I see the performance of him declining. Last season he was an ok substitute. The season before (the disasterous one) he was one of the best. But this season he has been so poor that I wonder what Conte sees in him for lettung him start game after game. I have nothing against him but he has been so poor this season that we perhaps should get rid of him in January.

15 hours ago, JPH said:

I see the performance of him declining. Last season he was an ok substitute. The season before (the disasterous one) he was one of the best. But this season he has been so poor that I wonder what Conte sees in him for lettung him start game after game. I have nothing against him but he has been so poor this season that we perhaps should get rid of him in January.

Maybe is not about what he sees in him but rather that Conte doesn't see a suitable substitute for him. I am not sure Musonda is an instant first player over him, yet, and I am not sure why he doesn't use Pedro instead of William. Maybe he was reserving Pedro for the Roma game.But having seen Bats' performance against Palace, I would not be surprised to see William Pedro Hazard as the front three against Roma.

I am a big fan of Willian but he has been very poor this season. Conte should definitely start Pedro over Willian in every game until he starts playing well again. We have options on every position apart from Alonso who basically has no cover. The striker department is also a not covered, as we should have got one more striker in the summer. I think we are very poor when we play three wingers since it doesn't suit our style of play at all.

Apparently lost the ball every four minutes while he was on the pitch. I'm sick of seeing him play at the moment. Needs to not even make the bench. Pedro starting, Musonda on the bench. Not sure why it has taken this long for Conte to realise it. He seems to wait until things start to go tits up before making bold moves and he needs to realise it won't always result in 13 game win streaks and a title.

I blame Conte completely for playing Willian on Saturday.  As someone else had posted, it was almost a year to the day when Willian's mother passed away, and that alone should have been reason enough to not play Willian.  I suppose Conte has not lost a parent, and perhaps does not know the toll it takes on a person when such anniverseries bring back sad thoughts that must adversely affect how one performs on the job. 

Of course, given that Willian had to travel practically half of the globe to get to the match due to the International break, and due to his playing so poorly as of late, those two other reasons should have been justification enough not to have played Willian on Saturday.

1 hour ago, Phillip said:

I blame Conte completely for playing Willian on Saturday.  As someone else had posted, it was almost a year to the day when Willian's mother passed away, and that alone should have been reason enough to not play Willian.  I suppose Conte has not lost a parent, and perhaps does not know the toll it takes on a person when such anniverseries bring back sad thoughts that must adversely affect how one performs on the job. 

Of course, given that Willian had to travel practically half of the globe to get to the match due to the International break, and due to his playing so poorly as of late, those two other reasons should have been justification enough not to have played Willian on Saturday.

Didn't Lampard play the second leg of a CL-semi finals just days after his mother had passed? 

2 hours ago, Barry Bridges said:

Didn't Lampard play the second leg of a CL-semi finals just days after his mother had passed? 

Different people deal with things differently.

Edited October 16, 20178 yr by lukecfc

If Willian had come and told Conte he wasn't in the right mind to play, I doubt he would have played. In any case, I do not want him starting over Pedro anymore.

Poor again tonight when he came on, don't know why Conte is still bothering tbh.

I reckon that Willian must sit in the bench for a long time, and watch, how well Pedro and Hazard play. 

It seems like he has also lost somewhat of his pace?

he is so bad that i am close to questioning his professionalism/integrity.

Please lord, i don't ask for much in the world. But PLEASE don't let him be in the starting 11 today.

Great cameo today. Gotten a lot of stick from fans this season (including myself) and rightly so but he put in imo his best performance this season in the 20 odd minutes he was on the pitch. Only gave 1 stray pass that I can recall as opposed to 95% of his passes in the past few games. Perhaps indicating to Conte he should be coming off the bench? He was a great sub last season and Pedro's gone and gotten 1 goal and 1 assist starting so I don't see why Conte should mess with that dynamic. Hopefully he can kick on from here.

3 minutes ago, Barrettinator said:

Great cameo today. Gotten a lot of stick from fans this season (including myself) and rightly so but he put in imo his best performance this season in the 20 odd minutes he was on the pitch. Only gave 1 stray pass that I can recall as opposed to 95% of his passes in the past few games. Perhaps indicating to Conte he should be coming off the bench? He was a great sub last season and Pedro's gone and gotten 1 goal and 1 assist starting so I don't see why Conte should mess with that dynamic. Hopefully he can kick on from here.

Do you think the formation change helped him ? 

2 minutes ago, brownindian said:

Do you think the formation change helped him ? 

That's an interesting observation. Could well be the case but what I saw was that he was doing the basics. His bad form has been because he couldn't even make 5 yard passes, couldn't close down players, always ruined counter attacks, held the ball too long sometimes and lost it, ran into opposition players like a headless chicken when another teammate was open and ready to receive the dangerous pass, etc. He did all of that correctly today and I don't think the inability to do that is down to the formation but I could be wrong. He was important for us today. 

I wish I knew what was wrong with him at the moment. He was pretty dire last night, although he took his goal nicely. It's just bizarre, he's had dips before, but he just seems totally out of it recently.

Edited October 26, 20178 yr by Kentonio

After all this time, I'm still not sure what his best position in the team is.

He's shown both good and bad displays at all the position he's played in. Has all the quality to play anywhere in the front 3  but is incredibly wasteful on a given day. Has a mean freekick one day but hits a 1 man wall on another.

An enigma for me.

Watching his body language last night it’s clear something has gone wrong for him somewhere, he’s not himself at all!

Nothing grinds my gears more than seeing Willian throw his arms up in the air at other players when he's been sh*te throughout his entire showing. 

Every game he runs towards our own goal with the ball and loses it, at least once, it's getting ridiculous now. Do Man utd still want him?

His body language has really really diminished.  Does not look like the old Willian. 

Looked better than he has for a long time, albeit against Qarabag. 

Good to see Willian scored two goals, hopefully for him that it's the beginning of lot of goals in this season

Looks quite scared and hesitant going into 50/50's. Complete opposite to what he was like a couple of seasons back. A couple of goals masks what was an average performance against a 10-man Azerbaijani side.