some excellent positioning. Cuadrado looked so much better than he has ever done for us up to this point, James Rodriguez was generally very good, the Colombian back-line was wonderfully disciplined, whilst Carlos Sanchez in DM was probably MoM. Unfortunately, Falcao was well below the level displayed by his team-mates, and was rarely threatening; he was the only Colombian player that didn't perform.

Douglas Costa is certainly better at getting into good attacking positions than Willian (give me the name of an AM who isn't), but he's much less intelligent than Willian in his use of possession. He's one of those players that, although very talented and capable of being dangerous in attack, nonetheless has a tendency to turn the ball over quite often due to poor decision-making; he dribbles when he should pass, he passes when he could shoot, he shoots when he should pass etc. This is the reason that he has developed a reputation for inconsistency. In contrast, Willian's passing and decision-making were exemplary against Peru, with a number of dangerous crosses from the right supplementing some excellent vertical passes, well-timed switches of play, and effective 1-2 combinations with various teammates; he was one of Brazil's best players (behind Neymar) alongside Alves and Costa. The biggest issue for Brazil at the Copa is going to be their enormously unconvincing double-pivot; Fernandinho and Elias were really poor against Peru, affording the defence little in the way of protection in open-play, giving away free-kicks in dangerous areas, and failing to move the ball forwards quickly enough when in possession. The problems arising from the DMs were compounded by Dunga's selection of Fred (over Douglas Costa, with Coutinho injured) and Tardelli (over Firmino) because it meant that only Alves and Willian were initiating/developing the attacks for Brazil, and only Neymar was effective at getting into dangerous positions and finishing these attacks.

I'm fully aware that, despite recent improvements, Hazard is not (currently) the same player for Belgium as he is for Chelsea. The player himself IS at least partly responsible for this state of affairs, but regardless of this fact, it really is shocking how often he is ignored when Belgium are in possession. In this game against Wales he kept finding good pockets of space in which to operate, and was even completely free on the left on a number of occasions, but failed to receive the pass time and time again; it was done so often that it seemed as if Witsel, Vertonghen, and Nainggolan had been instructed to pass to anyone but Hazard. Midway through the second half, they even began to ignore De Bruyne as well; incomprehensible. If Wilmots thinks that he's going to transform Belgian NT Hazard into the player he is for Chelsea simply by handing him the vice-captaincy but continuing to allow him to be marginalised by his own teammates when on the pitch, he's totally wrong (obviously). As to your other two points, I totally agree; Benteke lacks dynamism and is fairly overrated, and De Bruyne is a much harder worker than many Chelsea fans seem to realise.

Neymar is very much developing into Cristiano Ronaldo 2.0 (minus the physicality), as far as I can see. He isn't as technically gifted (or as consistently good a dribbler) as he is often made out to be, but he tends to find ways to score and assist regardless, even in games in which he has been a passenger for long stretches of play. Add to this the fairly stereotypical celebrity-footballer/showbiz lifestyle choices he has made over the last few years, and you end up with an almost complete 'CR7'-style package.

Luis IS a (very) good defender when used properly, though. You don't become one of Simeone's 'untouchables' in defence without having considerable defensive ability and tactical discipline; he demands more of his teams in terms of defence than even Mourinho does. Besides, I would argue that Luis was outperforming both Ivan and Azpi from early January right through until mid-February, but wasn't given the chance to build upon this upturn in his performance levels; as soon as PSG came calling, he was back on the bench. Without being given a proper opportunity to acclimatise to our defensive system, it's inevitable that he will sometimes look uncomfortable when defending at LB for us. Whilst Atletico DO defend deep, their FBs are generally encouraged to be highly proactive in their tackling and intercepting because the rest of the team is so well-drilled/positioned when on the defensive. When Luis played at LB for Atletico, Simeone instructed him to be very aggressive in the tackle, such that he would either dispossess the opposing player outright, or force him into a hurried evasive action (either a dribble or a pass) that led straight into a dead-end covered by both a DM and the LM; whether Luis made the tackle or not, the end result was usually that the opposition lost the ball anyway. At Chelsea, whilst Ivan at RB IS generally provided with the level of cover/support he requires to defend effectively, the LB isn't (due to Hazard having the 'free' AM role), and so Mourinho prefers to use his best 1-on-1 defender (Azpi) in this position.

Genuinely bemused by all the criticism directed towards Luis so far; what on Earth did he do wrong!? It wasn't a great performance by him, but I honestly didn't find him noticeably worse than any other player today, and he was definitely better than some (Costa, Cuadrado in particular).

Willian's contribution to our season has been huge since the turn of the year, whatever the stats say. - Watford (4th Jan): came on as a half time sub, scored the opening goal in a 3-0 win - Newcastle: Quick corner between him and Ivanovic set up Oscar for a tap-in that broke the deadlock when we were struggling badly - Swansea: He (like the team as a whole) was excellent, and he a hand in the build-up to 2-3 of our goals - Liverpool (League Cup semi-final second-leg): Brilliant performance, including the game-winning assist for Ivanovic - Aston Villa: He was very good and supplied the assist for Hazard's opening goal - Everton: Was possibly our best player and scored the winning goal - Tottenham (League Cup final): Solid performance that was enhanced by his heavy involvement in the build-up to both goals - Hull: Awful performance redeemed by his game-winning assist for Remy - Stoke: Good performance plus vital contribution to the game-winning goal (interception of Begovic's throw) - Arsenal: One of our best players (along with Terry and Azpi); set up a clear-cut chance for Ramires that could have won us the game - Leicester: Man of the match outright; set up a clear-cut chance for Fabregas that was wasted - Crystal Palace: Man of the match candidate plus combination with Hazard that led to the penalty from which we (eventually) scored - Liverpool: Generally a very good performance, and was again one of our best players If you think that this list is too long and involved to bother reading in detail, you'd probably be correct. That's the point, though. Since the New Year, Willian's contributions to our League/League Cup-winning season cannot simply be brushed aside with the argument that his raw goals/assists stats are crap; he's given us far more than they are able to reflect. Anyway, to put this post back on topic; I wouldn't mind us getting Griezmann. He can play as either a winger or a forward, his pace and technique are both very good, he has shown that he can score goals with regularity, and he has good work-rate. He could be deployed as the out-and-out CF (if Costa is injured/badly out-of-form), the RM (with Oscar/Willian playing as CAM), or he could be used as a deep-lying second striker (with Hazard LM/Willian RM); in short, he could provide us with a lot of options (and hopefully some solutions).

Given that he is from Colombia, if he doesn't know enough Spanish to be able to communicate effectively with his team-mates then we may indeed have a huge problem .

Barbara is correct about Oscar's performances for Brazil under Dunga (despite not having seen the games herself); I've watched every one of the Brazil games since the World Cup and Oscar has actually been one of their least impressive players overall. He put in a good display against France recently, but he's generally been playing out-of-position on the left (to a 6/10 level), where he has been used in a supporting role for Neymar, Willian (who has been very good for Brazil since the World Cup), and Firmino/Tardelli. I haven't noticed any increase in his levels of freedom or creativity relative to what he has been offering us here for the last 5 months or so. Despite this, it does indeed appear to have become something of a myth among Chelsea supporters that he plays much better for Brazil than he does for us.

Why on EARTH have we taken Willian out of the no.10 position to put him on the RW?! He was our best player by far in the first half when playing through the middle.

Isco is exactly the type of player we need to improve our starting 11; a player with brilliant technique. He's improved his work-rate immensely over the past season, and I think he'd work fantastically well alongside Hazard and any one of Willian/Oscar/Cuadrado. If he's available in the summer, we should make every effort to get him.

I'd go with Courtois; Ivanovic-Cahill-Terry-Azpi; Matic-Fabregas; Willian-Oscar-Hazard; Remy (if fit) for this one. Oscar was generally very good against Man United, and so deserves to keep his place in the starting eleven (he also tends to perform well against Arsenal anyway). I wouldn't start him at RM though, as I'm not entirely convinced that his deployment there was a complete success in purely tactical terms; Shaw seemed to get into dangerous positions far too frequently, and the vast majority of Oscar's best moments (e.g. his assist) came when he had moved into more central areas of the pitch. We could possibly play a narrow 4-3-3, with Oscar staying at 'RM' and one of either Mikel or Zouma starting instead of Willian, but I would not favour this option due to the relative lack of pace we would then have in midfield areas. Arsenal are playing very well at the moment, but are still prone to leaving spaces to exploit on the counter; starting with a trio of Willian-Hazard-Remy could allow us to do this. There IS risk attached to playing the Matic-Fabregas double-pivot, but I think that our position at the top of the table is currently secure enough to allow us to start this game with a more attacking approach; if we win we've practically won the title, if we lose we can still afford to drop points in two/three/(maybe even four) of our remaining fixtures.

Er..... what the heck!? Surely that statement by Mourinho isn't meant as it reads? Has he been misquoted?

I think Yacine Brahimi could act as a decent replacement for Hazard if/when he leaves us.

WhoScored's stats for defenders are almost entirely worthless because they fail to take into account some of the most important aspects of defending such as man-marking, closing down, general positioning, decision-making etc. You can see this quite clearly with Terry, who is frequently given one of the worst 'statistical ratings' of any Chelsea player in many matches, despite often being one of our best/most important players. The article mentions that Ivanovic has only been dribbled past on 13 occasions this season, but that stat is at least partly due to Ivan's extremely frustrating tendency to stand-off his man in dangerous areas rather than attempting to make a block or a tackle. In addition to this, Ivanovic's man-marking abilities have shown an obvious decline this season, with opposition players finding it all too easy to make untracked off-the-ball runs around him. As I've already touched upon in the paragraph above, these are all failings that do not show up in statistical evaluations because they are not purely quantifiable measurements; as far as the statistical ratings are concerned Ivan is an excellent defender, but then again, so are Chris Smalling (7.34; decent, but not THAT good), Antonio Valencia (7.24; not even a genuine defender), Gael Clichy (7.43; massively inconsistent), Bacary Sagna (7.20; City fans don't particularly rate him), Federico Fazio (7.35; has had a large number of games in which he's been awful this season) etc. Meanwhile, Terry has a decent-but-unspectacular rating of 7.04, just behind Per Mertesacker's 7.07; Mertesacker who has been entirely sub-par for about half the season.

Willian's overall performance last night might well have been a 'standard' 7/10 display, but he embellished it quite drastically with TWO assists despite still playing on the right of midfield (as ever, not his best position). I though the main issue most people have with Willian is his lack of productivity when playing for us?! He's been consistently productive for Brazil when playing under Dunga, with 5 direct goal-involvements (2 goals/3 assists) in 7 games. That would certainly appear to suggest that he CAN produce more for us, EVEN WHEN he is playing on the right. Do you think that Willian possibly having the potential to go from his current 4 goals/6-7 assists per season to (say) 7 goals/12-13 assists per season whilst still offering some measure of defensive solidity on the right flank is something to be so dismissive of? I sure as hell don't; it could make all the difference to our attack, particularly if we are successful in further strengthening the team in the summer. 'Easily the worst of all the Brazilians'; opinions, opinions, but there are some that are just totally wrong, and this is one of them. Neymar (despite his very well-taken goal, he lost the ball very often, took too many touches, and slowed Brazil's attacking play down too much) and Miranda (had a few shaky moments in defence) were both noticeably 'worse' than Willian in this game. Indeed, the only outfielders that were noticeably better than Willian were Luiz Gustavo, Thiago Silva, and (maybe) Filipe Luis.

Exactly. As you (and others) have been noting, it honestly doesn't look as if Mourinho has the squad practicing/rehearsing attacking moves at all. Against France, Brazil's attacking play was slick, controlled, and effective, 'despite' having Oscar and Willian occupying two of the four attacking positions; to listen to some posters on Chelsea forums, you would think that such attacking play should be impossible for a team that deploys both of these players simultaneously. Willian's performances for Brazil are particularly notable, because he is producing end-product fairly consistently (2 goals and 3 assists in 7 games) whilst also contributing well defensively. Dunga has managed to strike the correct balance with Willian and Danilo (the RB) on the right flank, and 'strangely' enough, it DOESN'T involve Danilo (a more natural attacking full-back than Ivanovic) bombing forward at every opportunity; Willian is very much the player responsible for the majority of the attacking play down that right-hand side. The effects of having an increased amount of attacking freedom (and defensive security behind him) are obvious; Willian attempts to dribble more frequently, displays more of a willingness to attempt through balls, and even makes occasional off-the-ball runs in behind opposition back-lines. At first I thought that these performances of Willian's were simply 'one-offs', but he is continuing to produce them quite consistently when playing for Brazil, irrespective of the form he has been showing at club level. In short, both Oscar and Willian are receiving proper coaching for their attacking play in the Brazil NT, and it is allowing them to display something closer to their full attacking potential; they are NOT 'world-class' attacking players, but they are not as far from being so as you would think from watching their attacking contributions for Chelsea.

How about that then? In a game in which Willian didn't have to play as auxiliary RB and defer to Ivan (or in this case Danilo) on every occasion, he was able to produce a great performance against a side of real quality. People can argue that Willian's problems in attack are 'nothing' to do with Mourinho's tactics/instructions and everything to do with the player's own deficiencies, but the way in which he has been playing (and producing) for Brazil under Dunga provides a strong argument to the contrary as the sample size begins to grow larger.

He's still some way off Messi and Ronaldo (and probably Robben as well), but he really isn't 'very far from' Neymar's level. Neymar's attacking stats (goals/assists) ARE better than Hazard's tend to be, but this is because Neymar is a 'finisher', whilst Hazard is an 'initiator'; they are two different types of player and carry out fairly different roles within their teams. Hazard's technical attributes (ball control, dribbling, long and short passing etc.) are all superior to Neymar's, and he augments these key abilities with his exceptional balance and decent upper-body strength. Hazard is comfortable playing in tight, confined spaces, and is significantly more capable of riding challenges than Neymar is. This means that Hazard is considerably more effective than Neymar at breaking through the opposition's lines in both midfield and wide defensive positions. Neymar, despite playing in what is nominally the same position as Hazard upon the pitch (LM/LW), plays the role in an entirely different fashion; he is always looking to finish attacking moves, either by getting a shot away, or by providing a square pass/pull-back in the box to a teammate who is in a better position. His dribbling is at it's most effective when he has isolated a member of the opposition back-line in a 1-on-1 situation and has space to run into behind him. He gets into good shooting/finishing positions significantly more frequently than Hazard does, he is a better finisher than Hazard is, he's better at taking direct free-kicks, and he is also faster. In addition to this, he has a superior mental strength to Hazard, and is entirely capable of scoring a goal or two whilst putting in a terrible all-round performance (Hazard rarely seems capable of doing this). This last point is due in part to the pressure he has had to deal with from a very young age as the current 'golden boy' of the greatest historical footballing nation; a pressure far greater than that which Hazard is subjected to as the current 'golden boy' of Belgium, a country of lesser pedigree and with somewhat lesser expectations/demands of it's team and players. Neymar might well be the 'better'/more effective player of the two at the moment, but Hazard (due to his superior levels of raw technique) has the greater potential; if he can continue to improve his mentality and willingness to take responsibility, then I think he can surpass Neymar.