Strike

As the footballing saying goes, Goals change games. It’s no coincidence that Chelsea’s last Premier League title came when the club had a striker in majestic form. Drogba’s 37 goals went a long way towards securing Ancelotti’s double. Since then Chelsea’s stock has plummeted in the League. Here’s the breakdown on how the strikers fared in the last 3 years Proportion of goals scored by strikers* 2010-11 – 30/99 – 30.3% - (TopScorer – Anelka – 16) 2011-12 – 25/112 – 22.3% (TopScorer – Lampard – 16) 2012-13 – 29/147 – 19.7% (TopScorer – Torres – 22) Comparing this with 2009-10 2009-10 – 57/142 – 40.4% (Top Scorer – Drogba – 37) Or 2004-05 – 38%, 2005-06 – 34% A good striker hides half the team’s problems. Manchester United make a living out of this cliché. Chelsea’s midfield and defence may pop up with their fair share of goals but an in-form striker up-front makes a big difference to the attack, especially in the bigger games which are often decided by slim margins. Fernando Torres, Chelsea’s chief striker at present, has scored only one winner i.e game-settling goal in 2 ½ years at the club. That came in the last game of the season against Everton in May. At the start of the summer, a world-class Striker was probably at the top of every Chelsea fan’s Summer Transfer Wishlist. Various names were discussed but 3 players stood out – Falcao, Cavani and Robert Lewandowski. All 3 with an impressive goal-scoring record, good all-round attributes and at the peak of their playing years but just 1 week into the transfer window and it looks more and more likely that none of the Big Three will come here. So, with pre-season beginning in 2 days, It maybe a good time to look past the big names and into the under-belly of the Striker market. Ten Alternative Strikers 1. Zlatan Ibrahimovic – If PSG do sign Cavani, it might be worth it to put in a cheeky bid for Zlatan 2. Wayne Rooney - Ignore personality qualms and you have a great striker 3. Stefan Jovetic – He may not possess the big frame that other top strikers do but don’t let that fool you . 4. Alvaro Negredo – Scored for fun towards the end of last season. 25 in all. Bit of a Jermaine Defoe in taking shots though 5. Gonzalo Higuain – Hijacking Arsenal’s bid should be easy. Chelsea did it with Mata 6. Mario Gomez – Great poacher in his Stuttgart and early Bayern days. Available on the cheap 7. Fred. He maybe the Flavour of the Month but he did bully some of the world’s best defences 8. Roberto Soldado – Good record in La Liga and did well for Spain recently in the Confeds. 9. Burak Yilmaz – Scores goals. That should be enough 10. Jackson Martinez – Snap him up before the price balloons *Note: - Only goals scored by players playing as Centre-Forward. For eg – Sturridge’s goal against Spurs last season doesn’t count as he was playing as a winger but his goal vs Manchester United counts as he was playing as a striker Click here to view article.

Bruma seems like a good flair player. An improvement on Moses but we're fairly strong in the AM department all of a sudden with Schurrle and KDB coming in. Wouldn't mind him though. Very talented with raw pace and balance

Tiago Ilori is a good alternative to Kurt Zouma in the young CB with great potential department. Doing well in the current U20's. Good speed for a CB http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW8K17urQR4

^ And if we do sign Ruddy for 8/9/10mil, Norwich will be laughing all the way to the bank. They will then sign a keeper of similar quality for free or for 1 or 2 mil

A lot of money for a permanent backup. Better spent elsewhere

Not demanding definite inclusion. Obviously Mikel, Ramires and MvG are better currently. Romeu is an actual defensive midfielder and the better of the midfield distributors in our team. I rate him ahead of Essien (definitely) and Lampard (just) I think including Lampard in the midfield-duo requires a pure defensive midfielder alongside him. Lampard-Ramires, Lampard-Ginkel are disasters waiting to happen. Now everyone knows how important Lampard is to the club but he churned out a fair number of average performances last season, especially when picked in the bigger games. Towards the end, he was nothing more than a squad player. Not someone who was picked for the crunch clashes like the Spurs game for eg. But he got a lot of action in midfield due to the lack of depth in that position.

Maybe I am but I'm under-rating Essien and Lampard's ability more than overrating Romeu. Essien and Lampard can't run the midfield in a week-by-week basis any more. Essien, in particular, should be sold off before dumping Romeu or maybe convert Essien to backup RB.

when chasing a game, more often than not, it comes to target-man tactics. would keep him around to throw on as a late- game changer. add a bit of presence up-front.

Players that qualify for the national team & played 25+ matches in the top flight. Eng - 40. Spain - 92. Ger - 65. Italy - 72. Fra -87 That's a bit worrying for the FA

Should be ahead of Essien (at the very least) and Lampard in my view. But since we signed MvG, I wouldn't mind a loan for Romeu now. He was good in the one stretch of games he got under AVB. One of the better distributors in midfield

I mean cold frozen Ice-cream. I wait a little while till it softens.

I don't like cold Ice-cream

PSG

as a last resort, i wouldn't mind Suarez but really talking from striker POV, we are running out of options. Before window began, most of us were confident of Falcao or Cavani. After Monaco nabbed Falcao, all the talk was about Cavani. Now if Cavani is taken by PSG and Rooney stays at United

mostly fair examples but. some of the examples - Robben Ozil, di Maria balotelli, varane are more of break-out youngsters than van ginkel. . there are examples where he's used youngsters yes but there are a fair few he hasn't used as well. nothing wrong in questioning Jose's transfers

If we stick to Fernando in attack, I'm gonna cut loose

Yeah but in footballing circles, ploughing hookers is common and forgivable. everyone does it. but taunting your club's supporters? now that's extreme

If you're looking at player-character and actions against Chelsea, what Suarez did was not out of hatred for Chelsea or Ivanovic. It was more out of frustration than anything else. Rooney specifically taunted the Chelsea fans. So those slating Suarez for the biting incident should probably slate Rooney too

Nothing wrong in questioning it. He has under-used youngsters before. At Chelsea, it could be argued that he had no quality youngsters but There were many young players in Inter who did not get a chance under him. Arnautovic, Bonucci. Same with Real - Canales, Sahin.. the list is longer. Probably Varane is the only youngster he has used extensively

As a player, I'd take him without thinking twice really. Fantastic player. Can play alone up-front or slot in with the amigos giving Lukaku game-time up-front. Should be a move of last resort though

i agree. Portuguese clubs don't get that much TV money. I heard they have to sell every year to stay afloat.

If Tancredi and di Marzio are not pulling stuff out of their arse and this is in fact true, I can only think that Chelsea did not want to meet the buy-out clause. Hopefully this isn't like 2011 when we missed Modric and signed Meireles. Still enough time to thrash out a deal for a good striker

I say hang him up as bait to all the rich teams around Europe. Try and take any deal upwards of 10mil

What's more disturbing are reports of it being a heart ailment. Don't really care about the PSV deal if that's true. Just hope it's nothing serious

Good to have him back. Sign Kalou and Malouda Steve and you'll have a world-class front-line