Willian

[rantdeville 195]

Someone showed me this aspect that he needs to improve and I agree.

Has to try to dribble the guy with that much space behind, or pass the ball quickly. Make a fast decision instead of delaying and slowing our play drastically, giving the defense time to organize.

Haha just an awful, awful decision.

[LAB 1,030]

Decision making is terrible sometimes. Technically though he is sound. He is able to easily make a pass forward or a do a flick because he can. It's the why he chooses to be so static sometimes that's killing me.

[lionsden 4,689]

Someone showed me this aspect that he needs to improve and I agree.

Has to try to dribble the guy with that much space behind, or pass the ball quickly. Make a fast decision instead of delaying and slowing our play drastically, giving the defense time to organize.

It's frustrating isn't it. The shocking thing is, he's always been this way, right from his Shaktar days. He's always been a player that prioritises keeping posession by slowing the play down and being precise over creating chances and scoring which is absolutely retarded in some/most attacking situations, like this one (although he failed misreably at helping the team maintain posession here).

Surely Jose has to be livid after watching that clip in the post match technical analysis.

It's unacceptable at this level for players to maintain bad habit that could be easily fixed. Like Cahill and Ivanovic backing off players, Ivanovic being constantly caught out of position due to lack of discipline, Schurrle and willian's poor decision making and so on. These are non technical issues that can be fixed. what are the coaches doing about it? Honestly if I was a manager I will sit Cahill down (just using him as an example here) and tell him the next time you back off the opposition player needlessly, I'm dropping you to the bench until you grow some balls and learn some proactive defending.

[kellzfresh 7,226]

It's frustrating isn't it. The shocking thing is, he's always been this way, right from his Shaktar days. He's always been a player that prioritises keeping posession by slowing the play down and being precise over creating chances and scoring which is absolutely retarded in some/most attacking situations, like this one (although he failed misreably at helping the team maintain posession here).

Surely Jose has to be livid after watching that clip in the post match technical analysis.

It's unacceptable at this level for players to maintain bad habit that could be easily fixed. Like Cahill and Ivanovic backing off players, Ivanovic being constantly caught out of position due to lack of discipline, Schurrle and willian's poor decision making and so on. These are non technical issues that can be fixed. what are the coaches doing about it? Honestly if I was a manager I will sit Cahill down (just using him as an example here) and tell him the next time you back off the opposition player needlessly, I'm dropping you to the bench until you grow some balls and learn some proactive defending.

Exactly. I don't know about other coaches but I hate players repeatedly making the same mistake that can be fixed. Like you said I'll tell them to their faces to fix that part of their game.

Personally, to me willian is just not intelligent, Its not his fault. But he should be able to learn how to speed play up and dribble past one marker with space like that. Unacceptable for his age and skill that he doesn't get that.

[lionsden 4,689]

Exactly. I don't know about other coaches but I hate players repeatedly making the same mistake that can be fixed. Like you said I'll tell them to their faces to fix that part of their game.

Personally, to me willian is just not intelligent, Its not his fault. But he should be able to learn how to speed play up and dribble past one marker with space like that. Unacceptable for his age and skill that he doesn't get that.

I'm sorry you don't have to be Einstein or have brilliant football mind to recognise that was a counter attacking situation. there was no need at all to slow that down and mess it up. He does it all the time too. Why can't someone instruct him to speed the game up more. slowing the game down needlessly and majority of the time has nothing to do with a lack of football iq, it's just bad habbit tbh. but I do agree he's not the most intelligent footballer.

[DH1988 1,193]

Someone showed me this aspect that he needs to improve and I agree.

Has to try to dribble the guy with that much space behind, or pass the ball quickly. Make a fast decision instead of delaying and slowing our play drastically, giving the defense time to organize.

Not a dig at Eden and Eden obviously has a ridiculously more tailor to his game than Willian but Eden often does this too.

Different players with different expecations just making a small point to a constant dig at a player that is vital to the way we play.

[Laugh1ngMan 393]

Someone showed me this aspect that he needs to improve and I agree.

Has to try to dribble the guy with that much space behind, or pass the ball quickly. Make a fast decision instead of delaying and slowing our play drastically, giving the defense time to organize.

I don't blame Willian here. When he recieves the ball he's obviously still in awe by that forward pass made by Mikel

[The Chels 2,502]

I think everyone is well aware that Willian's decision making is awful by now. It's no surprise that the best counter attacks we've scored from this season (Schurrle vs City and Hazard vs Tottenham away) have involved Cesc/Hazard playing the final ball and not Willian who would almost certainly have screwed it up.

[bababoom 4,478]

He's basically a more technical version of Antonio Valencia.

[dee25 1,044]

Not a dig at Eden and Eden obviously has a ridiculously more tailor to his game than Willian but Eden often does this too.

Different players with different expecations just making a small point to a constant dig at a player that is vital to the way we play.

Hazard often slows down counterattacks only to misplace a pass that ends up giving the opposition a counterattack of their own?

Also, when you say "a player that is vital to the way we play" I hope you're referring to Eden and not Willian. If Willian is a vital to the way we play then yeah we're in trouble.

[The Chels 2,502]

I'm sorry you don't have to be Einstein or have brilliant football mind to recognise that was a counter attacking situation. there was no need at all to slow that down and mess it up. He does it all the time too. Why can't someone instruct him to speed the game up more. slowing the game down needlessly and majority of the time has nothing to do with a lack of football iq, it's just bad habbit tbh. but I do agree he's not the most intelligent footballer.

I think it does have a lot to do with football IQ. Physically and athletically you would expect Willian to be a brilliant counter-attacking player but every pass in a counter-attack has to be fast and perfect. Our counter against City away was brilliant and unsuprisingly Willian was not involved. He just cannot think that quickly and he never knows what the right option is. I think the ability to always (or mostly) select the right pass when the attack is moving at that pace is innate to the best players (e.g. Cesc and Hazard) and not something that Willian will ever learn. That said his decision making is rubbish in normal build-up play too.

[kellzfresh 7,226]

Not a dig at Eden and Eden obviously has a ridiculously more tailor to his game than Willian but Eden often does this too.

Different players with different expecations just making a small point to a constant dig at a player that is vital to the way we play.

Hazard doesn't slow down the play nearly as much as willian and you know it. Willian does this almost every time, that's why I mentioned it.

From that pic, because willian is not a good dribbler (imo) he can't get past just one player, hazard would at least try to beat him or even ivanovic would have used his strength to power through. But willian lost his ability to beat players in Shakhtar and his poor decision making is not helping to mask that.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

He's basically a more technical version of Antonio Valencia.

Tbf, Valencia was a real game winner for Wigan. But I guess so was Willian for Shakhtar...at least against us!

[The Skipper 20,593]

Someone showed me this aspect that he needs to improve and I agree.

Has to try to dribble the guy with that much space behind, or pass the ball quickly. Make a fast decision instead of delaying and slowing our play drastically, giving the defense time to organize.

Is that a forward pass from Mikel?

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,733]

Is that a forward pass from Mikel?

Yeah. I find myself looking at it over and over not because Willian totally fucked it up, but because of Mikel

Even at the end Mikel has ran the middle of the pitch and made himself available for Willian before the end of the gif. Mikel is alright in my book

[DH1988 1,193]

Hazard doesn't slow down the play nearly as much as willian and you know it. Willian does this almost every time, that's why I mentioned it.

From that pic, because willian is not a good dribbler (imo) he can't get past just one player, hazard would at least try to beat him or even ivanovic would have used his strength to power through. But willian lost his ability to beat players in Shakhtar and his poor decision making is not helping to mask that.

Willian can get past one player, two players, three at an absolute push but I made the point a few pages back he's vital in the SETUP of our team, the WAY we play. He actually reminds me of Hazard (1-2 seasons ago when he lost possession twice that lead to goals, he went into a shell for a few games) in that he is sometimes scared to lose the ball and would rather take the safer option then the risky one, that Hazard takes now, no I am not comparing their abilities or ball retention etc. so don't call me out on that its simply an observation.

Would you risk losing the ball when possession and positional play are so key down the right side? Sod that.

Our biggest weakness believe it or not is the pocket of RB space between Iva/Gary, lump a ball into space there and we've got problems.

~edit~ Not defending that piece of play btw we all know the flick or one touch then pass should of come but just to highlight he isn't the only one and he seems to be a scapegoat. Mark my words or this post, if we invest more money into the RW, which I think we will, then we will have to a) either change our tactics or shape b ) we will concede alot more goals and lose the grip on games.

[kellzfresh 7,226]

Willian can get past one player, two players, three at an absolute push but I made the point a few pages back he's vital in the SETUP of our team, the WAY we play. He actually reminds me of Hazard (1-2 seasons ago when he lost possession twice that lead to goals, he went into a shell for a few games) in that he is sometimes scared to lose the ball and would rather take the safer option then the risky one, that Hazard takes now, no I am not comparing their abilities or ball retention etc. so don't call me out on that its simply an observation.

Would you risk losing the ball when possession and positional play are so key down the right side? Sod that.

Our biggest weakness believe it or not is the pocket of RB space between Iva/Gary, lump a ball into space there and we've got problems.

~edit~ Not defending that piece of play btw we all know the flick or one touch then pass should of come but just to highlight he isn't the only one and he seems to be a scapegoat. Mark my words or this post, if we invest more money into the RW, which I think we will, then we will have to a) either change our tactics or shape b ) we will concede alot more goals and lose the grip on games.

You made a point which is part of what I mean. He's scared to lose the ball like mikel. So 95% of the time he'll be scared of trying to dribble past one player or will try stepovers and push the ball forward but still fail to actually beat the player and then end up passing back to Matic or ivanovic.

Its not his fault sometimes, he just can't dribble as well as even ordinary navas, so he makes the right choice according to his limited abilities to be safe and pass back instead of losing the ball. Mikel too can't pass as well or dribble like Matic, so rather than losing the ball because of his limited abilities he'll pass back to terry. But like we found Matic for mikel, there are players that are better and don't have the poor dribbling weakness willian has.

We can afford to have a good dribbler but poor decision because at least something can happen out of nothing once in a while. But Having poor decision making and poor dribbling combined for a winger in an aspiring champions League winning team is unacceptable imo.

[Jase 43,479]

One could argue that if we have a more offensive RW right now, Ivanovic probably doesn't have venture forward much and thus we won't be caught out so easily down the right side. In the current system, Willian is important to the way we play yes but if we can get a different and better option, then we'll definitely tinker with things within the system and have one that will still make us function well as a team. Our setup now is not the be-all and end-all.