Chelsea Season Preview Part Four: Forwards
Having moved past the Mourinho-bus-parking era, the Blues now actually aim to score goals instead of scoring a single goal and maintaining that lead. Before the Mourinho era, Chelsea’s strikers were Gianfranco Zola, Eidur Gudjohnsen, led by Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. The Dutch Hasselbaink, who stayed with the Blues with a short period, formed a partnership with Gudjohnsen, both scoring 27 and 23 goals respectively. The partnership ended when Hasselbaink left and with the arrival of Mourinho, who brought in Adrian Mutu, Didier Drogba and Hernan Crespo, Gudjohnsen was deployed to a midfield role.
Mutu and Crespo are long gone, but Drogba remains and has established himself as one of the most lethal strikers in the Premier League. Owner Roman Abramovich gave the Portuguese manager, Jose Mourinho an unlimited budget and he made full use of that and brought in many expensive, promising players, Drogba was one of them. Even though his first season wasn’t as successful as he would have hoped, Drogba has never had to work for his place, since when he joined most of the competition had left. After a slightly uncertain start, Drogba started doing what he does best, score goals.
His physical presence is enough to rattle the most experienced defenders and goalkeepers. And if he ends up being one on one with a goalkeeper, it is highly unlikely the ball won’t end in the back of the net. His free kicks are somewhat legendary, high enough to avoid the keeper but bending at just the right time to end up in either of the top corners. 2007 was a good year for Drogba, he won the golden boot in the Premier League, with a total of 33 goals and was in PFA, UEFA and ESM’s Team of the Year. He was also named Ivorian Footballer of the Year and made it to FIFPro World XI.
Loved by fans, hated by opponents, Drogba has made it a habit to score against the big clubs, especially Manchester United and Arsenal. It has been Drogba’s individual effort and goals that have seen the Blues claim wins against these clubs. He repeated his success this year, winning the golden boot with 29 goals, beating Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney to it. He was also named Chelsea Player of the Year and was mentioned in the Times Top 100, making him the first footballer to achieve this.
Drogba revealed in an interview that he considered Chelsea home, and was looking forward to the new season. He was absent after the 2010 World Cup and even though he returned for the Community Shield against Manchester United, he was obviously not fully fit and did not perform as well as manager Ancelotti would have hoped. Chelsea suffered defeats at the hands of German sides, Frankfurt and Hamburg and then stumbled against Manchester United. Ancelotti was visibly not pleased with his sides performance and said that his team did not seem to be ready for the new season but hoped that it was just the after effects of the World Cup and his players would recover soon.
Drogba felt threatened when French striker, Nicholas Anelka was brought in. Often referred to as “Le Sulk”, Anelka had gone through some seven clubs in his career and most of the time it was because of some disagreement with the management or coaching staff. It was predicted that the two, often big headed strikers would not do well together and mostly one would start when the other was not featuring. Pundits felt that both strikers would be greedy and not pass the ball to the other. But the Ivorian and Frenchmen proved everyone wrong when they formed and unlikely successful partnership. They only seem to be getting better, and it remains to be seen how well they work together in the upcoming season and who claims the golden boot.
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