Chelsea and misfiring strikers – it’s a match made in heaven and a story as previous as time.
The nice forwards we’ve had over time – Didier Drogba, Diego Costa, Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink – have all been the exception quite than the rule. In between them there’s been a variety of dross.
Simply have a look at our post-Costa efforts. Most of them shone brightly for a quick spell, however none had been ever capable of fill his boots correctly. We’ve tried and failed so many occasions, and that quantity 9 shirts’ curse nonetheless appears to hold heavy.
We’ve managed nice success even with out a true successor up entrance, however boy would it not be helpful to have one. One of many frequent threads from all the previous couple of years is the shortage of a constant goalscorer up prime. That’s hardly distinctive to us – most groups within the league are at all times trying to find an everyday scorer. However given the billions we’ve spent, the return has been remarkably poor.
Simply a few months in the past, most of us had been satisfied we had lastly cracked it. Nicolas Jackson started the season strong, constructing on final 12 months’s enhancements, and we actually thought that he had reached a brand new stage.
By late November, the briefs from the membership had been that they thought of him among the many 3 best strikers in the Premier League.
He’s not a pure finisher, however his hyperlink up play and energy off the ball appeared to compensate. And he was nonetheless scoring often – after we beat Brentford in mid-December he had scored 9 in 16 Premier League begins. That had him on track for a 21 aim season, with out penalties. That’s respectable.
Let’s not overlook, Drogba was by no means tremendous prolific, however his different qualities greater than made up for it.
However since that sport he’s scored 0 in 5 begins. His confidence seems to be gone and his dangerous ending method has come to the fore: even an AI image generator would wrestle to determine how he contorted his physique form and missed that probability on the close to publish towards Bournemouth on Tuesday. It was not a straightforward one, however a lethal finisher makes positive that’s at the least on course.
That miss price us 2 factors, in all probability. Take a look at the opposite 4 video games on this run and also you’ll see lots extra factors slipping from the striker’s toe.
He’s nonetheless bought an enormous quantity to supply, however with out a dramatic enchancment in his ending, he’s by no means going to hitch the brief checklist of elite strikers within the Chelsea historical past books.
