Attacking midfielders crisis?

[BlueLyon 9,359]

The title is there, but might be a bit overreacting. However it is no secret that our AMs, naming

-Hazard

-Willian

-Oscar

-Schurrle

-Salah

arent (yet) reaching our expectations. They are very young and extremely inconsitent. Perhaps thats our biggest problem in attack, beside a quality striker. We have no player that would be performing whole season on regular basis. Pool had Suarez, City had Toure, Silva.

While I have complete trust one day this players will form brilliant (counter) attack, I question what happens next season? Hazard can be amazing on his day and slowly, he should become regular performer, one that gives the piece of pie every game and does job when others fail. After poor WC (he was good on times, but he goes missing way too much and simply cant lead his team yet), we cant expect Hazard to perform whole next season. There will be decent start, few top months and few bad games in his play. Willian and Schurrle have potential to cement their starting positions, but they just dont do it. Their character lets them down and while Schurrle is still young, Willian is reaching years, where he should be on absolute top of his career. Oscar is probably the biggest mistery of all, AM who works as DM and with every game passing, the less creativity and attacking sense in him. Im sure Fabregas instead of Ramires will only increase his defensive duties and will drain him even more next season after already difficult one he just had. Salah is here for very little time and in all honesty, I have no idea why are we having 5th choice AM another young talent who needs gameplay more than anything else and he cant give any experience once he arrives on pitch. Neither is he expected to be our long term starter, therefore I realy question Mou here who could get Thorgan or Atsu for that role if he needed young AM. I always thought 5th choice AM should be older, more experienced, decent player who can be match changer, not young unproven AM.

Anyway, the real problem is that we dont have any player in attack who would be regular performer and I dont want another young player like James, Sanchez etc in the team. We should add some experience, but heck, right now we dont have any space and Mou isnt even looking to add another AM in team (Lavezzi rumours are probably BS, but who knows).

Last year, we were lacking game changer (Oscar was that in first months, Hazar in middle, but no one in the end realy), and now Hazard, Oscar will enter new season with realy poor form and one can ask if Oscar will ever reach his potential we expected. Willian doesnt have character to step up either, but Im sure he will do his job, while Schurrle could surprise a few if he develops proper mentality, miss less chances etc.

[Polo7 3,496]

Dont believe Hazard should be on that list. Willian has been consistent, just needs to take a few more risks (taking on people on and shooting). Oscar had a terrible 2014 and Salah only played a handful of games. You cant expect the same 2 or 3 players to consistently win games for us. Costa and Fabregas are the missing pieces to this puzzle.

[5354 204]

Ironically Mata played best as the attacker the season before last, but we sold him.

but anyway, I think Hazard/Oscar/William did well. Just at times very lethargic.

[Chelsea? 892]

totally agree. We need a true #10. Or Di Maria! I've wanted Di Maria foe so LONG!

[Sheva. 5,373]

I'm sure the Chelsea board/Emenalo knew what they were doing when they signed so many young AM's.

A lot of those players are already good, but they can reach another level in 3,4,5, years. We have to show some patience.

I wouldn't mind if we had 1 'finished product' at AM though*, but there's just no space atm.

*Fabregas might get a lot of minutes behind Costa depending on how Oscar plays.

[Mechromancer 262]

Well, we can sell Eden and sign Reus and Isco. : )

[OneMoSalah 8,778]

Attacking midfielders crisis?

-Hazard scored more goals/assisted than he did in his first season, took more responsibility, tactically and defensively improved.

-Willian played his first season in the PL, finally got going after adapting to the pace and intensity of PL.

-Schurrle's first season, 8 or 9 goals, good return for a first season where he had a bit of adapting to do as well.

-Salah's first half a season, purely adapting to the PL.

The only one who didn't improve from the season before was Oscar, after a very promising first few months.

If those 4 keep improving and Oscar gets his head out his arse, starts improving then I doubt we will have a crisis. Sure theres talk of Sanchez going to Arsenal and Markovic to Liverpool but only if we got rid of one of those 5, which I doubt, then we could move for Sanchez (genuine improvement on Willian, Salah and Schurrle on the wings) or James (offensive improvement on Oscar) but I can't see it.

The crisis we had was upfront, as we've had ever since we fucking put any faith into Torres coming good really and the lack of a deep lying midfield player to partner Matic but I can see why people are perhaps concerned with Oscars creativity and performances since January and Willian's lack of goals but surely an injury free season to Oscar (and a rest maybe?) as well as a second season for Willian, in a league wheres he's much more used to now after his first season, could give us that. Costa's goalscoring exploits could win us 5 or 6 more points as well as Cesc's creativity and control so who knows, we have to wait and see (and the thing with Cesc is who even says he will play as an 8 and not a 10? We don't know yet).

[Chelsea? 892]

Wish we hadn't sold Mata. He's the creative guy we don't have.

[Mechromancer 262]

Andre's performance is truly unbelievable. I mean, it's a rather limited footballer, and it was very silly pay more than 20 million for his transfer, but he found his site.

[OneMoSalah 8,778]

Andre's performance is truly unbelievable. I mean, it's a rather limited footballer, and it was very silly pay more than 20 million for his transfer, but he found his site.

I don't see why people see him as a limited footballer? Some aspects of his game are intelligent, look at his movement in the box and his diagonal runs behind defenses, not all wide players have that, in fact not many in the PL who play on the wings make similar movements. Sure his touch, passing and crossing might let him down at some times but he is a player who strikes the ball very well. His hattrick vs Fulham also demonstrated a very clinical side to his game.

Hes more than the 'limited footballer' everyone makes him out to be, sure hes not as good a dribbler as Neymar or as good at creating chances like Iniesta is but he has traits that make him more than a limited player.

[lionsden 4,689]

Fabregas could be the solution to that problem if we bought a DLP to partner Matic however, his form over the last 3 years has been far from consistent. strictly speaking there are only very few AM that are capable of consistent performance throughout a season apart from the 2 obvious names.

Robben,Ribery,Silva and Iniesta.

Ozil and mata both had sub par season but it's too early to exclude them from that elite group of consistent AM's

[The Rising Sun 710]

Dont think there is any crisis with midfield.

There was simply too much pressure on them over the last 2 seasons, due to our strikers scoring no goals.

That causes us to have too much expectations from them.

Hazard was third highest midfield scorer last season, with assists goals and bonus points combined.

Dont know how he is in the crisis column, when only yaya and one more player scored more points than him.

Willian got in the best of positions, and needs to give more assists, and a few more goals. Assists only work when there is a striker converting those chances created.

Costa should take care of that. Should not be in crisis mode either.

Salah hast played enough IMO.

Oscar is crisis mode and needs to up his game this season.

Fabregas is going to be awesome for us.

No crisis.

[drog.ba 239]

Can't think of any attacking midfielders in the world who aren't inconsistent. First season in the PL for Willian, Schrulle and Salah, who should all be better next season, hope Willian can become a better goalscorer. Oscar is the most worrying but he still works hard and does a lot of good defensive work so he isn't a passenger, think he should be given a break as Mata was a couple off years ago. They probably dont look that consistently good as the style we play isn't that expansive

[Mufassir08 2,400]

Would love Di Maria.

[Daniel1980 1,425]

We don't need more attacking midfielders. We already have enough young AMs and we have two most creative players in Europe(literally):

Yes, they both suffer from inconsistency, but between the two of them, we have more than enough creativity, and we finally have a decent CF to use those chances. We'll be fine.

[Cech's helmet 220]

jesus christ

[LDN Blue 7,903]

Crisis is an overreaction. Most of it will be intensified by Oscar & Hazard not lighting up the World Cup like they were expected to do, so a bit of pessimism is sort of justified. That being said, we've made some shrewd acquisitions already in Fabregas and, soon to be, Costa. Don't think our summer spending is over, but Mourinho is moulding this team to his specifications to compliment the players we have. We can't keep buying attacking midfield players like Di Maria, Isco and Reus thinking they'll make a positive impact for us.

Mourinho sees Oscar, Hazard and Matic being the guys that will lead this Chelsea team into a next era. So crisis is an overreaction, particularly when you have someone like Mourinho overseeing this rejuvenation.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

Crisis is an overreaction. Most of it will be intensified by Oscar & Hazard not lighting up the World Cup like they were expected to do, so a bit of pessimism is sort of justified. That being said, we've made some shrewd acquisitions already in Fabregas and, soon to be, Costa. Don't think our summer spending is over, but Mourinho is moulding this team to his specifications to compliment the players we have. We can't keep buying attacking midfield players like Di Maria, Isco and Reus thinking they'll make a positive impact for us.

Mourinho sees Oscar, Hazard and Matic being the guys that will lead this Chelsea team into a next era. So crisis is an overreaction, particularly when you have someone like Mourinho overseeing this rejuvenation.

Yeah, thats what I wrote in first post; crisis might be a bit overreacted. I completely trust Mou and the players, but there is worst case scenario possible that neither of them shows form during whole season. And im certain if we wont have regular performer in this team next season, we might lose the title to City again. That main performer last year was Terry/Cole/Azpi and we had best defence in league. Next season we need one in attack also. It doesnt have to be AM, it could be Fabregas or Costa (however I doubt that they would perform through whole season; Cesc goes off in second part oftenly and Costa hasnt played in PL before). To break small teams, we will need that one guy and if Oscar still underperforms, that will be biggest problem. Unless we sign Vidal/Pogba,,...and move Cesc in advanced role if that will be required. I feel Hazard will have to be realy on top next season if we want title. When he plays great we win, when he doesnt we dont. If no one will step up, we could face problems in consistancy next year again.

Therefore I guess adding experienced AM would be GREAT, but we dont have space and I dont even think Mou plans that anyway. Getting older striker besides Costa, while shipping Ba, Etoo, Torres/Lukaku away could prove to be equaly successful too, because Mou could find cheaper older striker who would have no pressure on and would deliver goals when called upon.

Our team has TONS of potential to be best in the world in few years, but right now apart from Matic, there is no one who could deliver top quality every (or 9 out of 10) game (Cesc and Costa arent included because they didnt even play for us yet).