Life is good at Stamford Bridge right now. After the upheaval that characterized Antonio Conte’s final season, Chelsea’s 2018/2019 campaign has gone swimmingly so far. Under Maurizio Sarri‘s tutelage, the team is unbeaten in all competitions. This has been achieved with an exciting, attacking style of play a.k.a Sarriball.
Too often, attacking moves have broken down as a result of his bad decision making. This cannot have gone down well with Sarri. In his Napoli team, the front trio was quick and incisive in movement and decision making. Jose Callejon, Dries Mertens and Lorenzo Insigne (even Arkadusiz Milik despite his relative lack of pace compared to the others) were players who were very good at the pass-and-move style; a central tenet of Sarriball.
Given his role under Pep Guardiola during his Barcelona days, it’s a principle that Spanish winger Pedro, is very comfortable with. The World Cup winner has played fewer minutes than Willian this season due to injuries. Yet, in the games he has played in, he has been more effective than the Brazilian. Pedro has delivered 3 goals in the 6 Premier League games played so far (2 games as a sub). His percentage of successful passes is 89% per game.
It goes without saying that when fit, Hazard and Pedro will start ahead of Willian. There was the talk of playing the three together a la the Napoli front three of Callejon-Mertens-Insigne. This may still happen given the patchy form of Chelsea’s strikers; Alvaro Morata and Olivier Giroud. However, it is doubtful that the aforementioned trident could deliver the numbers the Napoli trio did.
Given the new regime of selling before buying which exists at the club, Willian might be one of the players who could be offloaded. There were times when the Brazilian winger was a shining light for Chelsea (the dark days of Jose Mourinho’s final season for example). However, with the new regime and style of play, his time at the club may be numbered.
