Willian

[Wearyourblue]

2 hours ago, yorkleyblue said:

Again, I agree that Willian may well be ahead of CHO in the pecking order but there is no way on this earth that CHO is better already.  He is obviously very good, and I believe will  go on to be a huge star, either with us or elsewhere, but then I thought that about Kakuta and Scott Sinclair as well.  But he has many many young player's flaws that only time and e3xperience will iron out.  He will be a stratospheric level above Willian eventually, but is nowhere near that now.

Willian's not even ball park with top first touch on the team.  It's why he struggles so much when we have to play in a tight a attacking third. A good first touch isn't just taking a ball down out of the air when you're running, it's being able to play one time too.  Even the rhythm of his two touch passing is just too much time.

Jorginho, Alonso, Kovacic, Hazard, Ampadu, Luiz, Pedro, Cesc.  I think  CHO's first touch is better than Willian's right now.  CHO is better now, if he had the #24 instead of  the #18 behind age, he'd be playing over Willian. I think we will see more and more of Odoi as it goes on.  I think if Sarri were already established with Chelsea, and players were used to his system, we'd already see more of Odoi.  You can't convince me that CHO would only have 2 goals and 2 assists if he had Willians premier league minutes.  NGola Kante has 1 goal and 2 assists, and many experts are bemoaning his play this season.

[Scott Harris]

6 hours ago, yorkleyblue said:

doesn't really matter, does it.  Some of us appreciate what he does, some are ambivalent and some just dislike the bloke so take every opportunity so slag him off.  Just saying he was the same as Joey Cole when it comes to "end product" is all.

Context always matters. Joe Cole was an up and comer when we first signed him, it was during his second season when he started to flourish. He also sustained two really bad knee injuries, the second one ruined him and he wasn't the same player anymore, so 3 of his 7 season's with us he couldn't play at his best. If Cole didn't pick up the second knee injury, I'm sure that his peak years would have gone a lot better than they did. 

Willian also started more games than Cole did for us. I also thought Cole was a lot more effective in the games he played and often got goals and assists at important times. Cole and Pedro are similar in that way, and it's why I prefer Pedro over Willian now even though they have similar stats. I just find Pedro to be more effective for the team.

[Nibs]

At the end of the day, Willian, he may very well Hate Tottenham (don't we all?), but he's never been here, there and every f**king where!!

[bisright1]

15 hours ago, Wearyourblue said:

Willian's not even ball park with top first touch on the team.  It's why he struggles so much when we have to play in a tight a attacking third. A good first touch isn't just taking a ball down out of the air when you're running, it's being able to play one time too.  Even the rhythm of his two touch passing is just too much time.

Jorginho, Alonso, Kovacic, Hazard, Ampadu, Luiz, Pedro, Cesc.  I think  CHO's first touch is better than Willian's right now.  CHO is better now, if he had the #24 instead of  the #18 behind age, he'd be playing over Willian. I think we will see more and more of Odoi as it goes on.  I think if Sarri were already established with Chelsea, and players were used to his system, we'd already see more of Odoi.  You can't convince me that CHO would only have 2 goals and 2 assists if he had Willians premier league minutes.  NGola Kante has 1 goal and 2 assists, and many experts are bemoaning his play this season.

I'd be surprised personally if CHO is a Chelsea player next year. There's nothing keeping him at Chelsea. 

[yorkleyblue]

12 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

Context always matters. Joe Cole was an up and comer when we first signed him, it was during his second season when he started to flourish. He also sustained two really bad knee injuries, the second one ruined him and he wasn't the same player anymore, so 3 of his 7 season's with us he couldn't play at his best. If Cole didn't pick up the second knee injury, I'm sure that his peak years would have gone a lot better than they did. 

Willian also started more games than Cole did for us. I also thought Cole was a lot more effective in the games he played and often got goals and assists at important times. Cole and Pedro are similar in that way, and it's why I prefer Pedro over Willian now even though they have similar stats. I just find Pedro to be more effective for the team.

True, Scott, as does personal bias.  We both recognise that you don't like Willian and I do, so we can both pick and choose "facts" to substantiate our argument.  My point was simply that people moaning about Willian do so out of their own interpretation of what they believe he should provide, rather than what he does provide a lot of the time.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that Willian is a player that we should upgrade if there was a better player available for sensible money, but the abuse he gets in here is rarely based on performance, but on pre-conceived positions.  I rarely hear the abuse Willian gets in here in the match threads when at the Bridge.  Yes, there will be groans if he loses the ball, in the same way as there are groans whenever any player loses the ball,  but never the continuous whining and moaning about him specifically.   A recent match the match-day thread was quite a lot of moaning, and then he got a standing ovation from the whole stadium when he was subbed off.  Seems to me that he is this years Mikel, who was also unjustly slated in here.

The bottom line for me is that we have absolutely no idea what his instructions are from any of the top managers, club and international, who keep on picking and picking him, and I don't believe that these top managers would keep on picking him if he was a sh*te as a lot in here would have us believe.

15 hours ago, Wearyourblue said:

Willian's not even ball park with top first touch on the team.  It's why he struggles so much when we have to play in a tight a attacking third. A good first touch isn't just taking a ball down out of the air when you're running, it's being able to play one time too.

Now you're just being silly

[yorkleyblue]

18 hours ago, Skinnedy said:

Some of us appreciate what he does, and the rest of you are wrong.... lol ... love that post. 

If that's how you understand my post, you have very poor comprehension skills (ask @moi, she was a teacher).  But then again, correct English is not your first language, so I forgive you! 

[Skinnedy]

2 hours ago, yorkleyblue said:

But then again, correct English is not your first language, so I forgive you! 

Worse... I’m from the South. We can barely read and write... I would have responded sooner, but this dial up AOL access is brutal! 

[yorkleyblue]

When are they planning broadband out in Gatorville, anyway?

[Scott Harris]

Performances like tonight from Willian is why I get so frustrated with him. He was awful. Wasted big chances to score with poor touches, then he was largely to blame for their second goal. I'm so tired of Willian doing that sh*t throwing his arms in the air thing when somebody stronger than him uses their strength to get the ball from him. He does it every game. He tries to flick the ball around a player, that player reads it and get's in front of Willian, Willian then throws his arms in the air and asks for a foul, and today it cost us a goal.

If he gets dropped for Pedro ( and he should ) then he can have no complaints. If he wants to be a baby about it like he was when Conte dropped him then tough sh*t.

I'm sorry if the Willian fans don't like it, but he's been massively overrated at this club for some time now. He turns up for a bunch of games mid way through the season and everybody forgets the crap he produces in between. He won player of the year at the club for a few good performances during January and February and everybody forgot how awful he was at the start and end of the season.

[charierre]

Yet again we see Willian blowing hot and very cold within a match. Has good possession retains the ball well, but then we have the frustrating side, poor finishing and criminally not playing to the whistle. One of the players we need to upgrade or at the very least let CHO challenge more for his starting position.

 

 

 

[Wearyourblue]

1 hour ago, charierre said:

Yet again we see Willian blowing hot and very cold within a match. Has good possession retains the ball well, but then we have the frustrating side, poor finishing and criminally not playing to the whistle. One of the players we need to upgrade or at the very least let CHO challenge more for his starting position.

 

 

 

His possession was not good today

[ForeverCarefree]

Absolute dog poo last night. 

Kept cutting infield and trying to take it past 3 players whilst moving sideways across the pitch, kept running into trouble and giving the ball away. 

Wasted two of our best chances. 

Gave the ball away for Wolves' winner. 

No idea why Pedro was dropped in favour for him last night, given that Pedro played well against Fulham. 

[Ukraine Bolt]

Willian missed two absolute peaches last night that you would put your house on Pedro finishing both of them.

What annoyed me most was even after missing these two chances, Cesc tried to put him through 1v1 and miss-hit the pass. Instead of congratulating Cesc on trying to once again give him an opportunity to miss, he turns around and throws his arms up moaning at Cesc. I can understand moaning at your team mates if you're Ronaldo and you're scoring the chances he's getting but when you're missing the majority of shots you should keep your head down and have a word with yourself before blaming others. 

Would he get into any other top club in the league other than Utd? (purely because of Mourinho). 

Absolutely not.

[Delnino]

He is easily the worst player in the team that consistently gets picked. No other club in the top 6 would have him playing as s**t as he does for us reguarly, stinking the place up, costing us goals and missing chances or not playing in team mates.

Hes a brain dead footballer who constantly runs down blind allies who cant cross, cant finish and barely beats a man.

Sure, he hates Tottenham but other than that, hes cost us a lot of points this year, f**k ups against Everton, West Ham, Liverpool and last night, he has the chance to square to players in better positions but he breaks down the attack by wasting chances.

Hes basically a Brazilian Nathan Redmond and theres no way he should be at this club next season.

[ForeverCarefree]

54 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Willian missed two absolute peaches last night that you would put your house on Pedro finishing both of them.

What annoyed me most was even after missing these two chances, Cesc tried to put him through 1v1 and miss-hit the pass. Instead of congratulating Cesc on trying to once again give him an opportunity to miss, he turns around and throws his arms up moaning at Cesc. I can understand moaning at your team mates if you're Ronaldo and you're scoring the chances he's getting but when you're missing the majority of shots you should keep your head down and have a word with yourself before blaming others. 

Would he get into any other top club in the league other than Utd? (purely because of Mourinho). 

Absolutely not.

I think it was Alonso who played the ball over the top that Willian moaned at but I agree with your point. 

He's got quite a petulant attitude on the pitch, throws his arms up in the air a lot at the ref and sulks at his team mates.

He's had more starts than any of the other attackers in the team so far in the league this season. Started 12 scoring 2 and assisting 2. 

Hazard's got 11 starts with 7 goals and 6 assists, Pedro has just 7 starts but has 5 goals and an assist. 

Barkley, Giroud, Morata and Loftus-Cheek have all directly contributed to more goals in the league this season with less playing time... I just don't get it. 

[Skinnedy]

4 hours ago, ForeverCarefree said:

No idea why Pedro was dropped in favour for him last night, given that Pedro played well against Fulham. 

As long as Pedro is healthy, I think we're back to him being first choice. He started the season as first choice, started well, and then picked up a knock.

Chelsea has 3 games in 7 days, so this one was down to squad rotation. Willian starting this game was maybe the easiest prediction of all the changes. I'll be shocked if he starts over Pedro against City.

the one I'm keeping an eye on... Emerson was rested for the same reason... he's starting against City... right? 

Jorginho, Giroud, Pedro, Luiz, will all be back in the lineup on Saturday... but what about... RLC's spot and Alonso? Those are not as easy to predict.

[Ukraine Bolt]

Although he was class i very much doubt RLC gets another 90 minutes. 

[Skinnedy]

1 minute ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Although he was class i very much doubt RLC gets another 90 minutes. 

Yeah, and I don't think Barkley is completely fit, so this one won't be too tough to predict afterall.

Alonso? Surely it's time for a change there. Especially 3 games in 7 days when he's looked woeful the previous two.

[Ukraine Bolt]

I've been an Emerson advocate for the past year, heaven knows why he doesn't get picked. I fell like Zappacosta has more chance of starting with Azpi at LB than Emerson for some reason.

[RMCM]

Reckon we'll line up something like this

                 Kepa
Dave - Rudiger - Luiz - Emerson
    Kante - Jorgi -  Kovacic
   Pedro -  Giroud -  Hazard

I reckon Emerson will come in as Alonso was absolute dogsh*t in the last 2 games, and I have no interest in watching Sane, Sterling or Bernardo Silva absolutely slaughter him for pace every time they have the ball

[Ukraine Bolt]

31 minutes ago, RMCM said:

Reckon we'll line up something like this

                 Kepa
Dave - Rudiger - Luiz - Emerson
    Kante - Jorgi -  Kovacic
   Pedro -  Giroud -  Hazard

I reckon Emerson will come in as Alonso was absolute dogsh*t in the last 2 games, and I have no interest in watching Sane, Sterling or Bernardo Silva absolutely slaughter him for pace every time they have the ball

The annoying thing is, Emerson will get destroyed (understandably) by Sterling/Mahrez/Sane etc. and people will say he is just as sh*t as Alonso has been and Sarri will reinstate Alonso. Needs an extended run in the team.

Its a win/win for Sarri, Emerson plays sh*t and he can reinstate Alonso and look no worse off for constantly choosing him. Or he plays amazing and we have a great new LB to use.

[charierre]

14 hours ago, Wearyourblue said:

His possession was not good today

I thought he started well but went on a decline after he cocked his first chance up from there on he was poor. As for the second goal I'd make him run around the training pitch with 50kg   bag of rock salt on his shoulders. 

[dkw]

2 minutes ago, charierre said:

I thought he started well but went on a decline after he cocked his first chance up from there on he was poor. As for the second goal I'd make him run around the training pitch with 50kg   bag of rock salt on his shoulders. 

He had a part to play in that 2nd goal but he was not the worst, it was a complete cluster f**k by christensen initially then Rudiger was caught out also. 

[yorkleyblue]

Just now, dkw said:

He had a part to play in that 2nd goal but he was not the worst, it was a complete cluster f**k by christensen initially then Rudiger was caught out also. 

Doesn't fit the narrative of the day, though, does it?

[Scott Harris]

Just now, yorkleyblue said:

Doesn't fit the narrative of the day, though, does it?

I'm tired of this excuse. We're not scapegoating Willian, it's not like he is the only one getting heavily criticised (Morata has received much more criticism for his performances than any other) the simple fact is that he has been playing like sh*t for a long time now. 3 goals and 4 assists in 22 games is an awful return. He's even playing in a more attacking side and he still can't perform. If anything, it's highlighting more than ever just how average Willian is as an attacking player. 

Willian has proven that Conte was right to use him the way he did, he's a squad player at best.