Any Chelsea fans want to shed some light on Willian? I saw a comment on the match thread last night that read ''Why do Chelsea fans not rate Willian? I always have''. I couldn't agree more. Any time I watch Willian he's brilliant and when he was linked with us I was more than happy for him to join. I think he'd improve us massively because of our lack of RW attack/service.
So, why don't you or Conte rate him?
Willian is a strange one. He was clearly a wonderfully talented and creative player at Shakhtar, but since he joined Chelsea it always seemed like he was constrained by playing alongside other very creative players especially Hazard. He's capable of some amazing things, but his final product was very poor for the first few years. The disaster of the 15/16 season was actually a breakthrough time for Willian. When hardly anyone else on the team seemed to give a feck, he fought harder than anyone, and suddenly seemed to discover a talent for scoring wonder goal free kicks. I'll always adore him for what he did that year.
Unfortunately in Oct 16 his mother died, and it seems to have had a really deep and lasting impression on him. He's a considerably less happy person on the pitch than he used to be, although its hard to tell whether it negatively affected his play or whether the other creatives coming back into form just pushed him back into his box a bit. Either way he seemed to have dropped off again, with occasional wonderful performances but a lot of average games. The last two games however he's been absolutely outstanding, and I hope Conte has the sense to give him the position for as long as it continues.
One final point, there's been lots of people over the years who have described him as a 'workhorse'. This is complete and utter bullshit of the highest order, Willian is an exquisitely talented attacking midfielder, but who has real problems with consistency.
