Either that, or Dixon's mum is very, very good.

But seriously. Hazard, Willian, Matic and Terry have probably been our best and most consistent players since January. The one thing the signing of Cuadrado has done is to make Willian look a bargain at £32m.

The telling stats on him would show I'm not!
Seriously, what kind of player is he supposed to be?
He's not a holding midfielder.
He's not a midfield general.
He's not a tough tackling ball winner.
He's not a creative player who sets up chances.
He scores once in a blue moon.

As much as i don't rate Mikel, i can at least see what kind of player he is.
Imho, Willian's lack of threat in the final third is piling the pressure on Hazard.
I appreciate his work rate but that is it!

If only football was played by stats

Poor ilkly Eden is getting to much pressure? Shall we tell his mummy?

He needs to be put under more pressure. He has the ability to be the very best player on the world.

Pressure is something he needs to get use to every single second he walks into the pitch. As his talent grows the pressure grows.

If he caves under the pressure he is under now he has no chance of getting to the level he should be able get to

I can see it, he is a poor one!

In the last couple of seasons whenever he has come on to protect a lead, within 10 minutes we have let a goal in.

Willian was asked to do a job this season, to protect the runs of Ivan who was leaving cahill terribly exposed.

Supporters got on cahills back but it was 100% ivans fault.

When Jose had a word with Ivan, suddenly "cahill is back to his best" again and willian is more of an attacking threat.

Willian has the pace and ability to beat players, but he is a team player and does what is necessary.

Costa, Willian, Terry, Hazard were our best players this season.

Would we have won the league with Sterling on the front right instead of willian? No.

You could argue Hazard lacks those big moments in games like the CL but he's been very consistent in the PL this season. He scored the match winner in our home game against United and he helped set up our counter attack for our goal against City away (my memory is terrible, but if I do some digging around I could probably think of some more). But you're forgetting Messi and Ronaldo both have an amazing supporting cast behind them, whilst Hazard doesn't. When you've got a team who can all keep the ball under pressure, it makes it much easier to dominate possession.

The thing about Cesc is that he needs runners around him. If there's no movement, he can't pick anyone out and this is one of the major reasons why his assist tally hasn't been that impressive in the second half of the season. You only have to look at Schurrle's goal against Burnley - so beautiful, and no-one else in this team bar Cesc could have been able to pull that off. He's not someone who can dribble or physically impose himself in a game, hence why he often looks like he's gone AWOL when the team isn't playing well. I've said before, my dream signing would be someone like Modric (a magician on the ball whilst also very good under pressure) and looking back I'm still p*ssed we never got him !

We could definitely upgrade on Willian but we haven't had much luck finding a good RW have we? The good thing about Willian is that he's consistent - he will never give a terrible performance but he very rarely gives a great one (although to his credit he has been playing better these last few games). He was fantastic against Leicester and Arsenal and if he keeps those kinds of performances up, I can overlook the lack of goals and assists.

Yes, I'm sure Jose sent Willian - a £32m attacking midfielder - out with the instructions to stay back and cover for our marauding RB.
No doubt Willian has improved since the turn of the year, but he still offers far too little in the final third. Far too often, he literally offers nothing. A great player to have against top teams because he won't lose possession, but against everyone else he needs to play more like he does in recent weeks.


If we go for Griezman, or another winger, I'd really like us to switch back to 4-3-3 and have Hazard and *other* switch around the way Robben and Duff used to.

That may be an exaggeration, but I certainly think Willian had been told to provide cover for both Ivanovich and Fabregas when necessary.
If you look back at our two games against Shakhtar Donetsk before he joined us, you see Willian at his best. He was outstanding, but he was given a free role to play right across the midfield. He made probing runs, pulled the strings, scored two goals, nearly everything went through him.
Obviously at Shakhtar he was a bigger fish in a smaller pond, and things changed when he came to Chelsea. I think it's to his credit that he's bought into Mourinho's system. He has to play a much more disciplined game, and there is an emphasis on tracking back to cover. It doesn't help having Fabregas as the player alongside Matic in the pivot of a 4-2-3-1. Fabregas is weak defensively, and It doesn't help the team or the player putting him there. But one of the reasons we got away with it in so many games was Willian's willingness to work like hell to provide cover.

Willian has lost a lot of attacking threat since he joined us, but I think it's the whole team who are a bit shot shy. There's a real reluctance to take a chance. We shoot much less and are more likely to play another meaningless cross field pass. I know it's to find openings and move the opposition around, but we take it too far and it's so frustrating.

Willian is the 100% opposite of what I was expecting him to be. Nothing wrong with the work rate/teamwork, but he needs to find a way to balance it with the player he used to be.

Sounds like Hazard won't be playing Sunday

Yes, but Willian has never been a prolific goalscorer and probably never will be. I would like to see him given a bit more freedom to work in the final third, but I also trust Jose to know what's best for the team.
Willian's interchanges with Hazard, Fabregas and Oscar were a joy to watch at times, but I do understand the frustration with his lack of end product. There again, we were getting goals and assists from Mata, who had two great seasons. But Mourinho puts an enormous emphasis on work rate and total commitment to the team for 90 minutes, so Mata had to go. While Jose is getting results, I'm not going to argue with his philosophy.

Going back to the Raheem Sterling situation. We would be paying an awful lot of money based on the assumption that he wiil develop into a world class player in the next few years. Even Liverpool fans will tell you that he's often been disappointing this season. Every transfer is a gamble, but for upwards of £40m I would expect a player who had pretty good chance of walking straight into any of the top teams around Europe. Sterling doesn't fit the bill..not yet anyway.

Would we be better with sterling instead of Willian? Heck no.

Sterling would only be a bench warmer instead of cuadrado.

We do need pace, and I would be more happy with Walcott in the Cech deal (not that I want to see Cech at the Emirates)

If we really have to take an Arsenal bench-warmer, I'd sooner have Oxlade-Chamberlaine. But I'd prefer to leave them both and look elsewhere.

Sundays match "Free" on Sky 1.........Sunderland played Wed & are safe, so should be a doddle, yes?

There will be some changes today. Oscar, Ramires, Kurt Zouma, and probably Eden Hazard out with various injuries while Cesc Fabregas will serve his single match suspension.
Andreas Christensen and Jeremie Boga are both expected to play some part. I would hope Cuadrado gets a full game, he will have to show something of value soon or I'll really start to get worried.

And Drogba's confirmed it's his last game for the club….

jose said he would field a full strength team

Full strength from players avaiable will still mean changes. I think he'll give a run out to a couple of youngsters, even if it's only for 10/15 minutes.

Thank f**k for that.

He has done a job for us this season.

Its a shame he is leaving to get another season at the top level, instead of retiring and staying with us in some way.

Of course he has....

Cech; Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta; Mikel, Matic; Cuadrado, Willian, Hazard; Drogba

Courtois, Filipe Luis, Christensen, Boga, Remy, D Costa, Solank

any score predictions?

Well seeing as Sunderland have just about scraped across the line after putting in a few decent performances when they had to, ( again) I predict you'll win by a decent margin.

Some excitement before the final whistle would be nice.

Not that sort of excitement!