Oscar has forced his way into Mourinho’s eyes as his main playmaker – alongside Eden Hazard – and he’s thrived from it.
Chelsea traveled to Switzerland last night in search of qualification to the knockout stages of the Champions League. They faced Basel who beat the Blues in the first game of the group stages at Stamford Bridge.
Mourinho’s men did advance to the knockout rounds but not in the fashion he’d have hoped. The Blues were abject and suffered a 1-0 defeat thanks to a late Mohamed Salah strike.
There seemed to be no fight in the team as they were brushed aside by a decent Swiss side.
In order for Chelsea to return to London victorious, Oscar needed to be in top form. To put it simply, he wasn’t anywhere near it.
The Brazilian is a great passer of the ball and has fantastic close control when in possession but he didn’t show it last night. No outfield player had a worse pass completion rate than Oscar who managed to complete just 59% of his 18 passes, not making a single key pass. He also completed just a single take-on which was a true sign of his poor performance. He is usually fantastic at drifting past players while on the ball but he failed to show that in Switzerland.
His passing was spread out around the pitch which was a sign that he went in search of the ball to try and influence play but failed at that, too.
Oscar failed to take a shot, make a cross or win a headed duel. He was pretty much non-existent, as you can see by his heat map.
He was busiest in an extremely deep role which is unusual for the Brazilian and another reason why he suffered so badly.
Oscar’s duels were the second-worst for a Chelsea player last night, too, winning just 29%. Only Jon-Obi Mikel won less (22%). His duels included winning just one tackle, committing two fouls and losing all three headed duels.
Oscar’s performance in Switzerland was one to forget. He was invisible and was taken off by Mourinho after just 10 minutes of the second-half. His Performance Score of -4 summed up his evening. He’ll be hoping he won’t repeat that performance anytime soon.
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