10 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

Is it weird that I am more annoyed with Willian's reaction than what Kepa did? 

 

Yes, it's very weird but also completely expected that you would say that. 

17 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

Is it weird that I am more annoyed with Willian's reaction than what Kepa did? 

Smiling, joking and hugging the opposition manager after losing a cup final isn't something I could ever imagine myself doing. I would be gutted and wouldn't want to be anywhere near the opposition team. I think it's fair to question Willian's commitment and hunger when that is his reaction after losing a cup final.

He still gets paid, gets a shiny loser's medal and, to be fair, most fans dont give a toss about the league cup and I reckon most players feel the same. It burns us more as we lost a final.

Had we lost in round 4 to Derby we would all have looked at it as a blessing to save tired legs.

I doubt Willian does that in a CL final,  but doing so yesterday was a lack of respect for us.

Now our whole league cup campaign was a waste. Yay loser medals, tired legs and losing to Spurs in 2 days cause the players are knackered and suffered yet another loss where we could not score.

18 hours ago, Scott Harris said:

Is it weird that I am more annoyed with Willian's reaction than what Kepa did? 

Smiling, joking and hugging the opposition manager after losing a cup final isn't something I could ever imagine myself doing. I would be gutted and wouldn't want to be anywhere near the opposition team. I think it's fair to question Willian's commitment and hunger when that is his reaction after losing a cup final.

Unfortunately, it's not that uncommon to see players do this so I can't be mad at Willian or single him out.

2 hours ago, axman2526 said:

He still gets paid, gets a shiny loser's medal and, to be fair, most fans dont give a toss about the league cup and I reckon most players feel the same. It burns us more as we lost a final.

Had we lost in round 4 to Derby we would all have looked at it as a blessing to save tired legs.

I doubt Willian does that in a CL final,  but doing so yesterday was a lack of respect for us.

Now our whole league cup campaign was a waste. Yay loser medals, tired legs and losing to Spurs in 2 days cause the players are knackered and suffered yet another loss where we could not score.

Haha i doubt it, our fans would be more like

f**k Sarriball or Sarri is useless and has never won a trophy he's not good enough etc.

I don't remember discussing this fact on this forum, but Slick Willie was at the spuds training ground for 8 hours, as they demanded he stay with them instead of going to Chelsea. WTF. I found this bit funny

" I stayed there for eight hours in the training centre. Tottenham’s director said ‘I’m going to report you to FIFA, this and that, fans here in England will boo you, this and that’. They made up a lot of things. I got stuck there for eight hours. Then I left and I went straight to meet the Chelsea people to sort the details and sign."

Watching Willian’s performances in the Premier League 

3 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Watching Willian’s performances in the Premier League 

The guy ran his socks off, put in a great defensive shift despite being tired. He really should have been subbed for CHO as the game was drawing to an end and Willian was visibly more tired.

3 minutes ago, brownindian said:

The guy ran his socks off, put in a great defensive shift despite being tired. He really should have been subbed for CHO as the game was drawing to an end and Willian was visibly more tired.

Tiredness can be used as an excuse if this was a one off from Willian, but he's like this in pretty much every game he plays these days.

5 minutes ago, brownindian said:

The guy ran his socks off, put in a great defensive shift despite being tired. He really should have been subbed for CHO as the game was drawing to an end and Willian was visibly more tired.

If it’s just about running about a bit and running towards the ball then my dog can do that. 

I want my attackers to be good at attacking.

Tired of the “yeah but defensive contribution” being a justification for having to watch Willian. 

 

.

 

Edited March 3, 20197 yr by ForeverCarefree
Double post.

30 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

If it’s just about running about a bit and running towards the ball then my dog can do that. 

I want my attackers to be good at attacking.

Tired of the “yeah but defensive contribution” being a justification for having to watch Willian. 

 

Agree with this. His output for a winger is shocking. He is so, so wasteful on the ball. Very poor decision making in the final third. His corners never beat the first man.

These are his stats in the PL this year compared with other wingers:

Willian 25games 3gls 5asts

Sadio Mane 26games 14gls 1ast

Heung Min Son 23games 11gls 6asts

Wilfred Zaha 25games 8gls 5asts

Diogo Jota 24games 6gls 3asts

Gerard Deulofeu 22games 6gls 5asts

If we really want him in there for his defensive contribution, I've been saying this for months. Why not try him out at LCM? If he's in the Barkley role, at least he'll have a few more opportunities to crack some long rangers at goal

1 hour ago, ForeverCarefree said:

If it’s just about running about a bit and running towards the ball then my dog can do that. 

I want my attackers to be good at attacking.

Tired of the “yeah but defensive contribution” being a justification for having to watch Willian. 

 

That is a very fair point. But the problem seems to be that Sarri does not seem to trust CHO. I would have loved to have CHO come in when our attack started to slow down in the second half and we were struggling as a team to consistently press. This again to me is a case of not enough rotation and trust in the squad. Even Rudiger had a few brain farts. If you think this is bad right now, wait till we keep playing more midweek games. 

 I sa

1 hour ago, ForeverCarefree said:

If it’s just about running about a bit and running towards the ball then my dog can do that. 

I want my attackers to be good at attacking.

Tired of the “yeah but defensive contribution” being a justification for having to watch Willian. 

 

I put this point in the match thread, he is pretty uninspiring to watch, seems to be at 80% always

Too static without the ball.. great at carrying it from defence to attack...more suited in a counter attacking team.... he did play for Shaktar in a deeper role early on.. may not be the worst thing.. 

He was a lot more selfish today and fired at goal at every opportunity, problem was that he was trying to squeeze it through tiny gaps or no gap at all. Should've tried to find another player in the box.

I thought he had a very good game. Must've been watching something else entirely judging from the comments on here. Oh well.

1 hour ago, Amputechture said:

I thought he had a very good game. Must've been watching something else entirely judging from the comments on here. Oh well.

I thought he played well too, but i get the frustration over his goal contribution, it is bad.

2 hours ago, jack_super_class said:

I thought he played well too, but i get the frustration over his goal contribution, it is bad.

 

3 hours ago, Amputechture said:

I thought he had a very good game. Must've been watching something else entirely judging from the comments on here. Oh well.

It’s not so much a case of saying he’s played badly but it’s more a case of what did he specifically do today? When it comes down to delivering where it matters most for the position he plays in he rarely comes up with the hoods. It’s almost always up to others to make the telling contributions.

When I’m seeing CHO with 3 goals and 3 assists with limited playing time and looking at Willian I just can’t see what he does to warrant so much playing time.

4 hours ago, Amputechture said:

I thought he had a very good game. Must've been watching something else entirely judging from the comments on here. Oh well.

I think our expectations for him have dropped so low that if he's not shockingly bad, he must be good. 

He wasn't bad. But he wasn't good. His set pieces were bad, they always are, but he didn't specifically do anything that made me think "I'm glad he's in there" 

The defensive contribution thing is nearly as frustrating. He doesn't press high, he's not making tackles in the back. The only time he chases is when the ball is taken away from him. It's a non quantifiable fairy tale. 

He was OK today... Which for him and how he's been playing felt like a real plus. Yay, Willian didn't suck. 

We need so much more than him in a front 3 

A typical Willian performance is standing with the ball at his feet, do a few standing stepovers then pass it to Dave or inside. Then the typical rubbish set peices but let's not forget he tracks back when he loses the ball so yay it's a good performance.

There's someone on the bench who could freshen things up, give the club a boost and his minutes are being wasted by wingers underperforming all season but then we need to sell one of our 3 wingers to give him minutes. We will sell CHO then have to spend another 60m to replace Willian or Pedro, makes sense to me.

I've felt Willian has undeservedly been the subject of much criticism over the last season or two. I know he isn't the force he once was but he does contribute. He has been a fantastic player over the years and we shouldn't forget that. I thought he played well against Fulham yet he still gets stick.

I think he's been a good signing for Chelsea and if we can get a £20 million for him in the summer I can't think of many players who have contributed more since his arrival. There are one or two but not many.

This is my problem with Willian, look how lackadaisical he is at the back post. At least Higuain is on the move to try and get something on the ball, Willian doesn't even come to life until the ball has passed him.

 

This is my problem with Willian, look how lackadaisical he is at the back post. At least Higuain is on the move to try and get something on the ball, Willian doesn't even come to life until the ball has passed him.

 

13 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

This is my problem with Willian, look how lackadaisical he is at the back post. At least Higuain is on the move to try and get something on the ball, Willian doesn't even come to life until the ball has passed him.

 

That's a good call out, though for the life of me,  I can't remember any other examples of Hazard crossing like that. I hope Sarri has captured that in those notes he keeps writing that Willian should be positioned on the far post when Hazard looks to cross in a congested box.

36 minutes ago, Strider6003 said:

That's a good call out, though for the life of me,  I can't remember any other examples of Hazard crossing like that. I hope Sarri has captured that in those notes he keeps writing that Willian should be positioned on the far post when Hazard looks to cross in a congested box.

Hazard puts that ball across goal like that very regularly. City in the final he did the same thing.