Alvaro Morata arrived at Chelsea in the summer of 2017 amidst a lot of fanfare. He was the man Antonio Conte had chosen to be his No.9 after his alleged fall-out with Diego Costa.
Morata, who earns a staggering £120,000-a-week, was brought to lead the line for the Blues and help them with their Premier League title defence. But as we see it now, the move clearly didn’t work out.
Real Madrid re-signed Morata from Juventus in July 2016 and he scored 15 goals for the La Liga outfit that season. But he didn’t enjoy the same luck in England. He started out well with six goals from his first six matches, including a hattrick against Stoke City. But after that, his form started to drop off.
It was not just his goals that dried up; it was his confidence too. The opposition defenders figured out ways to stop him and as a result, he was bullied by them and failed to hold the ball.
Chelsea’s style of play needed a strong centre-forward who could hold the ball and bring the likes of Willian, Eden Hazard and Pedro into play. But the moment the ball reached Morata, he wasn’t strong enough to ride the challenges of the opposition centre-backs and was dispossessed immediately. More often than not, he would fall on the floor and look towards the referee for help but in vain.
Even the Champions League didn’t bring him the respite he needed. Apart from scoring the late winner at Wanda Metropolitano, he blanked for the group stages and the Round of 16 match against Barcelona. His high-profile misses against the likes of Arsenal understandably frustrated the fans.
After getting dropped from the Spanish squad for the World Cup, Morata had time to work harder on his physicality and technique but it seems like there is more to it here. The Spaniard has never been a fan favourite and seems to be too soft, both physically and mentally. In a recent interview, Morata was quoted by Sky Sports claiming he considered leaving Chelsea to return to the comfortable pastures of either Spain or Italy.
Maybe Chelsea should have offloaded him in the summer. After all, the Blues already had Oliver Giroud and Michy Batshuayi for the striker’s position. They could have even gone into the transfer market and gotten a striker who is more suited to the demands of the Premier League.
In this season as well, it’s not been all rosy for the 25-year-old Spaniard. He did score a goal against Arsenal but his underlying stats are not encouraging. In the four matches so far, he has had merely 3 shots on goal, 3 dribbles completed and supplied 1 key pass. In fact, in the recent wins over Newcastle United and Bournemouth, he was subbed off on the hour mark after his dreadful performances.
Even after all this trouble with Morata, Batshuayi was allowed to leave for Valencia on loan. The Belgian is a talented striker but has always been ignored by the managers at Stamford Bridge. Earlier in January, when he was loaned out to Borussia Dortmund, he lit up the Bundesliga. Batshuayi scored 7 goals and provided 1 assist in 9 starts for the club.
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Morata must take at least a year to salvage his career at the London club. With time running out, he needs to bang in those goals at a better rate and put in solid performances, like his predecessors Diego Costa and Didier Drogba, to win the heart of the fans back.
