A Couple Of Questions (by Gary Watton)
A Couple Of Questions
Now that the transfer circus is mercifully over for a few months at least, allow me to provide the following food for thought and a couple of questions. It just might be that various smaller clubs are now deciding that they won’t be bullied into offloading their best players to the likes of Arse-nil and ManUre, which is a good thing.
Or could it be that the bigger clubs have now decided belatedly that they won’t be extorted and pressurised into paying over the odds? Whatever the explanation for the lack of purchases by our nice rivals, it was amusing to see their supporters getting so upset by the lack of transfer activity. Anyhow, let’s examine Chelsea’s recent ‘business’.
First of all, why why why do Chelsea keep insisting on doing business with Liverpoo? It’s like supping with the devil. I mean, how many players have Arse-nil or ManUre supplied to us in recent years? Yes, they have more sense than to be feeding us with talented players.
However, Chelsea have now provided the Kopites with Joe Cole [admittedly a good piece of business by us], Daniel Sturridge [a potentially disastrous own goal] , and now we’ve loaned our lovely Scouse friends Victor Moses.
Now, Moses is not a huge loss and probably not a huge gain for them either, but why risk more stick from those condescending Mersey mouths by assisting their Premiership campaign? It’s ludicrous. In return we bought Meireles [scarcely a huge success] and Torres [another ‘work in progress’ and certainly not value for money!] Of course, Sturridge might just be enjoying a purple patch and could be ousted by Suarez or another striker in due course, but so far our decision to offload Sturridge and replace him with Demba Ba was the latest demonstration of brainless business by Chelsea.
Surely when Ancelotti loaned out Sturridge to Bolton Wanderers and he scored several times for them, it should have been apparent to our slow learners that this guy is a proven scorer in the Premiership. Secondly, why the hell do we keep buying so many African players? We have at least six in our squad [not counting the prodigy Bertrand Traore and yes I would like us to purchase him]. What will we do when the African Nations Cup rears its head every other January and February? We will be losing probably about four players at a time of fixture congestion when probably another four are either injured or suspended.
It is plain stupid to load our squad with players who will be absent every other winter for several weeks. Again, ManUre, Arse-nil, Tottensham, and Liverpoo are not quite so stupid. Our African contingent contains the likes of Obi Mikel and Essien, neither of whom looks likely to get many starts, if the first few weeks is anything to go by.
This begs the question of why we have so many playing staff who are only overloading the payroll? Are we so insecure that we must have about three players for every position? Too many cooks spoil the broth, and a huge squad leaves the manager pondering for the first few months about who his best formation or team is because he constantly rotates it in an effort to keep everybody happy.
Funny how such an approach by Tinkerman Ranieri was scorned, but now it’s perfectly sensible to do this. Well, if we tinker all the time, we will keep nobody happy. Mata cannot get a start. Van Ginkel hasn’t had a start. We end up sending our best young players on loan because Jose [who can do no wrong] Mourinho is insecure about fielding young players. Now that Lukaku has astonishingly been overlooked again, what are the odds that he scores more league goals than either Demba Ba or Torres?
He did score a hat trick against ManUre at the end of last season. How many players past and present have done that? Finally, I do have a hunch that Eto’o will score many goals in the next couple of seasons. He does appear to be precisely what we need: a natural predator. I actually want someone who is literally a centre forward, who does exactly what it says on the tin. He loiters in the centre, in a forward position.
Too many of our forwards of late try to emulate Rooney by drifting all over the place and dropping deep and contributing to various moves. This is all commendable stuff which demonstrates a good work rate. However, I prefer someone who stands hands on hips around the penalty area waiting for a through ball or a cross. We need a poacher who has a lethal touch, and not another fancy dan striker. Chelsea have bags of creativity and skill and speed. We just need an old-fashioned centre forward who regularly gets on the end of chances and converts many of them. Agreed?
Gary Watton; see also http://sporthistorian.blog.com/chelsea
Yes, agreed – in spades. All of what you say is 100% on the mark. Sturridge was actually scoring regularly for us when AVB was at the helm. Then RDM took over and that was the end of Studge in a blue shirt. Also it was AVB who advocated the signing of Mata. I know this will fly in the face of popular opinion but I remember thinking at the time that it would be a mistake to get rid of AVB, and watching the job he is doing at Spurs only serves to reinforce this belief. He needed more time and patience, which are things that managers never get at Chelsea. Don’t get me wrong, I’m over the moon that Jose is back, but I can’t help but wonder what might have been had we stuck with Andre and let him find his feet.
But I digress – yes we need an out and out lethal striker and Eto’o fits the bill. We have too many ‘utility’ forward players who are capable of playing out wide or as a main striker like Schurrle.
It would have been interesting to see Rooney living and playing in London/Surrey, but I think we dodged a bullet there. I don’t think he would have settled in the South, and he’s probably better off staying in the north west. Footballers who display a certain articulateness and intelligence can adapt and play for most teams. No disrespect to Rooney but he doesn’t appear to fall into this category.
Out of our current crop of strikers, Torres is worth persevering with, he is finally starting to contribute. Ba seems to get an unfair press. Of course he doesn’t score much, he doesn’t actually play many games! Why on earth we let Lukaku go out on loan is beyond me. I think the writing is on the wall for him.
He had a great season at West Brom and scored 17 goals, so if Jose isn’t prepared to keep him around even as a back up striker this season then I think he will be sold sooner rather than later. Then at his new club, like Sturridge, he will be scoring for fun and it will be yet another embarrassment for the club.
i replied previously on this site that Sturridge deserved to play centre forward, when he was often being forced to play out wide to accomodate Torres. A lot of supporters had little time Sturridge but i knew it would be a mistake letting him go to Liverpool of all clubs ! We`ve persevered with Torres long enough , the odd goal is`nt good enough, hopefully Jose wont have the same patience we have had with him !
First,have you ask yourself why mourinho uses Africans everywhere he went?you think he dosn’t know about their january competitions? My friend football is not about one’s skin but his contribution in the field.secondly,Ba and moses plays different positions in the field.moreover world class top 9s drop deep to get ball before advancing.do you remember when messi helped barca flogged madrid 5-0?your analysis sound absurd.
Our record during the ANC is pretty good regardless of the players absent and has been so since Jose took over in 2004 — we rented Moses to LFC we didn’t sell him – i’d rather he stayed but there are issues relating to numbers which have to be considered and it doesn’t mean Jose doesn’t rate him — Moses won’t be missed by chelsea during ANC he’ll be missed by LFC and they’re paying for the privilege –finally your claim about AVB is nonsense; he was entirely the author of his own downfall at chelsea he tried to change the team that didn’t need changing and he insisted on playing high lines when he didn’t have the players to do it — remember our defeat against arsenal 5-1 at home? entirely down to AVB’s terrible tactics — whatever he’s become at spurs and their season last year wasn’t any better than rednapp’s, he’s become because of his failure at chelsea — give me the real deal mourinho anyday, not mini mourinho thanks
what I have trouble grasping is the loaning of a striker without replacement when the strikers aren’t our strong point anyhow — i would have traded mata to PSG for ibramoavich myself but maybe it didn’t come up — don’t agree about Rooney but its all guess work on everyone’s part. — finally the overloading of the payroll is as much because we are developing young players in light of FFP – a lot of these players will be eventually sold for a profit or kept but its absolutely the way to go, not only because it gets us under FFP but also because the shortage of real world class talent means clubs are increasingly reluctant to sell to each other and tougher against player demands for a move. As for sturridge he wasn’t looking so flash when he was missing 5 chances a game against man u in the 5/4 carling cup win and there were lots of people who didn’t think he was good enough then — you can’t keep everyone that’s modern football & in hindsight everyone’s a genius
Thank you Paul for taking the time for a bit of grown-up feedback. As for Nico, colour of skin has never entered my argument. There are after all many white Africans too. Fool! Drogba is a legend. Makalele and Hasselbaimk are legends. I’m sorry that you want to play the race card. Fool! Why do you try picking a virtual fight when I have no issue with race. I do have an issue with six or seven players being unavailable every other winter who come from Africa (a mixed continent).
Can I also just add to that, that I also didn’t read any race issues in this post and had I thought it was in any way racial I certainly would not have posted it on this site, Nico I think you are seeing something that isn’t there – Ed