The 3 players in my opinion likely to win the Chelsea Player of the Year award, and possibly have the most influence in the upcoming season are Oscar, Hazard and Willian.
Oscar
We are yet to see the real Oscar we signed from Internacional 3 years ago for 1 major reason. The 23 year old has played non-stop football for 5 years due to national team commitments with the senior national team and the under 23’s at the London Olympics. Unlike other players he has never had an opportunity to take a break and take part in a Chelsea pre-season.
This explains why he always seemed to fade towards the end of every season for the blues. We can expect a much better and alert Oscar this season. An alert Oscar will make more assists and have a higher pass accuracy. He could easily become the main man at Chelsea if he reproduces the form he showed at Internacional. Jose Mourinho said the following about Oscar in May
Oscar is a fabulous player but he’s never had a pre-season in his life. He’s always been playing in tournaments everywhere; he’s never had a rest. Now, because he’s injured he’s not going to the Copa America and I have a feeling that next year Oscar can have the same kind of evolution as [Eden] Hazard had this season.
Some rest and the fact that he has gained a lot of experience we can definitely look forward to some Oscars this season.
Hazard
The only thing separating Eden Hazard from Messi and Ronaldo is goals and he seems to be gradually improving this aspect of his game if he can score 10 more goals than last season which is basically a goal every 2 games he could easily be a top contender for world footballer of the year.
Hazard has already won 2 consecutive Chelsea player of the year awards considering his young age he is a hot favourite to retain the individual accolade.
Willian
Willian is one of the hardest working players at Chelsea. His high work rate has been a major reason why we don’t concede many goals on the right despite the fact that Ivanovich is out of positon on many occasions and end up losing possession on the break. If Willian can reproduce his form this coming season and improve his pass accuracy and cross accuracy and possibly score five more goals we can easily put him on par with Ribery and being on par with Ribery would automatically make him one of the best players in the world.
Five more goals in a season seems possible considering the number of times we saw his efforts go agonisingly wide last season or hit the bar. Improving his pass accuracy and cross accuracy will be the real challenge and I am sure the coaching staff will work on this aspect. Competition from Pedro could be the tonic Willian needs to sharpen his attacking instincts in the final third.
Many Chelsea fans can totally disagree with this forecast and throw in Matic, Terry and Costa but this analysis is based on who is likely to improve and perform well enough to even challenge for World Footballer of the Year. Chelsea’s massive rebuilding programme has always hinged on a lot of these young players discovering their true potential and making us a world force for the next decade and the best is still to come if we look at the exciting line up of players promoted to the first team.
