I stand by it, Timmy.

Suggesting he could or should play deeper in midfield isn't stupid and doesn't mean you are stupid, but I think sticking him deep to accommodate an extra attacking player is a stupid reason to do so.

 

Darling I wasn't suggesting your standpoint was stupid, au contraire, we are as one in this lost world surrounded by inferior beings. There is only one place for the little teuton and that is in the Sturridge role. 

Suggesting he could or should play deeper in midfield isn't stupid and doesn't mean you are stupid, but I think sticking him deep to accommodate an extra attacking player is a stupid reason to do so.

 

That's not the only reason people are suggesting it. It's because they're also concerned about our midfield.

 

However, suggesting it is, IMO, incredibly stupid and only an incredibly stupid person would be so incredibly stupid as to suggest it.

 

Oscar is an attacker, as you have rightly pointed out. He has the instincts of an attacker. You don't go messing with those instincts when they are serving him so well. Why? Because you lose them, simple as. Evolution teaches us that. You can't change back. You lose what came naturally.

 

No offence to incredibly stupid people intended.

 

Edit: I'm incredibly stupid myself, so I sympathise.

Edited October 14, 201312 yr by Davey Baby

I think your partly right about the attacking instincts Davey, but if anything its almost impossible to fully curb those instincts to allow a midfielder to have the discipline and concentration to not attack at time. If you see a full back bombing on your instinct kicks in and you follow him up the pitch, a DM is expected to fill in behind him and cover. Something makalele was unbelievably good at.

Agree with you about Maka and I take your point. 

 

I'm not saying Oscar would lose all his attacking instincts if he were to play deeper in midfield, I'm just saying he would start thinking like a midfielder, and he would lose those precious instincts he was born with, the ones g3.7 talks about, such as his appreciation of space etc. Lampard for example has very attacking instincts but he plays and thinks like a midfielder and would make an awful attacker or number 10 IMO. He just doesn't have that skill set.

 

Now, I'm not saying Oscar would make a bad CM, whether that be a deep-lying one or a more attacking one. We all know he would be great because he's such a great player but my opinion is it would be a massive mistake to convert him because of the reason I've given.

Agree wiv that"...OScar clearly one of 1st picks for brazil and now for Jose and probably why mata not quite the lynchpin he was last season.

His movement and interplay is up with the best in the world already, and he scores goals. Last season he played 80 matches in the year - that's testimony to his fitness.

Jose gives him free reign to lead the attacks as he has most versatility in our squad

Prefer him as the number 10 role not holding midfielder as that's where he gets on the ball the most

But he could any of the midfield roles

Oh, and he is improving........

Agree with you about Maka and I take your point.

I'm not saying Oscar would lose all his attacking instincts if he were to play deeper in midfield, I'm just saying he would start thinking like a midfielder, and he would lose those precious instincts he was born with, the ones g3.7 talks about, such as his appreciation of space etc. Lampard for example has very attacking instincts but he plays and thinks like a midfielder and would make an awful attacker or number 10 IMO. He just doesn't have that skill set.

Now, I'm not saying Oscar would make a bad CM, whether that be a deep-lying one or a more attacking one. We all know he would be great because he's such a great player but my opinion is it would be a massive mistake to convert him because of the reason I've given.

I agree fully, he would be massively wasted playing deep. One of his biggest assets is finding space between defenders, something lampard made an art form of.

Incredible that we got this fella for £18mil.

 

People often slate us when it comes to transfer dealings but we landed a true gem with Oscar.

Also with Mata.

Also with the Hazard brothers... We've yet to use the younger one but he's shaping up to be a real steal as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyFTn8C5CqY&feature=player_embedded

Neymar who?

What makes me laugh is the commentator banging on about a deflection, as if Oscar didn't mean to hit it into the defender's foot, so that it would spin up in the air over the keeper.

He hasn't stopped scoring for club and country, not that it's a bad thing. I can see Real or Barca sniffing around come next summer, they always do. 

He hasn't stopped scoring for club and country, not that it's a bad thing. I can see Real or Barca sniffing around come next summer, they always do. 

 

Not scared of that. I think Oscar has really taken to Jose and he's getting the best out of him. We have a lot of the Brazilian contingent and hopefully Oscar feels very at home here. 

 

We should stop worrying about other clubs coming in and trying to get our players. We're a big club, we win trophies and we give good wages. Chelsea is a very hospitable club. Who was the last person to demand a transfer away from the bridge for a bigger club? I can't think of anyone of note. 

When Jose said in the interview that Oscar was to be the main man over Juan Mata i thought he was deluded, but now I see where he is coming from.

As much as I love Juan they are now equal in my eyes, Mata is a few years older and  slightly more technically gifted but Oscar is a huge huge prospect and more mobile, with more potential and promise than Ravel Morrison and Januzaj combined. I also realise he may have said this just to motivate Juan.

 

At the moment with the likes of Oscar, Mata, Willian and Hazard in the match day squad we should be able to be at the top/near the top of the table in January (despite the fact that we have a 'good' but not 'great' choice of strikers - At which point we either recall Lukaku or sign a top notch striker from Europe .. perhaps the out of favour Lavezzi)

 

This is going to be a great season despite the fact that it is a 'transition' period

 

apologies for going slightly off topic

When Jose said in the interview that Oscar was to be the main man over Juan Mata i thought he was deluded, but now I see where he is coming from.

As much as I love Juan they are now equal in my eyes, Mata is a few years older and  slightly more technically gifted but Oscar is a huge huge prospect and more mobile, with more potential and promise than Ravel Morrison and Januzaj combined. I also realise he may have said this just to motivate Juan.

 

At the moment with the likes of Oscar, Mata, Willian and Hazard in the match day squad we should be able to be at the top/near the top of the table in January (despite the fact that we have a 'good' but not 'great' choice of strikers - At which point we either recall Lukaku or sign a top notch striker from Europe .. perhaps the out of favour Lavezzi)

 

This is going to be a great season despite the fact that it is a 'transition' period

 

apologies for going slightly off topic

 

 

we cant recall lukaku

Not scared of that. I think Oscar has really taken to Jose and he's getting the best out of him. We have a lot of the Brazilian contingent and hopefully Oscar feels very at home here. 

 

We should stop worrying about other clubs coming in and trying to get our players. We're a big club, we win trophies and we give good wages. Chelsea is a very hospitable club. Who was the last person to demand a transfer away from the bridge for a bigger club? I can't think of anyone of note. 

 

Robben

Lavezzi? Another attacking mid? Lmao you cannot be serious

Love Oscar,hopefully my wife can appreciate this

we cant recall lukaku

Sorry if I'm wrong but i was told at the time that we loaned Romelu out that we had the option to recall him in January. Also when I mentioned Lavezzi I meant as a striker not an attacking midfielder. Im sure one of you will now find some facts and stats to prove to me that Lavezzi isn't an out and out centre forward, This i know, all I'm saying is that for the suggested 15 mil price tag he is better than we have

He hasn't stopped scoring for club and country, not that it's a bad thing. I can see Real or Barca sniffing around come next summer, they always do.

He has already been quoted last year he wants to emulate Lampard and be a Chelsea legend. He loves London and the fact that the city has a number of Brazilians playing already for Chelsea and other clubs will only solidify that. Not to mention his play and admiration of us supporters. Oscar will be a legend at Stamford Bridge and for Brazil.

On a different note, I was also hoping he would wind up in a deeper role even making a comparison to Pirlo, however he really has impressed at the number 10 and should now stay there. Nothing taken away from Mata because I think he is mature enough and has the skill to move out wide. Beyond the Sky is the limit with these guys plus Hazard, Schurrle, and DeBruyne!

Bottom line is we are going to be frightening to all of Europe once we have that monster Lukaku running up top.

Best player so far this season without a doubt, honestly when Mata started yesterday with Oscar on the bench, it really highlighted the difference between the two of them so far this season.

Sourced from The Times.

Oscar remembers late father during his momentous year

Chelsea’s midfielder will help carry the hopes of his hurt nation in Brazil

A thin tattoo snakes around Oscar’s right forearm. The Brazil midfielder is so reserved, so softly spoken — bordering on shy — that it is hard to imagine him following the example of a host of his peers and using his body as a sort of portable canvas, every square inch coated in lurid ink.

He is not nearly extrovert enough for that. Instead, he has allowed himself just this one. “It is the words to that song, but in Portuguese,” says the Chelsea midfielder, moderately unhelpfully. He clarifies: “Every Breath You Take. It is for my father.”

Oscar dos Santos Sr was a player of some repute, too, before retiring to become a furniture salesman in Americana, a small town in São Paulo state. His son was only 3 when he was killed in a car crash. His subtle tattoo serves as a reminder of a man he never really knew, but who is the inspiration for all that he has done, all he has to do.

“Every player wants to have their dad around them,” Oscar says, sadly. “You want to know your dad is watching your games, following your progress, even if it’s from afar. Football is something you share with your father, and that is something I do not have. I see other players who can do that with their dads and it still affects me, every day.”

There would be much to tell him, this year of all years. It is not a great exaggeration to say the coming months will define Oscar dos Santos Emboaba Jr’s career. Not for

anything he will achieve at Chelsea, whether José Mourinho’s side win the Champions League, the Barclays Premier League, or anything else, but because this is the year every Brazilian has waited for since 1950.

For more than half a century, football’s spiritual home has nursed the pain of what is known as the Maracanazo: defeat to Uruguay in the de facto World Cup final, on home soil, in Rio de Janeiro, in front of a silenced, shell-shocked Maracanã.

Nelson Rodrigues, the playwright and author, referred to it as “an irredeemable national catastrophe, our Hiroshima”. Moacyr Barbosa, the goalkeeper blamed for the loss, said that game had given him a “50-year prison sentence”.

Decades on, he recalled a woman pointing at him in a supermarket and telling her son: “That is the man who made all of Brazil cry.”

Oscar is part of the generation — lucky or cursed, depending on how things turn out — who have the chance to salve that wound, to right that wrong. The 22-year-old knows that helping his nation to win their sixth World Cup would make every single member of Luiz Felipe Scolari’s squad “a legend”. He also knows, though, what might happen if all does not go to plan.

“I do think about the World Cup, even now,” he says. “Every time I go back to playing for Brazil, even in just a friendly, it makes you think about it. It is a feeling sometimes of fear, but sometimes a positive fear. We can do what nobody else [in Brazil] has done. We can win the World Cup at home.

“But then sometimes I think that maybe we won’t, and that is when the fear comes in: the fear of another Maracanazo. The pressure is not so bad now, but before the first group game, it will be intense. We have played a few times in the Maracanã, though, including the Confederations Cup final against Spain, and we won that.

“That was a dream come true, to play the holders of the World Cup and beat them, to have all of the Brazilian people believing in us. It was something you cannot describe, a feeling you dare not dream about. And the World Cup would be even bigger. So maybe it will be a Maracanazo, but a Maracanazo with a positive result.”

Oscar’s preparations for the summer are going well. He enjoyed a 25-day break after the Confederations Cup — “it was my first holiday in two years” — and returned to find himself working for his third manager in a year at Chelsea. When asked, as is traditional at the club’s Cobham base these days, to describe the secret of the Portuguese’s success, Oscar laughs: “He sprinkles magic on people.”

“No,” he says, smiling. “He gives players a lot of confidence. He will always play the player who is in the best form, so that gives you the incentive to have your very best game ready all the time. You always have to be the best for him. That is the Mourinho effect.”

It has been a positive one for Oscar. As Roberto Martínez, the Everton manager, said last week, there are two ways of looking at the selection issue that has dominated Chelsea’s season. “You can either ask why [Juan] Mata is not playing,” the Spaniard said, “or you can ask why Oscar is keeping him out of the team.”

“Last year, I was playing slightly more open [in a wider role], whereas Mourinho plays me in the same pattern as I play for Brazil, more in the middle,” Oscar says. “The way I play is changing every game. The Premier League is the best in the world, and you never know what to expect, so you constantly have to adapt.

“The biggest lessons I have learnt are how dynamic it is — you cannot stop for a second — and about defending from the front. In Brazil, the marking is much less assiduous. It is much better in Britain, and you have to do it even when you’re playing up front.”

That is starting to translate to his performances for the national team. It was instructive to watch Oscar — wearing 11, but occupying that iconic No 10 position — at Wembley last spring in Brazil’s otherwise unremarkable defeat by England. Here was a player cast from the same mould as Kaká and Rai, in the spot once reserved for Pelé or Zico, and yet he was closing down defenders, harrying opponents, launching himself into tackles.

“I was never a classic 10,” he says. “I was always more dynamic than that, moving more, and that is much more modern. You cannot be a classic 10 anymore, but because of the day-to-day work I do here, because of how dynamic the football is, I think I have changed even more. I think I have the technical approach of a Brazilian, but maybe my work-rate is more English.”

He has changed so much, done so much, and yet there is still so much more to do. His father will not be there to see it, to share it. That is why the tattoo is there. “Meu pai,” Oscar says, when asked who it is for. My father.

Edited November 9, 201312 yr by Huttsey

                             I expect Mourinho to persist with Oscar in the number 10 role. His ability to break on the ball, score goals and create chances make this his best position.

 

                            His strong defensive contribution and his ability to influence the attacking side of his game are what Mourinho expects from our number 10.

 

                            There is no doubt Jose appreciates  a midfielder who tracks back and puts in a good shift and Oscar is his man for the job.

 

                            I am looking forward to marked improvement and a bright future for Oscar with Chelsea.

                    Terrific.

                             I expect Mourinho to persist with Oscar in the number 10 role. His ability to break on the ball, score goals and create chances make this his best position.

 

                            His strong defensive contribution and his ability to influence the attacking side of his game are what Mourinho expects from our number 10.

 

                            There is no doubt Jose appreciates  a midfielder who tracks back and puts in a good shift and Oscar is his man for the job.

 

                            I am looking forward to marked improvement and a bright future for Oscar with Chelsea.

 

I don't think he does have the ability to track back and be creative at the same time. Him tracking back constantly is making it very hard for him to get going in attack. He has 1 assist to his name all season i think, that doesn't sound very creative to me.

The best manager we gave ever had - by a mile- is wrong with regard the role of a No 10.

No 10 is the attacking fulcrum and not the first line of defence. By demanding that our 10 (whosoever it may be) be burdened with tracking back responsibilities is handicapping us in attack.

Benitez had a better grasp of this - yes I said it.

Mata is the better number 10. Oscar is very good, very young but slightly over rated.

Let me have it.....