Chelsea head into the new campaign with as many questions as they do answers, despite a summer of heavy investment in the squad. The main stumbling block to the club competing for the title this season, though, may be the lack of depth that they have up front, with a huge emphasis placed on Fernando Torres being a success this term, which is a huge gamble.
It seems as if Roberto Di Matteo walked into Roman Abramovich’s office shortly after being handed his two-year contract to stay on as a more permanent interim manager of sorts, with a shopping list of attacking midfielders and the Russian owners rubber stamped the signings of every single one of them.
One thing that the £65m spent so far does tell us, though, is that Abramovich is far from a fly-by-night billionaire and he’s in it for the long haul, despite the lazy criticisms to the contrary – the club’s success appears to reinvigorated him even if it’s all come a summer too late. Di Matteo has been keen to play down any radical shifts in style and formation, but the club do possess some exciting young talent and the fact that they beat the likes of Manchester City and Manchester United to Eden Hazard’s signature shows that they can still compete with the biggest clubs in the country for players.
The club’s purchases so far have all been geared around one thing – getting the best out of Fernando Torres. In 18 months at Stamford Bridge, the 28 year-old Spaniard has only ever flickered into life intermittently and a record of 13 goals in 68 games across all competitions is clearly not what Abramovich had in mind when he paid £50m for him in January 2011. The excuse that the side isn’t tailored to him and his style is no longer applicable now that Didier Drogba has left the club and it really is a make or break season.
Which is why it’s important that the club invest in another striker, given that Romelu Lukaku has moved on a season-long loan to West Brom, it leaves Daniel Sturridge as the only viable alternative within the rest of the squad. They appear to have many creative players but simply not enough to finish them off – what if Torres flops again this season? The club’s sixth-placed league finish last term, where they finished five points off the top four could conceivably happen again if he does, such is their reliance on him firing on all cylinders.
The club have been caught up in a long-term pursuit of FC Porto striker cum winger Hulk for some time now, but they’ve rather understandably refused to pay the Brazilian’s £78m release clause and are thought to be reluctant to pay the £38m that the Portuguese club are thought to be demanding as a bare minimum for his signature. You can see their perspective, just because they have money, it doesn’t mean they should pay through the nose for a player and with the Financial Fair Play rules on the horizon, they best ought not to.
Napoli striker Edinson Cavani is another player to have been strongly linked, although he hasn’t quite made the statements to try and force through the move in the same way that Hulk has. The fee for the Uruguayan is thought to be around £35m, while according to the Daily Mail, he is reportedly demanding he be made one of the top earners at the club on around £150,000 per week and you can see why the club are thought to be close to pulling the plug in the deal.
There are cheaper alternatives out there, though – the likes of Robert Lewandowski, Roberto Soldado and Mirko Vucinic would all surely not cost anywhere near as much, while Bayer Leverkusen’s Andre Schurrle has already been the subject of a rejected £16m offer from the club. Wigan’s Victor Moses looks all but set for an £8.5m move to the club, but is much more of a winger as opposed to an out-and-out striker.
Given the fact that Daniel Sturridge’s form tailed off terribly towards the end of last season and Torres’ previous struggles, another striker is a top priority, almost as much as a new right-back. The club scored 65 goals in the league last term, significantly less than Arsenal (74), Manchester United (89) and Manchester City (93), so it’s clear that in order to bridge the gap, the club’s inkling that more firepower is needed is certainly along the right lines.
When you look at Sir Alex Ferguson’s side, he already has Wayne Rooney, Javier Hernandez and Danny Welbeck, with Robin van Persie on the way to choose from. Manchester City have Sergio Aguero, Carlos Tevez, Mario Balotelli and Edin Dzeko, while Arsenal have Lukas Podolski, Olivier Giroud and the likes of Santi Cazorla, Theo Walcott and Gervinho all capable of chipping in. It’s clear that Chelsea just lack that depth their rivals have at the moment, which if they want to re-establish themselves as title contenders and break back into the top four this season, they’ll need to address.
Chelsea failed to score in eight separate league games last season, again, more than United (3), City (5), Arsenal (5), Tottenham (5) and Newcastle (7), all of the five clubs that finished above them. While more depth may be needed in certain areas, clubs have shown in recent times that you can win the league with a flawed side just so long as it’s capable of out-scoring the opposition – with the likes of Eden Hazard, Oscar and Marko Marin requiring time to settle, another striker must be top of the shopping list if they are to delve back into the transfer market this summer.
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