Willian

[WNDS 502]

I'm honestly as confused as you are because this season Willian to me has been very sloppy on the ball. I'm usually one of his biggest defenders but he's been so easy to dispossess even more so than Oscar. Last season Willian at least was an excellent dribbler, he could receive passes in tight spaces and keep possession. His passing was also very good. This season, he's been sloppy and can't beat defenders. I'm sorry I'm not going to sugar coat it but Oscar right now looks twice the player Willian does. Even his defensive contributions, how many times against Spurs did he make a tackle? Dispossess an opponent? It seems that all Willian does is run, run, and run without actually doing anything.

All Willian does is run without doing anything!? Opinions, opinions, sure, but this is just flat out wrong; whatever the raw stats say, his defensive contribution was immense against Tottenham.

Talk about completely dismissing the importance of work done off the ball; you make it sound like he runs around the pitch without any tactical discipline. His work with the ball in the attacking third of the pitch is questionable, but his running to block opposition passing lanes, his closing down of opposition players in possession, and his brilliant tracking of the man on the overlap when helping out our defence really shouldn't be. I can think of few attacking midfielders at this level of the game that are as capable defensively as he is.

[The Chels 2,502]

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

Haha fair enough but it did almost cost us against Sunderland. Personally I'm more interested in our weaknesses and where we can improve (before we lose because of them!) than enjoying our obvious strengths, but I guess that's Jose's job and not the supporters'

[Rom2013 446]

Hazard, Costa, Fabregas, Drogba, Remy, Oscar etc that are contributing to our attacks.

What contribution of Oscar? Last season 2 assists in 2160 minutes from our number 10. What a great contribution. Oscar this season has 4 goals and 4 assists in Champions League+ League, Willian in less games 2 goals and 2 assists.

In reality the players that contribute to the attack are Fabregas, Costa and Hazard. Willian and Oscar have poor numbers... the difference between the 2 in here is that everyone says that Willian should improve, should shoot more, should contribute more for the team in attack. But in the opinion of that same people Oscar is playing really well when last season he was mediocre and this season he was ok at best.

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

True and we are fortunate in that aspect in some ways. Our attacks would have been so much more threatening than they are now if our RW can consistently contribute in the final third. It's one thing turning a blind eye on Willian because the others are doing great offensively but it's another when our lack of attacking threat from the right side gets exposed when the other attacking players have off days. We saw that quite a bit last season.

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

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

Anyway last season we had to put Oscar in the bench for 4 months because he couldn't do a single pass. And he is the almost the only player that don't have a direct substitute in the team. You ask for more players to fight with Willian when he already has another 2 (Salah and Schurrle), I think you can ask for a player that also plays as a number 10... because Oscar can't do it.

Ozil is really bad... last season he did 9 assists and scored 5 goals... Oscar scored 8 and did 2 assists. Our number 10 last season did 2 ASSISTS in 2160 minutes in the League. 84 players in the League did more assists than Chelsea's number 10.

Just to put into perspective Aaron Ramsey scored 10 goals and did 8 assists in 1771 minutes. Let's not talk about players like Silva, Toure and others.

Oscar is increadible and is playing really well (I can't see it), but the same people that say Oscar is increadible say that Willian need more competition when we have Salah and Schurrle for that position. I think that people need to rewatch games, they need also to see that the one with no competition is Oscar and maybe that was one of the things that made us lose everything, and they need to have more logic when they say that Oscar does "invisible" work and that's why he has horrible numbers but for WIllian that doesn't work like that...

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.

[bluesman2610 1,227]

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.

In reality the players that contribute to the attack are Fabregas, Costa and Hazard. Willian and Oscar have poor numbers... the difference between the 2 in here is that everyone says that Willian should improve, should shoot more, should contribute more for the team in attack. But in the opinion of that same people Oscar is playing really well when last season he was mediocre and this season he was ok at best.

It seems Rom has a beef with Oscar.. Looks like he can't et over the kids poor form from end of last season

[Rom2013 446]

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.

Very little correlation with what? Based on your numbers Oscar does 1 assist every 7/8 games, that's mediocre for a number 10 specially for one that plays in CHelsea.

I'm not saying Willian is worst or better... I'm saying last season clearly Willian was better since Oscar couldn't play at all for 4 months, He didn't contribute at all for the team in the most important moment of the season...I really don't know what was wrong with him... You can say what you want about the quaity of both players, but in reality last season Willian was important in our team all season and I don't know where Oscar was after December.

And about this season in reality I don't see the big difference. Some people in here they can see it because they think Oscar is playing increadibly well and Willian needs to do a lot better. I don't understand that.

[Barbara 15,149]

Anyway last season we had to put Oscar in the bench for 4 months because he couldn't do a single pass. And he is the almost the only player that don't have a direct substitute in the team. You ask for more players to fight with Willian when he already has another 2 (Salah and Schurrle), I think you can ask for a player that also plays as a number 10... because Oscar can't do it.

Ozil is really bad... last season he did 9 assists and scored 5 goals... Oscar scored 8 and did 2 assists. Our number 10 last season did 2 ASSISTS in 2160 minutes in the League. 84 players in the League did more assists than Chelsea's number 10.

Just to put into perspective Aaron Ramsey scored 10 goals and did 8 assists in 1771 minutes. Let's not talk about players like Silva, Toure and others.

Oscar is increadible and is playing really well (I can't see it), but the same people that say Oscar is increadible say that Willian need more competition when we have Salah and Schurrle for that position. I think that people need to rewatch games, they need also to see that the one with no competition is Oscar and maybe that was one of the things that made us lose everything, and they need to have more logic when they say that Oscar does "invisible" work and that's why he has horrible numbers but for WIllian that doesn't work like that...

if you could try to understand what people are saying instead of deciding in your head what is and what is not, you would have understood I meant that Salah and Schurrle need to step up and give him competition, so he feels the pressure to produce more to keep his position.

The only one needing to rewatch matches or maybe take a mini-course about football during vacation is you. More often than not is hard to agree with whatever you say related to any player, any situation, anything. It's not only about Oscar and Willian.

If you take that course - go to France - you'd know that Willian has played most of his life as #10 and that people are begging for Hazard to have a chance there. Hazard doesn't have the necessary workrate for Mourinho to change his mind, but Willian does. Still Oscar is there.

Oscar has had ups and downs, you make sure to ignore all the ups and hold onto the downs. Even lionsden who admittedly doesn't like Oscar said he's seen improvement on him this season, because seriously, only a blind can't see it. Or someone who doesn't want to see.

[Bosnian Blue 2,471]

I'm not saying Willian is worst or better... I'm saying last season clearly Willian was better since Oscar couldn't play at all for 4 months, He didn't contribute at all for the team in the most important moment of the season...I really don't know what was wrong with him...

He was saving himself for the World Cup. It was pretty obvious.

[Jase 43,479]

What contribution of Oscar? Last season 2 assists in 2160 minutes from our number 10. What a great contribution. Oscar this season has 4 goals and 4 assists in Champions League+ League, Willian in less games 2 goals and 2 assists.

In reality the players that contribute to the attack are Fabregas, Costa and Hazard. Willian and Oscar have poor numbers... the difference between the 2 in here is that everyone says that Willian should improve, should shoot more, should contribute more for the team in attack. But in the opinion of that same people Oscar is playing really well when last season he was mediocre and this season he was ok at best.

Since you brought in the numbers, Oscar have 4 goals this season, which may be little to you, but if you look a little bit deeper, you'll notice that 3 league goals have all been the opening goal in matches (Aston Villa, Crystal Palace and QPR) and the other one - in the Capital One Cup - was the winner against Bolton. As for Willian, not to belittle his record, two of his goals are somewhat redundant especially the one against Villa - he netted the third to round off the win. Compare the importance of the strikes, you can perhaps understand why Oscar has been getting a tad more praise than Willian. Obviously Oscar can still improve offensively but his goals aside, think he has been doing better than Willian in the final third, such as with the final passes and even shots.

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

Not taking anything for granted just because we have strikers and some other players banging in the goals. Schurrle or Willian, it doesn't matter. Both can still improve and the quicker they do that, the better it will be for us on the right side, either by scoring goals or providing better final passes for others to convert.

[The Chels 2,502]

Not taking anything for granted just because we have strikers and some other players banging in the goals. Schurrle or Willian, it doesn't matter. Both can still improve and the quicker they do that, the better it will be for us on the right side, either by scoring goals or providing better final passes for others to convert.

I don't think Willian will ever get much better. He is probably at or near to his peak.

[Rom2013 446]

Since you brought in the numbers, Oscar have 4 goals this season, which may be little to you, but if you look a little bit deeper, you'll notice that 3 league goals have all been the opening goal in matches (Aston Villa, Crystal Palace and QPR) and the other one - in the Capital One Cup - was the winner against Bolton. As for Willian, not to belittle his record, two of his goals are somewhat redundant especially the one against Villa - he netted the third to round off the win. Compare the importance of the strikes, you can perhaps understand why Oscar has been getting a tad more praise than Willian. Obviously Oscar can still improve offensively but his goals aside, think he has been doing better than Willian in the final third, such as with the final passes and even shots.

Not taking anything for granted just because we have strikers and some other players banging in the goals. Schurrle or Willian, it doesn't matter. Both can still improve and the quicker they do that, the better it will be for us on the right side, either by scoring goals or providing better final passes for others to convert.

Do you want to compare the numbers of Oscar and other players in all the world?

I know Willian should improve, I said we should buy Reus, and even before the world cup I said I would like to have Sanchez here.

I just think it's really funny that the same people says that Oscar is increadible, are here saying that Willian needs to improve a lot, and needs to have more competition, when in reality since Willian arrived at CHelsea he was a lot more consistent and played better than Oscar and this season there is no great difference between the 2. On the other hand the only attacking player in Chelsea that doesn´t have direct competition in the squad is Oscar, not Willian.

If you check the numbers of CM or CAM, or wingers all over the world with the numbers of Oscar (and WIllian of course) you can see that he is far from increadible. And the same can be said about Hazard when compared to the best players in the world. It's the truth.

[Shakez 755]

Same old, same old...

People bitch and moan about Willian since the moment he arrived and so far he's still a starting IX player. KDB and Mata are both alot more prolific than Willian but are they still here? Are they worse players? Not really. But they weren't as influential as Willian for the system we play. Something not alot of Chelsea supporters see, luckily Mourinho does.

Salah also came in and has been bad overall. Schürrle has his up and downs but still is a defensive liability and needs our team to play good so he can time his runs. If that doesn't happen he is next to useless.

Oscar went missing for 4 months last season when we needed him the most. Hazard arguably cost us a potential CL final when he had hat defensive brainfart against Atletico. A game we we're leading because of a goal that Willian created (ultimately Atletico deserved the win more anyway).

This season he's lagging behind Hazard and Oscar in terms of statistics (not by a huge margin like some people think), with also less minutes played. He was arguably our best player against Villa and Schalke (the latter was our best game of the season). He came in as a super-sub against Bolton where he helped us dodge another game that we would've had to play in our already heavily congested fixtures period (an assist that didn't register because of an own goal). The only game i would say this season he was really bad was against City (altough a much needed breaker of City's game-tempo).

Anyway, Willian isn't the main problem for me. The big problem is gonna be between now and the end of december. Players are getting tired and will have to be rotated, im not so sure our bench options are up for the challenge (im looking at Salah, Ramires and Schürrle). Our squad is pretty thin in that regard. My main questions are if Oscar is gonna survive this Christmas period. Last season he was also very good around this time. Hazard tends to have his occasional lazy days and same as Willian lacks the killer instinct. Cesc is a player that basicaly had to leave Barcelona for running out of gas at the most critical period of a season.

Willian will most likely have to cover both Cesc and Oscar while he started as many games consecutively in recent period. I can already see him beïng the target again when key players like Oscar, Cesc, Matic will be missing at the same time due to them not having the stamina to cope with the congested period.

And blaming Willian for not having competition is one of the stupidiest things ive read. Go fill the pages of the players that should be his competition then. The argument from some posters that we have favorites is true, but then don't be hypocritical about it when you do the same thing if a favorite of yours is getting criticized.

[DYC. 7,542]

I think our inability to maintain possession is a bigger problem than you suggest. Against City we couldn't maintain possession, on the counter attack or even against 10 men. Against Liverpool after taking the lead, we were awfully sloppy. In yesterday's game Cesc must have been dispossessed at least 2-3 times in the second half and that didn't come from him trying a risky pass but rather from not coping well in tight spaces.

In games where the play becomes stretched, Matic becomes very, very sloppy as we saw against Sunderland. In fact the entire team's passing tends to go to **** when we can't break a small team down away from home or when we've taken the lead away to a big team. My point is that while Oscar/Willian are probably the biggest culprits, the team as a whole needs to maintain possession a lot better when under pressure.

Mourinho does not create teams to maintain possession and tire the opponent with quick and precise passing. That's not how he sets his teams up, especially in big games, he does not buy the players suited for such a game. If you don't that, you can't play that kind of football. So it's not an 'inability', it's a choice. Don't expect it to change.

[DYC. 7,542]

As for Willian, he's a 'team player'. He's like Duff back in the day or a more recent example, Pedro for Barca (before Suarez arrived). When you're winning, it's all good. When you're not winning, things suddenly become a lot darker.

I personally don't think he'll get better and that's okay, he's a useful player. I don't think Mou is expecting (much) more from him than he is providing right now. Next summer we'll see whether Mourinho wants an upgrade.

And Oscar is without a doubt the better player. 2013/2014 is over, let it go. He's enjoying a fine season.

[zolayes 14,489]

I maintain what I have said earlier ,, Willian wins back more balls than he gives away .

he is a ball winner in the mould of Wisey ,, look at the pressing he does ,, he never gives the opposition time on the ball ..

he does the dirty work brilliantly

[Dion 2,476]

Some people in this forum are weird. I mean, you see people saying every single attacking AM we have is bad compared to others all over the world. Some say our defenders are bad, some say Cesc doesn't hold a candle to the best CMs in the world and still here we are, comfortably sitting at the top of the table. Also last season we were fighting for the top spots even though we had some of our key players in REALLY bad form (Oscar) or injured for a few games (Hazard) and freaking Torres leading the line. Either we are lucky as fuck or our local rivals have it really bad then, especially because we beat pretty much every strong contender for the title consistently. Or maybe it's the Mourinho effect, but whooops, I've seen some here who think he sucks/is overrated too. And many of our players haven't even reached their peak years too, so I guess it's definitely divine providence after all.

I must admit I haven't been able to watch every single match this season but even in the worst match I've followed (Sunderland IMO) I thought we were still somewhat decent considering everything. There are still tweaks to be made (Sunderland could have used more width to stretch their defense for example) and some players can still do better (Hazard's and Willian's finishing, Oscar's creativity) that's for sure, but I definitely see significant improvement from pretty much everyone if we compare their performances right now to last season or the beginning of this one. How can people be so negative when everything has been going so well for us is baffling.

[The Chels 2,502]

Mourinho does not create teams to maintain possession and tire the opponent with quick and precise passing. That's not how he sets his teams up, especially in big games, he does not buy the players suited for such a game. If you don't that, you can't play that kind of football. So it's not an 'inability', it's a choice. Don't expect it to change.

I don't suggest we dominate possession as I know that will never be Jose's way in the big games, but with the possession we do have I'd like us not to misplace passes left, right and centre gifting the ball back sloppily. I don't think I'm asking for too much in wanting us to properly counter-attack rather than be a shambles with the ball.