His defending is usually a lot better which is why Jose keeps playing him. He's had a couple of bad moments, everyone in the team has had those.

Have you just seen Jose's interview on SKY? It may make you change your view.

Well now it has been made pretty public, maybe a wake up call to work on his defensive side.

Without Schurrle we wouldn't have even scored today so there is no way he deserves massive criticism.

 

Is this how it is now, players that actually win us points get the most criticism ?

 

Fabregas and Hazard against Schalke and now Schurrle today.

 

I'm more concerned about Ivanovic to be honest, he can't defend at all at the moment, it's his side where all the goals are coming from.

Edited September 21, 201411 yr by Scott Harris

Have you just seen Jose's interview on SKY? It may make you change your view.

I saw it, doesn't really change anything. He's suggesting he's had a poor start to this season defensively, not that he's always that bad. Isn't really saying anything we/he didn't already know.

I thought we left Schurrle out to dry a bit.

Of course a winger playing at left back should burn him. Question is why he was allowed to be left one on one in that situation. Onus was on Mikel in particular to cover in my view.

He shouldn't need to be playing as a right back against a side 1-0 down with ten men.

With the extra man advantage Schurrle should have been causing them all sorts of problems, like he did for the goal, with his intelligent movement in the opposition half, our own negativity has cost us a win today.

Without Schurrle we wouldn't have even scored today so there is no way he deserves massive criticism.

Is this how it is now, players that actually win us points get the most criticism ?

Fabregas and Hazard against Schalke and now Schurrle today.

I'm more concerned about Ivanovic to be honest, he can't defend at all at the moment, it's his side where all the goals are coming from.

Completely agree about Ivanovic and he was also trailing Lampard on the goal as well. He needs to do better defensively.

Andre looked very bad in defense, but he could have done with some support from our right winger, Ivanovic.

He shouldn't need to be playing as a right back against a side 1-0 down with ten men.

With the extra man advantage Schurrle should have been causing them all sorts of problems, like he did for the goal, with his intelligent movement in the opposition half, our own negativity has cost us a win today.

Way way way to simplistic a view. Despite the numerical disadvantage Citeh had press for the goal. The context of the goal is not the point though the poor positioning and non marking of Milner by Schurrle caused it. Jose said if Ramires was in the same situation they don't score. He is right. And that is why he doesn't have complete faith in Schurrle in our midfield.

Way way way to simplistic a view. Despite the numerical disadvantage Citeh had press for the goal. The context of the goal is not the point though the poor positioning and non marking of Milner by Schurrle caused it. Jose said if Ramires was in the same situation they don't score. He is right. And that is why he doesn't have complete faith in Schurrle in our midfield.

 

I know Mourinho likes all of his players to be good at defending and tracking back but personally i think that is asking for too much. We can't have it both ways, we can't have our wingers constantly running up and down a pitch for 90 minutes defending and attacking. Look at Willian, when he is playing that tracking back game he is terrible once he get's hold of the ball and tries to attack. He's using so much energy tracking back it ends up taking it's toll on his attacking threat. The same goes for Ramires.

 

The fact is our wingers are not defenders and they will get caught out from time to time if they are told to defend. I actually worry for our defense if we constantly need our midfielders helping them out. They shouldn't need our wingers and CM's tracking back to help them every single time.

Jose said if Ramires was in the same situation they don't score. 

 

If Ramires was on the end of that Hazard cross instead of Schurlle we would'nt of scored.

Way way way to simplistic a view. Despite the numerical disadvantage Citeh had press for the goal. The context of the goal is not the point though the poor positioning and non marking of Milner by Schurrle caused it. Jose said if Ramires was in the same situation they don't score. He is right. And that is why he doesn't have complete faith in Schurrle in our midfield.

Often football is very simple and 11 against 10 means advantage us in pretty much every scenario.

We have the extra man so double up on the player with the ball in defensive situations.

Or better than that, use the extra man, especially attacking ones, to exhert more pressure on the opposition in their half because they cant hurt us in their half.

But even with the means to do that we dropped off far too deep and allowed a make shift left back to run out our right winger in a right back position.

I love Mourinho but he has to stop blamimng offensive players for defensive mistakes when his negative/risky tactics backfire.

Tore Andre Schurrle, super sub.

If Ramires was on the end of that Hazard cross instead of Schurlle we would'nt of scored.

Yep. Mourinho said that too. Which is why, against teams of the quality of Citeh he will nearly always set the team up to be defensively strong rather than attackingly bold. It is the reason why Schurrle will rarely be a starter in those games.

IMO the best all round wide player we have had in the Abramovich era was Damien Duff he could attack and defend equally well. It can be done and, although he didn't have his greatest game today, Hazard has improved immeasurably in that respect. Schurrle badly needs to do the same because he is a defensive liability too often.

Edited September 21, 201411 yr by just

Think it is Harsh to blame Schurlle for the equaliser he is a forward/winger not a defender, He scored the breakthrough goal for us with his direct run in behind which wouldnt have happened with any other player on the pitch at the time. It should be the defence getting criticised far to many sloppy goals conceded how many clean sheets have we had this season?!

Yep. Mourinho said that too. Which is why, against teams of the quality of Citeh he will nearly always set the team up to be defensively strong rather than attackingly bold. It is the reason why Schurrle will rarely be a starter in those games.

IMO the best all round wide player we have had in the Abramovich era was Damien Duff he could attack and defend equally well. It can be done and, although he didn't have his greatest game today, Hazard has improved immeasurably in that respect. Schurrle badly needs to do the same because he is a defensive liability too often.

 

I do agree with you, and luckily for Andre, he is in the right place and under the right manager to change that, he is certainly worth more time, the guy is a goal scorer, something Hazard has to learn. That cross was sweet from Hazard but the movement from Schurlle made the goal.

Edited September 21, 201411 yr by coco

Not even sure why he's getting the stick and I'm willing to bet Jose didn't see the full incident or only saw it a few times before his interview otherwise he would have known it was Ivan that was more at fault than anything.

 

Zabaleta got past Dave fairly often but it was always dealt with because Terry and Cahill were in the right places. Ivan was nowhere to be seen for that goal and him pushing up, for reasons I'm still not sure of, probably put doubt into Schurrle's mind as he might have thought they were playing offside. If Ivan was there and Lampard still gets that shot off then fair enough, Schurrle is completely at fault but that wasn't the case.

 

Poor communication all round to be honest, neither knew that they were doing. 

Edited September 21, 201411 yr by Remodez

I think Andre could do with a rest. His last couple of games have not been his best. He has been far too selfish and not actually doing anything useful with the ball when he should have made a pass.

I know he scored against City and that was great but then he made the biggest mistake of the game by losing his man.

I was at the Bolton game and again he wasnt up to scratch, taking wild shots when actually he would have been better to pass the ball.

The same goes for last night. Im sure he is just overly keen to impress but sometimes when a player tries too hard it actually makes him worse.

What are your thoughts?

Don't think there is any problem with his fitness, he was doing more running than probably anyone else on the field today while he was on.

Yeah he doesn’t need a rest as he's never played regularly like Hazard, Costa ect.

What he does need is to work on his final/end product which is more often than not very poor.

I agree though that he is trying way to hard to try to force his way into the first 11 but in doing so he’s making so many mistakes and not doing himself any favours.

Didnt play well last night, I would absolutely start Willian over him on Sunday. Willian seems better on the ball and I think could be more effective.

Yeah Willian is a far better option just now, he also has more of an understanding with the front players like Oscar and Costa IMO.

Agree with above re Willian starting on Sunday. However, I do think Schurrle has so much to offer and if he just rounded his game a little and worked on a couple of issues such as finishing, he would be a huge attacking threat. He always seems to get himself in threatening positions and makes something happen so if he improves his final ball/shot then he would be my first choice.

He has forgot his shooting boots in Brazil.

Should have scored against Bolton and last night, if he has done i would say he has to be starting because of his goal threat.

But he didn't so I think there can be no complaints if Willian gets the nod ahead of him against Arsenal.

His movement and work rate has been fine but its just not been happening for him these last couple of weeks.