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 quite a lot 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 instances, and that quantity 9 shirts’ curse nonetheless appears to hold heavy.
We’ve managed nice success even with no true successor up entrance, however boy would it not be helpful to have one. One of many frequent threads from the entire previous couple of years is the dearth of a constant goalscorer up prime. That’s hardly distinctive to us – most groups within the league are all the time 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 began the season sturdy, constructing on final yr’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 greatest strikers within the Premier League.
He isn’t a pure finisher, however his hyperlink up play and energy off the ball appeared to compensate. And he was nonetheless scoring repeatedly – after we beat Brentford in mid-December he had scored 9 in 16 Premier League begins. That had him heading in the right direction for a 21 objective season, with out penalties. That’s first rate.
Let’s not neglect, 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 gone and his dangerous ending approach has come to the fore: even an AI picture generator would battle to determine how he contorted his physique form and missed that probability on the close to submit in opposition to Bournemouth on Tuesday. It was not a straightforward one, however a lethal finisher makes positive that’s not less than heading in the right direction.
That miss price us 2 factors, in all chance. Take a look at the opposite 4 video games on this run and also you’ll see a lot extra factors slipping from the striker’s toe.
He’s nonetheless obtained an enormous quantity to supply, however with no dramatic enchancment in his ending, he’s by no means going to hitch the quick record of elite strikers within the Chelsea historical past books.
