Chelsea Fan View: Willian magic helps Blues push FA Cup case

As FA Cup fifth round ties against potentially tricky Championship sides go, Chelsea could not have wished for an easier passage.

The match against Hull City was a potential banana skin with all of the recent shenanigans and uncertainty around Antonio Conte’s tenure and Chelsea’s form. The staggering FA Cup defeat at home to Division One Bradford City a couple of seasons ago is still a recurring nightmare for Chelsea supporters. They are well aware that at Chelsea anything is possible, from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again.

FA Cup ties at Stamford Bridge have a different atmosphere than the Premier League matches. Tickets are cheaper at £30 and this allows many supporters who don’t get the chance to pay homage week in, week out, a chance to breathe it all in and exercise their vocal chords. Add to this the novelty of a Friday night out at the football and we had something of a party atmosphere.

Thankfully, Chelsea chose not to be party poopers and the match was effectively over long before Olivier Giroud deftly slotted home his first goal for the club on 42 minutes.

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The goal capped another good performance for the Frenchman who held the ball up well and provided the link up play and assists that have been missing from Chelsea’s strikers for much of the season.

Whether Conte starts Giroud or Alvaro Morata against Barcelona on Tuesday night is just one of several selection dilemmas he now has.

Conte’s team selection against Hull certainly had one eye on the forthcoming Barcelona fixture. Eden Hazard, N’Golo Kante, Cesar Azpilicueta and Andreas Christensen were all rested, but the team was by no means a thrown together ‘B’ team. The only concession to youth was Ethan Ampadu playing at the heart of the back three.

Ampadu looked assured all night and the fact that he was playing against poor opposition should not be held against him. For a 17 year old he possesses remarkable maturity and authority. More important he has the ability to pass the ball out from the back and seldom looks in trouble when on the ball. With Chelsea preferring to play three centre backs in defence, technical ability on the ball is a pre-requisite. If Ampadu can train on then Chelsea have a superb prospect on their hands.

With the game all but over at half-time, Conte was able to bring on another two young prospects; Callum Hudson-Odoi came on for Pedro on 46 minutes and Kyle Scott came on for Cesc Fabregas on 62 minutes. Many Chelsea supporters have high hopes for Hudson-Odoi and given one half to show what he could do he did indeed look promising.

Like Ampadu, he played with a maturity beyond his years with good decision making and looked more than comfortable at this level. He no doubt has a long way to go, but I would like to see him the third striker role and hopefully get some game time when appropriate. The only way we will find out whether he can genuinely be a Chelsea player is to give him game time. Too many young prospects have been loaned out without having had a chance to prove they are good enough.

The real star of the match was Chelsea’s mercurial midfielder Willian. He opened the scoring with a superb strike on two minutes and followed it up with a slide-rule shot that went in off the post on 32 minutes to make it 3-0 to Chelsea.

He was very close to getting a hat-trick late in the second half but alas his shot hit the wrong side of the post. Over and above this, he can claim a bizarre assist when chuntering in the ear of Hull City penalty taker David Meyler.

Willian said to Meyler “No pressure, no pressure, but you’re going to miss it”. Meyler duly did miss it, although penalty save specialist Willy Caballero should rightfully take much of the credit for a good save. Shades of Jon Obi Mikel putting Arjen Robben off when he missed a penalty for Bayern Munich against Petr Cech in the Champions League final in 2012.

As well as his two goals, Willian was full of running and exquisite flicks; a real joy to watch. It absolutely bewilders me that many Chelsea fans don’t rate Willian.

He arrived at the club in August 2013 and announced himself with a superb goal against Norwich in October. Yes, he has had moments of scintillating form coupled with runs of poor form, mainly due it has to be said with the personal problems and family issues he’s faced. But, I have always been under the impression that Willian gives 100% and possesses a great deal of fight for a supposedly capricious and flighty creative player from Brazil.

Supporters have short memories these days so perhaps they have forgotten that in the 2015-2016 season where Jose Mourinho was sacked in December, amidst accusations that many of the squad had downed tools, Willian was arguably the only player who performed at a consistently good level.

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Willian has now had a hand in 14 goals in his last 14 starts for Chelsea in all competitions with nine goals and five assists. I believe that he offers a similar threat to the opposition as Eden Hazard does; running at defences with the ability to go past two or three players; threading the ball in to his colleagues to create chances and of course he is not shy of shooting and more often than not finds the back of the net.

Playing Hazard and Willian together behind either Olivier Giroud or Alvaro Morata can give Chelsea a cutting edge supported by sublime creativity.

With Barcelona coming up next, a team who for all their own creative brilliance have a suspect defence, I wonder if Conte is thinking the same.