lionsden

TBH his competition isn't impressive at all. outside of ward Prowse, I can't name one midfielder who's definitely superior to him in that named squad.

You are the one overreacting here. It's a factual statement that some posters deviate from the original argument and never address the point raised. It's not a us vs them mentality. I can only be responsible for what I post but not how you interpret or choose to interpret it, perhaps take your own advice and get over yourself.

First off, you quoted the unedited post. The two problem I have with your argument/premise is that first, you are generalizing teams too much and basing your argument around "what should be" instead of "what is" and I have explained it in the edited version of my original post you quoted. football isn't played on paper. secondly how can you deny that attacking midfield is Willian's best position when virtually all his best games at the club as come when playing in that position? Is it just pure coincidence? even if it is. I say let's find out by playing him in that position for a sustained period of time. As for why there's no significant changes in willian's stats despite playing for the best team in the Ukraine league, the explanation for that lies in the position and role he played there. again he was playing as a winger (switchng between right and left) Mkhitaryan was their AM.

You are wrong here. Better quality does not equal better creativity. obviously better teams will score more goals and have higher volume of assist because they have better, more efficient and more productive players overall to put the chances away. It's only an assist if it results in a goal. However team A might have better/even more creative players on paper than team B but football isn't played on paper but on the pitch. in some cases, team B might have better team chemistry, better team balance, more settled team,manager who coaches and plays strictly attacking football and encourages his team to push for more goals even when they are ahead, players on team B having better seasons than their "superior" counterparts and so on. these factors does affect the creativity of each individual team. heck even the better team's main playmaker who the team depends on greatly for creativity might suffer injury or bad run of form, the creativity of the so called better team suffers as a result.. . . how creative are we as a team when hazard and fabregas are either out of the team or playing badly? And it's interesting how you also conveniently ignore the fact that Willian plays exclusively out of position on the right wing when his best position by far is through the middle. The combination of all these factors does help sterling get into better goalscoring positions more often than Willian but his finishing often lets him down, that much is undeniable to me.

What makes a technically decent player (at least he was at fiorentina and for the NT) become a pub player overnight. I'm not accepting poor transotionbtoba new league. That shouldn't make you incapablebof controlling a simple ball or completing a 5 yard pass and the way he gets outmuscled off the ball easily, you had think he's tyrion lannister. He's well built for a pro footballer. There has to be other forces at play. His problem is more psychological than anything imo.

Welcome to talkcheksea. They will attack and address everything except the point you are actually making or the main argument. They know themselves, won't mention names.

That ship has sailed for him unfortunately. even without the serious injury, i doubt he would have been able to hold down a spot in the first team.

He's also played in a more attacking and free spirited team (a team that finished last season as the joint top scorers in the league) and also in a more central role. In fact he's played as a false nine multiple times for Liverpool this season. If Willian played in a Liverpool team that is built to attack and create and in his favorite position more often/permanently, I'm willing to bet he would have similar or even better stats than Sterling.

Why are you not asking the right question here which is why are teams targeting him? and the simple answer is because they know he's a loose cannon and are capitalizing on this weakness of his. if he wasn't a wild card, the opposition would have nothing to target.

You are confusing passion for stupidity and immaturity. The key difference between a passionate player and a thug is how they channel their emotions. On one end of the spectrum you have players like Messi, Hazard,JT et al who depsite the kicking, fouling, taunting (in JT's case) channel that emotion to destroy their opponent on the pitch metaphorically speaking and on the other end are immature thugs like Costa, balotelli et al who live and die for the drama and lose their head and discipline easily. God help us the day Hazard becomes quote on quote "passionate" with the amount of fouling and kicking he receives. . . .

I rated him very highly ladt season and still do but he's not what we need as he doesn't offer anything William can't. His finishing is just as bad as the Brazilian, if not worse as he gets into good position a lot only to underhit or over hit the shot. But he has plenty of room to develop and if the price is right, we should get him but he shouldn't be a priority signing by any means

Jose has already committed to RLC that he now has to rank him ahead of more deserving players like ake in the pecking order to save face atleast. I do agree with the skipper however that rlc has the higher ceiling but that counts for little in reality as it's about what a player is able to do now and how well they develop. A few seasons ago, many thought chalobah and van anholt were superior or had higher ceiling than ake and Bertrand respectively.

I'm sure majority of opposition fans would rather have a quality striker that isn't a ****head or feels the need to behave like one all the time. Aguero,zlatan,benzema,lewadowski et all do their business without having to resort to thuggerish antics. Even the vilian suarez has toned down his negatives a notch, atleast he doesnt spend majority of every game being confrontational and that hasn't stopped him for being effective and world classI find it baffling how some are in support of his unneccesary scumbaggish behaviour on the pitch. I hope there never comes a day when I start endorsing and encouraging negative behaviours in footballers. For now I think I will stick to praising strikers for their positives like goals, link up plays, maturity, reliability etc.

Maybe Musonda will struggle to cope with the physicality of the league, maybe not but Boga certainly is no lightweight if that's what you are implying. he's more muscular and has better balance and lower centre of gravity than some professional footballers.

I don't blame the lad. When you see yourself being overlooked for inferior players, emotions can run wild and get to even the most matured and experienced players. He's very highly rated in youth football circuits and I have no doubt he will have many top clubs after his signature if Jose and the club decides to punish him by releasing him like they did to that lad years ago over his twitter meltdown. he can't be too bothered about it backfiring.

A more interesting point is how Jose arrives at the conclusion of what developmental strategy is best for each individual. We have seen the weakness and flaws in both strategies laid bare with kakuta,wallace,chalobah et al being examples of the loan system failing and we have also seen how keeping youngsters just to ride the bench can stagnate their development with the likes of lewis baker,josh under avb and to a lesser extent ake. To me the one biggest factor that determines how well and how quickly a youngster develops is finding the right environment for them to develop I.e abundant playing time, the right guidance, the right team, the right manager and the right system. How often do we see players go out on loan to teams who have very little use for them because the position they play in is already covered and as a resultare either forced to ride the bench or played completely out of position. And in addition to that, the managers of these teams have zero incentive to develop our players for us as they gain nothing from it unless theres an option to buy them permanently. What it boils down to is, these players can not develop riding the bench either out on loan or in the first team. Either find the right team with the perfect fit for them on a temporary basis or play them regularly in the first team and in their natural position. But ultimately they have tonne givennproper first team opportunities otherwise it's all a pointless exercise unless the aom all along is to sell them for profit.

That confirms my suspicion that Jose is indeed a talkchelsea member. he probably posts under the alias gilvorak or oscar

I see people will defend anything. There was no need to even hit the ball in that circumstances. What result did he expect by hitting the ball into a crowd of players, that it would somehow miss everyone? The only thing I agree with here is that the crime didn't merit the punishment. It was a yellow card offense at best, nothing more.

Based on talent,natural ability and merit, He, Colkett and Boga should be in the first team ahead of RLC,Brown (especially) and Christensen. It's abundantly clear to anyone who watches the youth and reserve team regularly that the latter is generally unreliable and he's far from our most impressive defensive talent (jay da silva is), RLC after the early promise he showed has been very inconsistent and often floats in and out of games for the Y&R team and Brown is a jack of all trade and a master of none to put it mildly . Jose has gone for size over talent imo. Solanke is the only youth on the first team peripherals that ticks all the right boxes imo (ake no longer counts as youth in my eyes). There's also an hint of English bias but that's understandable as there's a greater need to fill the homegrown quota. whatever the case, Musonda is our best youth talent.

He had a decent game (don't get the overreaction) but he's certainly capable of much more. He looks very restrained and not his usual self to me. I just hope we don't turn him into another mikel. Ake does look more polished and ahead of him in terms of development at this point which is to be expected given he's older and far more experienced.

:D Have to admit, that was a quality punchline

Are we going to break the record for our heaviest defeat in recent times

Lmao.

You must be joking. They will still find a way to defend him even if that happens

Great. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.