nce his arrival at Chelsea in 2012, Brazilian midfielder Oscar has mostly featured as a central attacking midfielder, albeit in more of a hybrid role due to his set of skills that are much closer to a no.8 rather than the traditional no.10.
But with Antonio Conte now at helm, Oscar has returned to his original position in the midfield, matching his role with his shirt number. And the 24-year-old is enjoying this opportunity with a new coach who’s brought forth different training methods, tactics and confidence to his player.
“He’s giving me a lot of confidence and I’m doing very well. Hopefully I can continue to do so. In the last few seasons I have played as a no.10 or as a winger. Now I’m going back to my original position of No.8, attacking and defending from box to box, which is my original role and the one I like the most.”
“The coach has changed the formation, we are playing a different system to last season. His training method is different to what we had last season and he’s changed both the players’ mentality and the team’s mentality. I think we have improved since he’s come here.”
Chelsea’s results and performances last season remain a talking point, mostly as a cautionary tale of how the mighty can unexpectedly fall. To help us forget last year, Oscar is looking to get back to trophy-winning ways as soon as possible.
“It’s been a very successful time for me here at Chelsea. I won a lot in the last few seasons – the Premier League, League Cup and the Europa League. Only last season wasn’t great, not only individually, but as a team. Hopefully this season we will win trophies and get back to a winning mentality. The objective is not only to finish in the top four, but to fight for the League, FA Cup and League Cup because we have to win trophies.”
“I think you can see that last season we were lacking a bit of resilience. We had that spirit in some games, but we weren’t consistent. It’s good to have that spirit back and we are looking to improve on that front. If we keep up this team spirit, we will be a threat in the Premier League.”
-Oscar; Source: London Evening Standard
With plenty of time to focus on the domestic trophies, there’s reason to believe that Chelsea can be a true title challenger. There’s plenty to be done for that to happen, but we can remain optimistic that our new found fighting spirit will carry us through these contests – and any others that may arise in our future.
