Date: 20th April 2019 at 9:19pm
Written by:

There was another depressing moment from our supporters during our Europa League quarter-final victory over Slavia Prague.

With Chelsea seemingly cruising at half time, Slavia came out fighting in the second half and had Chelsea on the ropes.

Struggling to maintain possession and keep our opponents at bay, Maurizio Sarri reacted by replacing Ross Barkley with Jorginho, who returned to the base of the midfield replacing Mateo Kovacic.

Barkley, despite another underwhelming performance, was clapped off the pitch, while Jorginho’s arrival was met with a chorus of boo’s.

So much for supporters right?

Jorginho is being boo’d by association, they dislike Sarri, so they dislike Jorginho.

This hasn’t been helped by Cesc Fabregas’ recent comments about Jorginho being like Sarri’s son and forcing him out of Stamford Bridge.

Whilst we all love Fabregas, one of Jorginho’s biggest criticisms is that he gets by-passed in midfield.

Sound familiar?

Even during the Slavia Prague game, Jorginho’s introduction helped us regain composure and really took the sting out of the game with Slavia being on top.

But because he’s ‘Sarri’s boy’ people can’t even acknowledge that.

Some even claim that we’ve only scored 4 goals because he isn’t on the pitch. Ignoring all the games we’ve scored 4/5 goals with Jorginho starting.

Even the claim that he gets bypassed in midfield aren’t true. Yes there have been some instances where he hasn’t been great in the defensive phase, but if you take a closer look at the numbers, his defensive record is actually pretty good in terms of possession regained.

There’s also confusion about his role, the fact he doesn’t score often and he hasn’t yet provided an assist is held against him being in the side.

The fact is he isn’t there to really provide either, his job is to maintain the tempo of our play and keep the ball moving.

That’s why he know holds the record for most passes in a game in Premier League history. He is doing his job of keeping the ball and our opponents moving.

The fact that those in front of him don’t move enough is what causes most of his passes being sideways.

And if we had a functioning striker this season then maybe one of his 28 through balls, the second most in the Premier League would have resulted in at least one goal.

The dislike of Sarri is clouding people’s judgement on Jorginho and it really isn’t fair. The system that Sarri is trying to implement is based heavily on what Jorginho does but the system doesn’t live or die with him.

It requires 11 players working in unison, and that hasn’t happened this season. Either through the players not being good enough or not being intelligent enough to understand what is being asked of them.

Jorginho doesn’t deserve to be boo’d.

1) Because he’s not a bad player and 2) because he plays for Chelsea. It’s such Arsenal behaviour.

People have long been complaining that our players just don’t care for the club or the fans, yet when he first signed for Chelsea and brought his mum to Stamford Bridge, she burst into tears with the pride she had in her son joining a club like ours.

I wonder if they both feel the same pride now?

People are of course entitled to their opinions on players, but criticism must be fair and must be valid.

On Thursday night did Jorginho deserve to be boo’d onto the pitch?

It wasn’t as if Barkley was playing well.

We are all Chelsea supporters. So we are supposed to support.

The clue is in the name.

Hopefully over time, the haters will realise that Jorginho is not a bad player and by actively encouraging the team we can help improve the performance.

Lets try and get behind the team and the players until the rest of the season.

It can still end with a European trophy and a top four finish.

 

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