Oscar
Signed last summer for roughly 20M Pounds, he was earmarked to be Lampard’s replacement. But given chances in the hole, his natural position, he thrived. At the same time, while Chelsea were required to overload in attack, he dropped back and allowed a winger to come on for a midfielder. His positional versatility has been his biggest strength, but sadly Chelsea’s conundrum. Oscar’s clearly a gifted player, and he has flashes of amazing brilliance so far in his career, but he’s gifted in a way that makes it difficult to comfortably plot his career graph.
Despite him playing often on the wings for Chelsea, Brazil see in the #10 position, as the next Kaka. Also, he has significantly more defensive ability than either Mata or Hazard, and when that’s combined with his technique and vision, he seems like a natural fit to play a little bit deeper. He isn’t the kind of player like Mata to go for the Hollywood passes but rather he goes for effective percentage passes. He has a great passing range, is two-footed, has a great shot, amazing work-rate and he brings a calmness in Chelsea’s play. However, he is too frail-looking for midfield, even though he got into a tussle with Yaya Toure this year and held his ground !
Also a great thing about Oscar is that, even when he plays in the attacking trio, he drops deep to receive the ball, turns, and moves forward. All parts of his feet, the laces area, the backheel, instep and even the outside of his foot are compatible to perfect passing. He lacks a top-end speed like Hazard, but his acceleration and body balance more than make up for it as he’s difficult to get off the ball. He has the sense of defensive responsibility plus the attacking impetus that makes him more complete than Hazard or Mata.
As a measure to see how he has fared this season, let’s see what his season stats have to say.
These are his attacking stats from a season where he made 24 starts and 10 substitute appearances. While those stats clearly don’t look flashy, they don’t tell the tale that his main role has been as the deputy of both Mata and Hazard, supplying them the ball and helping the team recover on counters.
He is much maligned by the Gooners as they believe his persistent ankle tapping and consequent fouling is the reason Arteta was injured during his match against Chelsea. While being played deep he also managed to stifle Pirlo, later going on to score a superb orgasmic curling goal past Buffon.
So, in short, while Oscar may not be quite as obviously dynamic as some of the other #10’s in the Chelsea team, he’s the most fundamentally sound. A lot of players are heavily weighted in one or two areas, meaning they suffer in others. So just as they can help the team with the skills, they can hurt the team with their flaws. That really isn’t the case with Oscar. While a transition from attacking midfield to central midfield is difficult, Oscar certainly has the skillset to thrive in the Lampard role.
Quick Navigation
Oscar | Kevin de Bruyne | Marco Van Ginkel | Josh McEachran | Nathaniel Chalobah
