Jose starts him early because he's good defensively compared to Schurrle and Salah and he plays very well with Oscar and hazard. He may be not a best player but he's very important piece to the puzzle.

 

I'm not sure you can argue that Hazard is much better. from his 7 goals in all competitions this season 3 of them are penalty's. 4 goals in from open play and 1 assist is not that impressive. 

 

I'd take a guess that he has had more game time then Willian and he had better chances then Willian on saturday, one great oportunity to put costa in when instead he chose to spoon the ball wide. Yet Eden doesn't get the grief of Willian (or oscar for that matter). I personally feel that ALL of our attacking mid's should be chiming in with more goals and ALL of them seem very flashy on the ball but need to be more leathal in decision making AND execution in the final 3rd. Also, none of the 3  (oscar, willian and eden) seem to like making runs  in to the box, On willian's side you can argue he spends a lot of time covering for the marording Ivan. All off them our guilty of playing he ball, standing still and asking for it back. Against the more stubborn defences we will need more than just costa making a run. It will make the passers job much easier if he has 3 or 4 options all on the move making runs in the box and pulling defenders out of position.

 

 

This is why, for me,  Robben Duff and Cole where all better than the current crop, more often than not they punished teams when through and all of them had great movement of the ball. 

 

 

Hazard is levels above Willian lets be honest here. Hazard is technically gifted, he has just about everything in his locker but it's how he uses it, for example his finishing, he isn't the best at placing the ball but he doesn't exactly take the best opportunities to shoot when he should do.

 

That's my only criticism of him, besides that he is a fantastic player, Willian can't produce what Hazard can.

Typical Willian performance today in many ways works his arse off and shows moments of magic the fans love him but he just can't consistantly produce. He is still a top player and with his work ethic it is rare he will have a bad game which is why Jose loves him.

Leave off Willian. He was a Jose signing and Jose plays him.

Typical Willian performance today in many ways works his arse off and shows moments of magic the fans love him but he just can't consistantly produce. He is still a top player and with his work ethic it is rare he will have a bad game which is why Jose loves him.

 

He has had several bad games this season, lucky for him that Shurrle have been unfit and out of form for a while now. About the fans: I could clearly hear some anger when he kept loosing the ball today, the situation where he killed the momentum of our counterattack and passed it to a Hull player springs to mind.

Both Willian and Shurrle have not been good enough, if we want to improve against defending teams I would look for atleast one replacement to be honest. 

 

I also think Willians defensive praise is overrated. Against Hull I saw him give up on several of his defensive runs, he did the same thing when Newcastle scored their first goal against us. Shurrle did more as a first defender today in 10 minutes, when he won the ball high up the pitch and almost scored.

 

I agree. Don't get me wrong i think he works hard defensively but i don't think he works harder than the rest of the team, he can just make up more ground than the others.

 

Even though i think CFCBlue12 went a bit of the top i do think he made some good points. We need to start seeing some end product from Willian, 6 goals and 9 assists in nearly 60 games for the club is not really good enough for a £30 million winger playing in a top team.

 

I would like to see Schurrle given an extended run in the team like Willian gets. It seems like Schurrle gets 1 or 2 games and he's out, and if he has a poor game he sometimes gets left out for a few weeks. I think it's only fair that Willian, who i thought was really poor today, get's the same treatment.

 

I think we look much better having Schurrle in the team and Willian coming off the bench. Schurrle is just a much bigger threat, especially against stubborn defences. He makes the runs into the box and keeps defenders guessing. He is also perfect for Fabregas. Fabregas is excellent at playing players in when they make the right moves into the box.

 

Willian doesn't do enough against defensive teams, for a guy with great pace he doesn't attack teams enough, he is too stop start and seems to run out of ideas too often.

Edited December 14, 201411 yr by Scott Harris

I don't understand all the criticism Willian gets.

To be fair I never wanted him in the first place and was shocked at the money we paid. The reason wHy I never wanted us to sign him is because I done my research and saw that he was never prolific and scoring / creating chances.

This is exactly what we paid for, he's a Jose and the boss sees something good inside him so we may aswell trust Jose and support Willian as much as we can.

I'm normally critical of Willian's end product and composure in the final third, that's my frustration with him.

Yesterday however was a bad performance and the dive just topped it off.... A day to forget all round.

With Hazard and Oscar having chipped in with goals and assists yesterday I don't think it is much of a stretch to say that his starting place is under threat.

I'm normally critical of Willian's end product and composure in the final third, that's my frustration with him.

Yesterday however was a bad performance and the dive just topped it off.... A day to forget all round.

With Hazard and Oscar having chipped in with goals and assists yesterday I don't think it is much of a stretch to say that his starting place is under threat.

 

He didn't have the greatest game all round, but he wasn't the only one. 

 

2 things that the people seem to ignore with Willian. 

 

1) Opponents get very little time on the ball, he is absolutely key to our pressing game

2) I’m sorry but how many wingers do you know that are going to cover as much as he does for the marauding Ivan who by the way is in less and less of a hurry to get back these days.

 

Additionally, if Oscar taps in at the near post yesterday that’s a well worked assist by willian. It should have been put away, Willian did all he could. He does create chances and what I like about him is he does get decent crosses in to the box.

 

What he quite clearly lacks is a killer instinct, he doesn’t drive in to the box enough looking for the easy goal (see lampard yesterday). When we play one up front the attacking mids have a responsibility to get in to the box of the ball. And when he has the ball centrally on a counter often his conversion in terms of correct decision is not good enough. But  many of our breakaways come because of his work. He wasn’t great yesterday but then again Matic had a stinker as well, and I don’t theink Andre was any better when he came on (although he had little time to grow in to the game) 

So one of our £30m wingers best assets is to cover for our right back?

I'm sorry but that's just not reason enough to pick him.

I see examples given of nearly goals and nearly assists but the simple truth is he isn't putting up the kind of numbers that others in our squad do playing the same role.

Schurrle in ten minutes got closer to scoring and setting up a goal than Willian did in 80.

Willian just doesn't impact games in the attacking third nearly as much as he should and for all the talk of pressing (lest we forget Schurrle won the ball just outside the 18 yard box that almost led to a goal yesterday), tackles, ground covered it just doesn't add up to me because 9 games out if 10 he isn't producing where it matters most, in attack.

So one of our £30m wingers best assets is to cover for our right back?

I'm sorry but that's just not reason enough to pick him.

I see examples given of nearly goals and nearly assists but the simple truth is he isn't putting up the kind of numbers that others in our squad do playing the same role.

Schurrle in ten minutes got closer to scoring and setting up a goal than Willian did in 80.

Willian just doesn't impact games in the attacking third nearly as much as he should and for all the talk of pressing (lest we forget Schurrle won the ball just outside the 18 yard box that almost led to a goal yesterday), tackles, ground covered it just doesn't add up to me because 9 games out if 10 he isn't producing where it matters most, in attack.

 

 

You can't on one hand dimiss nearly assist and nearly goals. and then on the other hand compliment schurrle for almost scoring (time factor noted)

My point being that with limited time on the pitch Scurrle almost instantly had an attacking impact because he's instinctively aggressively in the final third.

With about a third of the playing time Schurrle has more goals and assists than Willian this season, he's just a more effective player in attacking situations and I would take that all day long over someone who is conscious of covering for the full back.

I don't understand all the criticism Willian gets.

To be fair I never wanted him in the first place and was shocked at the money we paid. The reason wHy I never wanted us to sign him is because I done my research and saw that he was never prolific and scoring / creating chances.

This is exactly what we paid for, he's a Jose and the boss sees something good inside him so we may aswell trust Jose and support Willian as much as we can.

 

Yeah but you have been criticising the whole team of late so i don't see how you can say we shouldn't be doing the same to Willian.

My point being that with limited time on the pitch Scurrle almost instantly had an attacking impact because he's instinctively aggressively in the final third.

With about a third of the playing time Schurrle has more goals and assists than Willian this season, he's just a more effective player in attacking situations and I would take that all day long over someone who is conscious of covering for the full back.

You would but Jose, quite rightly IMO, won't.

The long and short is Jose won't have a midfielder who only works in one direction. Going forwards. When Schurrle shows Mourinho he can defend as well as have a shot and not let players like James Milner simply waltz past him unchallenged he will get games. If he doesn't he won't.

You would but Jose, quite rightly IMO, won't.

The long and short is Jose won't have a midfielder who only works in one direction. Going forwards. When Schurrle shows Mourinho he can defend as well as have a shot and not let players like James Milner simply waltz past him unchallenged he will get games. If he doesn't he won't.

Scurrle is more than happy enough to track back and do the dirty work, he did so again yesterday.

He might not be as good at it as Willian but what good is winning back possession if you can't do anything with it?

The Man City goal is apparently now used to say he can't defend when all the attacking players, midfielders and even defenders have been guilty of letting attackers ghost past them.

I'm sticking to my reasoning that Schurrle does his primary role on the pitch (attacking) much better Willian ever has or likely will for Chelsea.

I'm delighted we got Willian to be honest, he is a valuable member of this team, great attitude and contributes but should he be starting every game? I'm not so sure. Him and Ramires are sort of similar in that way, I want them there but as squaddies not starting every game. Ramires just doesn't stop, he's a big game player and I've never seen a player with his fitness in the league, he just doesn't stop running.

 

But he's also an average footballer, Ramires gives the ball away a lot especially on counter attacks, so that's why it's best that he's not used for every game.

 

Willian is a good footballer I would say so, but sometimes I don't think he contributes enough to attack, I think we should be looking to bring on Schurrle in games and not just in the last 10 minutes.

 

I mean you just got to look at it, Willian starting every game a season on average what is that going to contribute to attack? Just a simulation here as weird as it sounds, but you're not looking at many goals and assists. That's the main reason I want to see the likes of Schurrle come on more even Salah for pace.

Like I said FC Mourinho's call and and he don't get much wrong. Overall I think he is making the right one. For the big games against the top sides it would be Willian every time for me.

I take the point others have made about Schurrle being given starts against the weaker more defensively minded team and agree with that.

Start of the season a fully fit Schurrle was first choice, only since his virus has Willian been in the team and so you can't really say who Jose's prefered player is right now.

Maybe by the end of February we'll have a better idea.

It's obvious who his preferred first choice is. Willian's all round game, his discipline, defending and work rate is better and more consistent than Schurrle's.

It's a long season and there will be plenty of games for both to show what they have to offer. Both have weaknesses they can improve on.

I'd take coutinho over willian to be honest. looks like he could become available the way liverpool are going. 

Edited December 14, 201411 yr by enigma

I'd take coutinho over willian to be honest. looks like he could become available the way liverpool are going.

Coutinho is a good player, but he should have tracked Rooney for the first goal today. I personally think he isn't good enough to get the free role he requires at a top club like ours.

Coutinho is a good player, but he should have tracked Rooney for the first goal today. I personally think he isn't good enough to get the free role he requires at a top club like ours.

 

I think it's hard for any of the liverpool players to be assed any more; gerrard and sterling both looked a little deflated and uninterested imo. 

Nevermind: 

 

http://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2014/12/14/7389921/chelsea-fc-willian-contract-extension-transfer-rumors-news

It's obvious who his preferred first choice is. Willian's all round game, his discipline, defending and work rate is better and more consistent than Schurrle's.

It's a long season and there will be plenty of games for both to show what they have to offer. Both have weaknesses they can improve on.

Opinion = / = fact

I don't think there is anything to suggest Willian is Jose's first choice yet.

Coutinho looks good on match of the day, but he's a luxury player, he's far too fancy and tries to do too much.

 

I would rather have Willian.