I’ve been as dismayed as the rest of you watching events unfold on the continent about our striking targets.
I think the club were absolutely 100% positive we were getting Falcao and were as gobsmacked as the rest of us when he chose a no-hoper French team with every likelihood of not playing any European football at all. They have no European footie, no chance in the French league even with him, Moutinho, Carvalho and Rodriguez, as PSG are too strong. His owners (fractional ownership remember) chose to sacrifice the player’s career for a year at least for the $$$s. A sad statement on modern footballing greed. For what it’s worth I think Falcao was as gutted as we were with the Monaco move but money talks and if you are owned by a third party then there’s not much you can do.
I dont think the club were ever in for Lewandowski seriously as he has his heart set on Bayern and we were never going to change his mind on that. Ibrahimovic is too old. Gomez would have been good but the fact that he has been allowed to go to Fiorentina with no fuss nor muss suggests to me that Jose doesn’t rate him.
Were we really even in for Cavani? The media ‘sources’ all reckon we were but my gut feeling was that we made discreet enquiries months ago and were told what his buyout clause is, and dropped it then and there. Man City did as well pleasingly. Top player of course, but we cannot allow ourselves to be held for ransom every time, and when the demands and the bullshit get too much, we do ourselves a lot of credit by walking away. It is just very sad that PSG choose to pay the daft sum of money thus undermining the whole thing, but that’s them.
I think Rooney is probably desperate to come to Chelsea but we wont be smashing up our wage structure for anyone, least of all him (my own proclivities on this matter well know to you all I’m sure) and in any case United wouldn’t sell to us. So he’s a no-go either. Suarez is a fantastic player but would be a PR disaster at Chelsea and again, Liverpool would never sell to us. Arsenal’s thirty million bid this morning being of course a sad and wholly transparent attempt to engage Real to drop their asking price for Gonzalo Higuain – will it work? Hard to say.
So there isn’t really anyone else, is there? Grant Holt has gone to Wigan and Wilfried Bony has gone to Swansea and suddenly we’re talking at a level that is below what we have at the moment.
I’d be tremendously surprised if we didnt go into the new season with a strikeforce of Ba, Torres and Lukaku at this point.
Is it enough? Most people seem to say no.
My view is that there is enough firepower there. I think Lukaku and Torres will score 20+ next season purely because they’ll have more room and a midfield behind them far stronger and less frangible than the one we had last season. I’d like a sneaky punt on Hazard getting 20 goals next season as well, and dont think you can count Juan Mata and probably Andre Schurrle out with any surety from that total either. Not saying they all will obviously, but there are a lot of goals in this Chelsea team. There are goals from all over the park from this Chelsea side. We’re not like United who have 75% of their goals scored by one person, with everyone else struggling to get into double figures.
It is notable that Ba and Lukaku are big targetmen who can hold the ball up and create room for the playmakers behind. Torres never used to be that sort of player but has changed a bit to become much more of a targetman than he was before. Our strikers are in the business of creating room and we’re well equipped in this department. Lukaku will add aggression and more power up front and should cause a lot of problems for opposing teams, especially when they come to the Bridge with ten men behind the ball totally unwilling to come out of their own half. He’s a formidable player indeed to break down those massed ranks as instinctively they’ll double up on him to stop him from turning. I note the turn and run with the ball was a feature missing from his game when he arrived but which he’s learned with frightening ease at West Brom. He’s not the finished article yet and won’t be for at least another five years or so (scary when you think of it like that) but he’s good enough to score goals for us as he is and will learn and develop under Jose to be a beast of a player.
Ba has struggled since he’s been at Chelsea but if he stays injury free will get goals and cause problems being a big physical lump coming off the bench who works hard and tracks back etc. Torres is in a bit of form and has been for a few months now and most of the pressure is off him now. I could be wrong but i think he looks half a yard quicker than he was as well. I’ll be shocked if he doesnt improve on last season’s goal tally for us. 23 goals isnt bad – I can remember how long we went since Kerry Dixon waiting for a striker to score more than 20 in a season. It was a LONG time.
So I think the point I’m making is that we shouldnt worry too much about our strike options for the coming season. Of course it is disappointing to see exciting players like Cavani go elsewhere but we’re doing the right thing, I promise you.
Relax people.
If Jose really thought we were light up front he’d have paid the release clause on Cavani, or the reported EUR17m for Gomez that Fiorentina have apparently paid. If he really thought we were light up front why not go in for Higuain (who would be perfect for us in terms of his all round game, how he plays and of course he knows Jose well from last season)? We’re not in for these players because Jose is happy with the squad as it is.
If the choice is to spend fifty five million on one striker or on a back-up keeper, a defensive midfielder and pocket the change for FFP, I know which I’d choose.
Trust in Jose!
CAREFREE.
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