Willian

[iseah100 5,612]

Not a chance. If anything, his work rate and tracking back will be required more this season if he plays on RW.

Yupp, if Azpi and Luis bomb forward, probably.

I'm soooo excited!!!

[Daniel1980 1,425]

Yupp, if Azpi and Luis bomb forward, probably.

...and track back to help out Cesc when he plays in the pivot. He'll play on the right side.

So I'm sure Willian's work rate will be really appreciated by Jose this season.

[romeeh 139]

that's the thing, I'm not even sure if he's what I'd label stupid. He seems a shallow thinker. Those people don't articulate their thoughts and don't fulfill their potential (in thinking). IF - big IF - that's the case it doesn't mean he's stupid, just that as he doesn't think things through he comes off as shallow. It shows in his interviews and football wise you think that he's been interrupted - by himself - and doesn't conclude the brilliant things he starts.

Or maybe he's just stupid indeed. We don't know. He made in a few years of football career more money that I'll do in my whole life and a couple more of them if I had them. So stupid or not, clever or not, bright or not, deep thinker or not, he's rich I'm not

haha did u c zouma interview?

[Barbara 15,149]

haha did u c zouma interview?

nope

[killer1257 3,282]

Hm,according to that Özil must me a genius because his decision making was always good in Madrid.But his german interviews were so terrible that I always stopped watching them after a couple of minutes because I knew he would not say something intelligent or funny .That´s why I think that a good football brain has nothing to do with the general intelligence.

Furthermore,I believe that you have to play Willian as a no.10 to question his football brain.If he makes similar mistakes in his favoured position,you have the right to question his football brain because I think that playing as a right wing is a little bit weird for him,so if Mourinho sees him as a no.10 he should give him at least a chance.

[Shakez 755]

I agree the problem is his decision making,but that's not the main mistake he does imo. Comparatively, Hazard makes that mistake you mentioned much more than Willian does, especially when he isn't playing his best yet yet. Last season I was pulling my hair when Hazard was dribbling everybody and their mother in OUR half. That's not where you do that, and many times he lost possession in the second third, offering a counter to opposition. Then he started playing better and that was much less noticeable and prominent. And we don't need to say for the 3495874th time that Eden has bad decision making about shooting on the goal. He just doesn't do it as much as he should.

Now Willian's decision making problem is of a different nature imo and I feel bad for saying it so bluntly, but he's just not a clever person (or player as I don't know him personally, but judging by his interviews even in portuguese you can say he's far from the brightest kid in the class, very far). If the guy doesn't think, he doesn't execute, simple. Also he lacks some directness. He's all flair and technique and that's cute and dandy and it makes vids such as the one on the previous page mouthwatering. But he rarely does something out of it. He dribbles, he has such a class touching the ball, flawless ball control and first touch, but as he isn't direct or clever, well, the result is what we see.

Said all that, I think he will improve this season simply because one more season makes a lot of difference for players coming from a different league to the EPL. The first season can be tough, but normally the second is when they settle and grow. That's likely to be the case with him, but I wouldn't hold too high expectations because of those two limitations I've mentioned. While Mou can help him directness (someone like Cesc too), the cleverness part is there for good imo.

For a dumb person he's quite steady in our build up, and defensive shift. The lad like Schürrle never complained about sitting the bench for much of the first part of the season, and always put a decent shift in. He takes his responsibilities seriously, unlike some other attacking players we have. If he is as dumb as you say, why does Mourinho even bother playing him as a number 10. Oscar isn't overly creative, and comes across like any faceless Brazillian in most of his interviews. Surely he must be as dumb like Willian. Hazard kicked a kid, ate a hamburger when he was benched at the national team, had a defensive brain fart in our CL Semi-final. He's gotten away with alot of it because he is Eden Hazard, but seeïng his interviews he looks like a kid trapped in a growns man body.

Here are some of Mourinho's own words about him after our CL semi-final exit "Normally you get these kind of comments from players like him, from players that can't resolve a problem like we had in the first goal."

"Eden is the kind of player that is not so mentally ready to look back to his left-back and to leave his life for him."

Perhaps the biggest comment is this: Hazard has been praised for his defensive duties this term, but Mourinho insists he still has work to do.

"I'm not happy," Mourinho said.

"I speak all season and I try to improve him all season." It clearly is a jab that after all the work he's done during the season Hazard still doesn't understand some basic defensive football work.

Anyway, do i judge these players on their intelligence? No, if i did that then half of our squad should be gone. Torres doesn't score right? So he must be dumb as a brick. Willian has to improve, but saying that he can't because of his intelligence are some pretty big acquisitions. I will defend everyone of our players that get judged and trashed away by these assumptions people get by listening to interviews etc

[Cech's helmet 220]

His best position is as a left winger where he can cut from the left and go deeper. or behind the striker as a no10. he's never going to score enough goals and create assists while he's playing on the right. he's clearly a natural when he's dribbiling but he's dribbiling in the wrong areas. he's never going to get in the box while he's playing on the right, he's just a passenger when he plays there. but I stil prefer him over Schurrle and Salah on the right, because he's really hard working and he takes on players and can be dangerous anytime. he's also a good finisher, he just doesnt get into goal scoring positions, mainly due to his postition.

[meetdoscar 335]

Willian and hazard aren't too different for me except willian probably plays to his capacity and hazard is more proficient on goal but likes to dribble too much. Willian is a certain type of premoulded player with a certain kind of style and that's difficult to change, however his balance of dribbling and passing is really good which makes him a good option as a number 10. Hazard on the other hand doesn't have that balance, hazard is more of a dribbler that can also make great passes to create a chance but not frequent shot or long range passes like oscar, willian or fabregas can do to control midfield tempo, in other words hazard is not a distributor of passes which makes him understrength as midfielder in the No. 10 role but his drbbling makes him a winger in addition to his great passes which make him a playmaker from the wings, a bit like ronaldinho for barca. But for me oscar is our best option because he brings the best stability unfortunately he doesn't have the strength and energy of hazard or willian despite having more stability at no. 10 nor the vision of cesc despite being a better presser, runner and dribbler than cesc.

If costa scores regularly regardless of who supplies the final ball be it matic,luis, fabregas, oscar, hazard, willian or costa himself then all our Attacking midfielders will look very good and that is what I hope for rather than blaming one particular player or the other because it is a team sport and we defend poorly as team we will suffer regardless of who plays no. 5 or 6 like wise if we attack poorly as a team we will also suffer regardless of who is no. 10 and that is why mourinho went into the market to fix the team with fabregas, luis, and costa to give a different dimension to the team making it more proficient. Torres though stands out as an individual that restricts our lack of proficiency proven far before the arrival of oscar, willian or hazard, I hope costa is able to make himself available for passes and also finishes clinically our attacks unlike torres. There is more than enough creative players in the team.

[Barbara 15,149]

But I never called him dumb and I separated football brains from general brains.

I said he's a shallow thinker when I finally found the words. He doesn't think the whole thing it seems, but either way, he's very talented, but could catalyze his potential and results if he had a better end product. Whether is because he doesn't think enough, doesn't think at all or is football dumb we don't know, but fact remains his end product is precarious compared to talent.

@Shakez, Oscar is average smart imo. In Portuguese he's much more articulated and he could try a career after he retires either as a pundit or as a manager (despite being only 23 in a month) because he actually has nice ideas and talks in a very clear way. He isn't dumb at all and again I didn't call Willian dumb, I said he can't articulate things and repeat the same basic things over and over.

And I honestly don't get why you were so defensive. So it's okay to say a guy can't score, can't dribble, but it's not okay to say he can't think things through affecting his end product or that his interviews are an accumulation of nothing? Double standard much or what?

[BleedsBlue 1,549]

His work rate is something very few wingers can match. He's a hard working team player and I am glad we have him.

[Roquila 1,335]

I prefer Schurrle more than Willian to be honest.

[Shakez 755]

But I never called him dumb and I separated football brains from general brains.

I said he's a shallow thinker when I finally found the words. He doesn't think the whole thing it seems, but either way, he's very talented, but could catalyze his potential and results if he had a better end product. Whether is because he doesn't think enough, doesn't think at all or is football dumb we don't know, but fact remains his end product is precarious compared to talent.

@Shakez, Oscar is average smart imo. In Portuguese he's much more articulated and he could try a career after he retires either as a pundit or as a manager (despite being only 23 in a month) because he actually has nice ideas and talks in a very clear way. He isn't dumb at all and again I didn't call Willian dumb, I said he can't articulate things and repeat the same basic things over and over.

And I honestly don't get why you were so defensive. So it's okay to say a guy can't score, can't dribble, but it's not okay to say he can't think things through affecting his end product or that his interviews are an accumulation of nothing? Double standard much or what?

It's ok to say those things, but the part where you said we shouldn't expect much because of certain "things" rubs me in the wrong way. Im not expecting him to be overly clinical in front of goal, he lacks the killer instinct of A Schürrle/Costa. But he makes that up in other departments, (actual scoring is the only thing he must improve imo). Also what was said before by other members is that our AM's will look better now that we have a proper striker to convert those chances into actual goals. Willian is only behind Hazard in chances created with 65. To put it in perspective Oscar only has 48 and Schürrle 29.

With Hazard, Costa, Oscar, and Fabregas in the lineup our goalscoring ability should be more then adequate. Sorry, that i came across a bit too agressive but im pretty excited for the upcoming season and im quite certain Willian will improve alot now that he has a full season under his belt.

[Vybz Kartel 1,613]

His an average attackin player who was overpriced due to him being Brazilian. That is not to say he does not have his strengths,

[Barbara 15,149]

It's ok to say those things, but the part where you said we shouldn't expect much because of certain "things" rubs me in the wrong way. Im not expecting him to be overly clinical in front of goal, he lacks the killer instinct of A Schürrle/Costa. But he makes that up in other departments, (actual scoring is the only thing he must improve imo). Also what was said before by other members is that our AM's will look better now that we have a proper striker to convert those chances into actual goals. Willian is only behind Hazard in chances created with 65. To put it in perspective Oscar only has 48 and Schürrle 29.

With Hazard, Costa, Oscar, and Fabregas in the lineup our goalscoring ability should be more then adequate. Sorry, that i came across a bit too agressive but im pretty excited for the upcoming season and im quite certain Willian will improve alot now that he has a full season under his belt.

I meant that if he doesn't start thinking where he wants go with things we can't expect much from him. It affects his end product because the guy is ridiculously talented, he makes nice plays, but it seems he doesn't know what to do with the ball after a certain point into the play. It's frustrating. He could be so much better, but I believe he will improve either way because he'll be more confident in the league, José praises him a lot (and there's a lot to praise, he's talented and has some flair on him, others on his place would try nonsense dribbles all the time and compromise the team's stability), as TOPTB said he's spared a lot of criticism by basically everyone, so I think he'll settle more.

But he needs football brilliance. He doesn't know how to shine, he doesn't know how to add that final touch that could make him move from being a nice player to have to an immense player to have. Hazard has it coming out from his pores. Willian needs it.

Also I said I didn't know if he was only limited in the field or also outside because he seems to struggle to talk things through. It could be a limitation he has, but still it doesn't have nothing to do with being dumb. There are many kinds of intelligences, at least nine and he - just like every being in the world - will excel in some more than in others, but the one thing he's missing could take him to a whole new level. I just linked that maybe the fact that he clearly can't offer a nice interview (despite showing he knows the language fairly well - Portuguese - and learning English well, I'm talking about depth) maybe he can't deep his thoughts in general, in whatever sphere of his life. Or maybe this is a lot of BS. Fact remains, he gives crappy interviews (which I couldn't care less to be honest, it was just a fact to support a theory, I'm not here to watch our players give cute or insightful interviews) and his lack of brilliance detracts his football a lot.

I think all this confusion started because I used a metaphor saying he wasn't the brightest kid in the class, I meant it very lightly, not literally, just as a language expression. I'm not calling him dumb, I'm saying he's not bright and sometimes not even clever about what to do with the ball. Not being either thing in interviews is just a fact I used to support my idea of how he doesn't think things through before executing them. He starts well, you think he'll make something genial, but then he resets the process and does nothing with the ball. Of course, many times he does the right thing, but he isn't risky, he isn't bold, he isn't brilliant. Which is shame given his talent. If he was a bit more of those things we'd have two Hazards in the team... which isn't to be taken lightly as well. If it was easy to have the whole package every other team would have a Hazard in their squad, if not a few.

I apologize to everyone if the way I wrote it made it look like I was calling him dumb or stupid. I'm calling him limited because of lack of geniality, brilliance or cleverness when he has everything else (there's mediocre between brilliant and poor or stupid). His technique is only second to Hazard (when it comes to dribbles because in a few other things I think Willian is our most technical player), he just needs to have some insights.

He has pace, amazing work-rate, and he works his ass in the pitch. In those fateful matches we showed no interest or clutch, Willian was the one that tried his best in everyone of them. A few of our players seemed to approach small sides in a careless way, but Willian was one of the few that seemed to approach all matches the same way.

[Madmax 9,219]

I have a feeling that the presence of Willian and Oscar will allow us to get away with playing Cesc in the pivot against most sides. While Fabregas isn't completely useless defensively, the awareness and enterprise of the two Brazilians will encourage him to play the initiator while adding insurance to the less glamourous of his duties.

[nadavTKL 1,787]

His statistics have been poor throughout his career though.

I actually never seen his assists statistics in Shaktar. I see he scored 7-8 goals in every season there, but nothing about assists.

[The only place to be 11,313]

The new Shaun Wright-Philips?

[Skau13 21]

Willian is way, way better on the ball then SWP. Shocking comparison