WNDS

Nailed-on starter for our next game....

The best way to use him appears to be as an 'impact-sub' at the moment; the majority of his best recent performances have come when he has been introduced into the game as a sub in the 60-70th minute. He rarely seems able to find any genuine rhythm or consistency to his play when he is on the pitch from kick-off.

The first goal we conceded WAS partly his fault, but he was in a difficult position to intervene due to the cross having been delivered into the space between him and the goal. The one truly BIG mistake he made this game was his enormously ill-advised attempt to play offside in the second-half which led directly to Courtois' triple save. Other than that, I liked his play when in possession of the ball, and also his noticeable improvement at winning aerial balls. This was probably his first display in 2015 that was relatively sub-par, and yet it was STILL better than the one provided by Ivanovic over at RB. We all know who is going to be allowed to retain their place in the team for the next game, however.

Willian undeniably lacks a killer instinct, and he's not going to develop one anytime soon (unfortunately) even IF he is played through the centre. Having said this, however, I find it rather strange that you appear to think that there is no genuine potential for improvement in his attacking performances if he's played in his natural positions. If he's playing through the centre or on the left (being a right-footer) he will have more opportunity to take shots from good positions, more opportunity to play quick passes, more opportunity to dribble infield etc.. Basically, he can be more involved in the play than he currently tends to be whilst also being given the chance to play his game in a way that should come more naturally to him. No doubt he will continue to make (more than) his fair share of poor decisions when in the final third, but he will also be in positions to allow the good decisions/key actions he IS capable of making to pay off in a meaningful way much more frequently. Look at De Bruyne's time with us; Mourinho insisted upon playing him out of position on the right, wasn't impressed by his performances there, benched him (pissing the player off), and then sold him. Now De Bruyne is playing in his natural CAM position at Wolfsburg and is putting in magnificent performances for them on a consistent basis. Willian will almost certainly NOT play as well as De Bruyne is currently doing at Wolfsburg in the no.10 role, but he could end up being an 'in-house' improvement over Oscar in that position for us; until he's given a run of games there, we can't know. It's ridiculous to pass judgment upon players who have rarely been given a chance to prove their full worth (or lack thereof) in their proper position(s). Your claim that Willian isn't actually any good defensively really doesn't hold up either; defending is about far more than merely making tackles, particularly when the player in question is an attacking player. Whilst he may not be great at tackling, Willian is excellent at pressing from the front, tracking off-the-ball runs of opponents, and blocking passing lanes. He often does an enormous amount of defensive work for the team on the right side of the pitch, and the fact that it is still so vulnerable despite his efforts says far more about Ivanovic's current defensive inadequacies than it does about Willian's.

As has been noted many times before, one of the biggest issues with Ramires is that no one (least of all himself, I'd imagine) has any clue how he'll perform in any given match; he was excellent against West Ham, then awful against PSG, and now good again today when coming off the bench.

Well, indeed. Willian certainly deserves plenty of criticism himself at times, but he DOES at least have the excuse of being played out of position to fall back upon; Oscar has been no better (if anything, frequently worse) than him over the last few months whilst playing in what we are led to believe is his 'best' position. When Oscar is in-form, his 'all-rounder' style-of-play is hugely beneficial to the team and DOES provide us with GENUINE balance; when he's off-form (quite often), he offers us nothing.

Until Willian is given a proper run of games in one of his two 'natural' positions (LM/CAM) I'm going to refrain from passing judgement on him. He must have started only around 10 games for us in either position, whilst remaining a guaranteed starter at RM simply because he often prevents Ivanovic from being utterly exposed at RB. Everything about how he plays the RM role when in possession and attacking indicates that he has little clue what to do there (much like Azpi when he's 'attacking' from left full-back), and he's obviously not going to improve any time soon. We cannot get away with carrying two 'attacking players' (Oscar and Willian) who are frequently complete passengers when we try to.... well.... attack. Oscar is a particular disappointment, as he's failing to deliver despite already playing in his favoured position.

Based on 2015 performances, Luis sure as hell doesn't 'deserve' the bench; it's been very close between him and Azpi over the past few months, certainly close enough to justify rotating them more frequently than Mourinho is doing at the moment. Of course, it wouldn't be such a 'difficult' situation if Mourinho could actually bring himself to bench Ivanovic on occasion.

I though that throw-in right at the start of the second-half was a perfect illustration as to why he is undeserving of his status as an 'untouchable'; sloppy, unfocused, overconfident. He is playing like a player who knows that he doesn't need to fight for his place.

Another game, another opponent taking advantage of the right side of our defence any time they can. Ivan's cross for the goal was very good, but he's been defending awfully; Cahill has been poor as well.

I've begun to suspect that Douglas Costa might well have been Mourinho's first choice over Cuadrado; there WERE rumours in January that Cuadrado was an Emenalo suggestion, after all. Mourinho has also stated on a number of occasions that he likes to have inverted wingers in his squads.

Ridiculously harsh not to start Luis. He's been one of the few players to have performed consistently well (when given the opportunity) this calendar year, and yet he seemingly earns no reward for this.

I'm not at all convinced that Willian actually lacks technical ability. I'd even place him in the top 3 players in this team when it comes down to raw technique (alongside Hazard and Fabregas). The problem he has is that, whilst also possessing good balance to go with his technical abilities, he is not at all agile. It's probably for this reason that he doesn't dribble as much as he could (or should), and also why he sometimes struggles when denied space. Like many of our players, his decision-making in the final third IS an issue, however. Oscar is a weird one in that from touch-to-touch within a single game his technique can look either very good or appalling; I'm STILL not sure which better represents the 'real' Oscar. Ramires and Ivanovic are undeniably sub-par in terms of their technique, and I think you could also add Costa to that list as well. Cahill's technique is 'fine' for a CB as far as I'm concerned. The biggest issue I have with the squad is that so many of our players have poor decision-making all across the pitch (as you and so many other have already noted); only Fabregas, Matic, Luis (when he plays), and Terry appear to be genuinely reliable in choosing the 'correct' option more often than not.

This post has pretty much hit the nail on the head, I feel. The team is currently quite inflexible from a tactical perspective because too many of our tactical approaches and player selections are being implemented exclusively to cover for our own weaknesses, rather than in an attempt to exploit the weaknesses of the opposition; this is why we are so reactive. - Ivanovic is not great at preventing crosses coming in from his side of the defence, but Mourinho views his attacking forays, physicality, and experience as being hugely valuable to the team, so we end up playing our RM as an effective wing-back to help him out. Having wide attacking players track back is entirely reasonable, but having them do it to the extent that is apparently demanded of our starting RM is quite ridiculous. If Ivanovic needs that much help defending the right side, then it seems obvious to me that he is simply not up to the job at this point. - Azpilicueta (who used to be a RB) starts at LB for us for TWO reasons. One of those reasons is that he has Hazard playing in front of him, with Mourinho obviously feeling that if Hazard is to be allowed greater attacking freedom then the full-back behind him should be more cautious in attack to prevent us from being exposed; the problem with this approach is that Hazard's 'attacking freedom' ends up being little of the sort because he has minimal support in attack from the full-back and so can be double-or triple-marked. The second reason for Azpi being deployed at LB stems from the first (the potential for our left side to become exposed regularly) because Terry does not have the pace, agility, or general athleticism to cope with players running at him in a 1-on-1 situation; Mourinho therefore views it as being necessary to play a right-footed player as our LB to give Terry more protection. - Oscar, despite being a good 'all-rounder', is far from being a 'world-class' 'no.10' at this moment in time. Nonetheless, he (or a player with similar defensive attributes to him e.g. Willian) HAS to be used in the 'no.10' role for us because he generally does good work covering for Fabregas' lack of mobility and genuine defensive ability. Without such a player pressing from the front, shutting down passing lanes, and enabling us to retain possession (at least some of the time) when we have it, our midfield becomes unable to exert any genuine control over the game, even with Matic in the pivot (as we saw last night when Matic-Fabregas-Ramires were in the centre). However, deploying such a player in such a role comes at the cost of reduced creativity in the attacking-midfield area, which is only exacerbated further by the 'necessity' of playing our RM as a wing-back to cover for Ivanovic. The attacking burden therefore falls upon Hazard on the left..... but as already mentioned, he doesn't often have adequate support from Azpi at LB. All good teams MUST function as a unit, with certain players covering for other players etc., but I feel that this season Mourinho has afforded this necessity undue attention at the expense of developing the team in such a way that we can exploit the inevitable structural weaknesses of opposing teams in a more proactive and balanced manner; he's tried to make our own team as difficult to exploit as possible, but this approach has been undermined by his insistence upon designating inappropriate players (e.g. Ivanovic) as 'untouchables', and has come at the expense of team coherence when in possession and attacking. Having said (all ) this, I certainly don't think that we should even contemplate sacking Mourinho any time soon; there are almost no realistic options out there to replace him (and only two/three/four managers genuinely 'better' than him anyway), and he DOES appear to have a real affinity for this club. I'm just hoping that we will see improvement from him next season, because this season he's been well below his usual standard in the 'big games' we've played. Thankfully, winning the 'big games' is not a requirement for winning the PL.

His second-half performance was so poor, made worse by Fabregas playing alongside him with minimal energy and mobility, and made EVEN worse by Matic looking somewhat off-colour as well. He probably shouldn't have started this game ahead of Willian, and certainly should have been replaced at half-time (instead of Oscar) to allow us to take full advantage of our extra man; instead he remained on the pitch and offered us almost nothing for the remainder of the game. There are games/situations in which Ramires can be very useful to the team, and there are games/situations in which Ramires can be entirely useless; a game in which the opposition are down a man and need to score to stand a chance of progressing in the tournament is very much in the latter category. We needed to keep possession more effectively, we needed more attacking coherence (which we would probably have had with both Oscar and Willian on the pitch together), we needed more positional awareness etc.; Ramires is not a player capable of providing these things.

Willian was relatively decent when he was on the pitch (as was Oscar), so I'm not sure why it has to be a case of Oscar vs Willian at this moment; Willian didn't even play centrally until extra-time, and by that point we were playing a very dodgy Zouma-Fabregas pivot behind him and Costa to his right. I agree with the first part of your post, however, and I would suggest that the main problem (in normal time, at least) was that Fabregas, Ramires, and Matic were all well below their best for the majority of the game, meaning that we were unable to exert any control over the midfield area. Booked or not, Oscar should have remained on the pitch and Ramires (or even Fabregas) should have been taken off instead. Mourinho exacerbated our problems by not only removing Oscar from the game but also by then playing his replacement (Willian) out wide; this meant that we had a trio of off-form midfielders in the central areas of the pitch.

I'm not really disputing the fact that Willian 'should' have scored this chance, merely stating my opinion that he was hardly facing an 'open goal' (as a number of people have claimed). Adrian and Collins ARE covering about 1/3 of the goal to Willian's left just as the shot is taken (both are recovering quickly) and Cresswell is covering the centre. Willian COULD have aimed further to the right-hand side, but if you do so when letting the ball run across your body onto your stronger foot you run the risk of missing the target outright. He could also have have blasted his shot, but there is always the chance of hitting it over the bar when you do this; side-footing the ball was the right option, but his mistake was that he was so focused upon hitting the target that he did not hit the shot with enough power to beat the covering defender. I agree with everything you've said regarding Hazard, though; he's a brilliant player (currently one of the best in my opinion), but there is real room for improvement in this aspect of his game.

Watching it again, it really wasn't anywhere near as much of an 'open goal' for Willian as everybody was claiming, with much of the goal being covered by the keeper and the two defenders. At the time, I thought that passing to Willian might well have been the correct option, but each time I watch the replay it seems increasingly obvious that this wasn't the case; Hazard has the PERFECT opportunity to finish immediately after taking his first touch. Having said that, this missed opportunity came in the 94th minute (not the 75th/80th etc.) and had absolutely minimal bearing upon how the match played out.

Ramires was excellent on the right today, but I can't see him being able to contribute much in attack (at all) from that same position against a side like PSG. As for Oscar, I thought he played quite well today, but not well enough to convince Mourinho to play him from the start against PSG. I would anticipate that we'll play the same front six that started the first-leg: Matic; Ramires, Fabregas; Willian, Hazard; Costa, lined-up in a 4-3-3 formation.

He played well when in possession of the ball during the first-half, but faded out of the game after half-time. His play when the team is out of possession is what concerns me the most at the moment, given that it's usually one of his stronger points; he's often slow into challenges and his positioning is sometimes off as well.

An excellent performance, reminiscent of the displays he used to provide us with quite regularly during the 2011/12 season.

I REALLY REALLY hope that West Ham are not going to 'park the bus', because our team looks like it will struggle enormously against such a tactic; we have no width whatsoever with which to attempt to stretch the play (one of Ramires or Oscar playing wide/no Luis). Hopefully I'm wrong; I'm off to a good start on that front with my line-up prediction .

I agree with this, but I feel that you have perhaps missed the point that I was trying to make. Oscar's game currently lacks a genuine 'X-factor'; he takes very good direct free-kicks and he tackles well, but even this becomes somewhat irrelevant if he's off-form. When Willian, Ramires, and Cuadrado are off-form and are miscontrolling the ball/misplacing passes, they at least have their pace to fall back upon; they can still get back into defensive positions quickly, still press effectively, and also offer the option of breaking forward on the counter at pace. If Fabregas is having a poor game, he remains capable of providing that one pass/cross to create a clear-cut chance. Even on his bad days, Hazard is generally capable of dribbling past his man, at least on occasion. Costa's movement and positioning in the attacking third is often so good that he can play really badly and yet still be dangerous. In Oscar's case, he simply doesn't offer any of the above if he's having a poor game; he doesn't have the levels of pace, vision, raw technique, strength, or attacking nous to offset whatever shortcomings he may be displaying during any given game in which he is off-form. As we all know, Mourinho is a cautious manager, and he's not going to prepare for a 'big' game against a tough opponent with the expectation that we are actually going to play 'well' during the game. When we are playing against the better teams in the league/in Europe, he's aware that it's quite possible for us to end up putting in the sort of display that we did against PSG a few weeks ago. When this happens, and the team as a whole is 'off-form', the players that are out on the pitch need to possess certain attributes (whether they be physical, technical, mental) that will give the team a chance of forcing a result regardless of the general performance level. In these circumstances, pace is essential as it allows for spaces to be controlled more easily, technique and vision are useful as they allow for the possibility of single 'moments of genius' to occur, and good attacking movement and physicality are invaluable as they ensure that the opposition will find it difficult to commit themselves as fully as they may wish to. Starting an 'all-rounder' who is 'good' at most things but not exceptional at anything is a huge risk to take in such games, because they often hinge on small details in individual match-ups; an 'all-rounder', despite having few genuine weaknesses to their game, is always likely to lose a match-up in games like these.

I think the line-up will be: Courtois; Ivan-Cahill-Terry-Luis; Ramires-Fabregas; Cuadrado-Oscar-Hazard; Costa. Willian, Azpi (and Zouma?) rested for PSG, Luis rewarded for his good performances, Oscar and Cuadrado given the opportunity to find some form.

The problem with Oscar is not that he is a terrible player (far from it), but rather that he has no inherent physical or technical attributes that he can fall back upon when he is off-form. Many of the other players in our squad possess at least one physical attribute that allows them to be of some use to the team when they are playing poorly; Hazard/Willian/Cuadrado/Ramires have pace, Matic/Mikel/Costa have strength etc. Oscar even loses out to Fabregas (another player lacking raw athleticism) because he cannot match him in terms of creativity. Basically, his 'jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none' style-of-play means that there will often be someone else in the squad who is capable of carrying out a specific tactical role more effectively in games against opponents who possess individual quality equal/superior to our own. I think the one hope Oscar has of becoming a genuine member of our first-choice starting 11 in the coming seasons is if he develops into a (consistent) Lampard-style midfield goalscorer; it's the only way that I can see him making himself indispensable to Mourinho.