Far too many attempted flicks and tricks, giving the ball away time after time. He'll have his purple patch of 4-5 games where he's amazing later in the season and all the pundits will gush and say they can't understand why he doesn't start every week. Until then, Pedro has to be ahead of him.

10 hours ago, Cam said:

My favourite part of Willian's game is all the hand signal corners and free-kicks, where they all end up doing the same thing (nothing)

Number 3 means hit the ball to the opposition so they can clear it easily. It’s his favourite. 

I think maybe some of you are blaming the failure of ANY Chelsea player to get on the end of a series of corners delivered right into the heart of the penalty on the player taking the corners and delivering the ball directly into the heart of the penalty area.

 

Nothing to do with a dislike of that delivering player, obviously.

3 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

Number 3 means hit the ball to the opposition so they can clear it easily. It’s his favourite. 

I think yesterday he used no. 5 more often, which means hit the ball to the opposition so they can clear it more easily 

1 minute ago, yorkleyblue said:

I think maybe some of you are blaming the failure of ANY Chelsea player to get on the end of a series of corners delivered right into the heart of the penalty on the player taking the corners and delivering the ball directly into the heart of the penalty area.

 

Nothing to do with a dislike of that delivering player, obviously.

Well, yesterday there was one corner, I believe in the first half as I saw from the Shed Upper, in which you had most players in the back post and one player on the front post. William put the ball in the middle of the 6 yards box. I may not be a football coach, but I understand that players are placing themselves according to what William signs, and then he delivers to the wrong area. I've never given him any slack, but yesterday he should have stepped up because, a priori, him and Pedro were the players with most quality on the pitch for us. And he didn't deliver. 

Corners and set pieces hardly ever result in goals, even if well taken, so you tend to remember the bad ones. A decent corner will go unnoticed unless it leads to a goal. Willian took an awful lot of corners yesterday and, on the whole, they were fine. I seem to remember Hazard taking a few corners/set pieces after he came on and if anything, the standard went down.

Willian had a decent match yesterday so I find it weird to see him being discussed so heavily today.

@RMH See, I see what you are saying but I'm not that sure about the responsibility of the corner-taker to make sure that the big lumps in the box make the right runs or not.  You can say that Willian put it into the wrong place, and you could  well be right.  Equally, it could be that our lads in the centre made the wrong runs or started in the wrong places.

I did think on several corners that Willian looked a bit pissed off when he put a very decent ball on or about the penalty area and none of ours were anywhere near it.  Could be his signalling was pants, could be his execution was pants or it could be the others were wrong/blocked off/whatever.  At whatever level, if you have a corner taker consistently hitting the penalty spot or close, you are normally quite happy.

I just think that it is too easy a stick to beat the player with, especially given the amount of whining that has been going on in here about the short corners and how w**k they are, then, when,  regardless of the final outcome, a player is consistently putting the ball into the penalty area in what should be a dangerous way, some people find that as a way to get at a scapegoat of their choice.

NOW, the free kicks are another matter and Willian should be limited to those out wide of the penalty area on our left.   He should never get a free kick in a decent central place.

Edited October 5, 20187 yr by yorkleyblue

You are right, I didn't think that William put many decent corners last night in term of creating dangerous situations, most nowhere near any of our players, but it could be also that other players were not responding correctly to the set piece. So I'll give you that.  And he was angry last night in many corners, he seemed to fight in every one with Pedro, I don't know if the latter wanted short corners and William was not having it or not, but it was obvious that they were having some arguments.

Regarding giving him stick, I never mouth any of our players or coach, but as BlueDave put it he had a decent match last night, which in RLC language means he played OK, but... And that is most of his games, he is a good player to have on the bench, though.

Back to the bench for Willian next match.

 

 

@RIP Mourinho, you pulled out your wooden spoon and pot again ! 

2 hours ago, RMH said:

I think yesterday he used no. 5 more often, which means hit the ball to the opposition so they can clear it more easily 

No, number 5 is overload the back post with players then gently float the ball in to the front post. You need to brush up mate. 

I think the whole numbered set pieces is a Sarri thing. I remember Chalobah doing an interview about his loan at Napoli under Sarri and he said he had a manual of 30 odd numbered throw in routines to memorise. I also might be making that up. 

13 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

No, number 5 is overload the back post with players then gently float the ball in to the front post. You need to brush up mate. 

I think the whole numbered set pieces is a Sarri thing. I remember Chalobah doing an interview about his loan at Napoli under Sarri and he said he had a manual of 30 odd numbered throw in routines to memorise. I also might be making that up. 

Thankfully William hasn’t decided to use no. 30... yet!

Poor game yesterday, he is inconsistent at the best of times, let alone after 5 games in 21 days of the back of international games in Brazil. 

Glad pedro is back, so we can rotate between the 2, which has seemed to work out better for both players over the last few seasons. 

9 hours ago, bluedave said:

Corners and set pieces hardly ever result in goals, even if well taken, so you tend to remember the bad ones. A decent corner will go unnoticed unless it leads to a goal. Willian took an awful lot of corners yesterday and, on the whole, they were fine. I seem to remember Hazard taking a few corners/set pieces after he came on and if anything, the standard went down.

Willian had a decent match yesterday so I find it weird to see him being discussed so heavily today.

Hazard's delivery has been far better than Willian's in this recent 3 game stretch.

There was the free kick Barkley nearly scored from that led to Emerson's goal against Liverpool in the Carabao Cup.

The last minute corner that Alonso should've scored from

And yesterday his free kick that led to Barkley hitting the post

I thought Willian was pretty decent yesterday. Still not the end product we’d like, but much better than the last time out.

On 04/10/2018 at 23:19, Munkworth said:

But if the ball hasn’t bounced off his Afro we could be sitting here discussing how we drew 0-0 with Hungary’s finest. Nobody else has the foresight to grow an Afro and assist with it. 

Has to be the best logical input I've ever seen on this forum

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/734627/Chelsea-news-Willian-Maurizio-Sarri-Stamford-Bridge-Eden-Hazard-Premier-League-latest

Sarri took over from Antonio Conte in the summer and has made the adjustment to training at Chelsea.

His style of play is also more possession-based which is working well for the Blues.

But Willian isn’t overjoyed by the fact he has to train in the afternoons.

told The Times: “Of course, I prefer to train in the morning because then you can stay with your family, your daughters, because when I’m training in the afternoon my kids go home and then when I arrive home, they have dinner and go to bed.

“So I see less of my daughters, that’s why I prefer morning training.”

 

It's only been a couple of months and he's found something to publically moan about already. Why does he feel the need to say this to the media, keep it internal if you have an issue with the coaches methods.

Sooner he leaves Chelsea the better imo.

1 hour ago, RIP Mourinho said:

told The Times: “Of course, I prefer to train in the morning because then you can stay with your family, your daughters, because when I’m training in the afternoon my kids go home and then when I arrive home, they have dinner and go to bed.

“So I see less of my daughters, that’s why I prefer morning training.”

 

Welcome to the real world Willian like most working fathers.

Of course if you make it as a superstar allowances might be made. 

17 hours ago, Strider6003 said:

Welcome to the real world Willian like most working fathers.

Of course if you make it as a superstar allowances might be made. 

Must be real hard having to go to work for a couple of hours in an afternoon and pick up your £100,000 p/week wage whilst only seeing your kids at night.

Hang on, I know it's fashionable to hate willian for some bizarre reason, but where exactly is he moaning or saying its hard? He literally just said he preferred training in the morning, that's it.

2 hours ago, dkw said:

Hang on, I know it's fashionable to hate willian for some bizarre reason, but where exactly is he moaning or saying its hard? He literally just said he preferred training in the morning, that's it.

Bizarre isn't it. It's a completely innocuous statement. Maybe it would have been better if he'd said "I prefer to train in the afternoon so that I don't have to see my kids". Weirdos.

 

My frustration with Willian is that he has the dribbling and speed, but he will only use it 5% of the time. Almost everytime it's a backpass, dribbling backwards, or just holding onto the ball way to long. When we counterattacked on Southampton after Kepas amazing save, he had several passing choices and manages to pick the absolute worst one, wich he often does in those situations.

Thought played okay 1st half, then second half he gave it away in bad positions, and picked the wrong option going forward a couple of times.

Better in general today, particularly the first half.

Corners were woeful again though.

Has had a habit of giving the ball away in our own half in dangerous areas that’s been leading to big chances for the opposition. Needs to work in his awareness and decision making in those areas.

9 hours ago, dkw said:

Hang on, I know it's fashionable to hate willian for some bizarre reason, but where exactly is he moaning or saying its hard? He literally just said he preferred training in the morning, that's it.

Anyone can see the lack of end product and decision making from Willian. Not good enough. Aimlessly dribbling into nowhere usually.