Mauro Icardi: Do Chelsea FC Need Him?

According to Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t Football Italia), Inter Milan striker Mauro Icardi has agreed a new 3-year deal with the club worth a reported 3 million Euros per season. Now it has been speculated that Chelsea FC have shown a huge amount of interest in the 22-year old Argentinian who has been one of the few shining lights in Inter’s poor season so far.

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Jose Mourinho is rumoured to be a huge admirer of the young striker and has made him a priority for the club to replace Didier Drogba once the 36-year old’s contract expires at the end of the season. So this new development means that Chelsea FC would most likely need to drop the big bucks to secure his signing as both Manchester clubs are also rumoured to be interested as well.

Mauro Icardi is clearly a player on the rise. So far this season, he has scored 16 goals in 30 appearances in all competitions (14 in Serie A alone) and is currently one of the best goal poachers in the Serie A. But I do not feel he would be an adequate replacement for Didier Drogba. He isn’t known to be a hardworking player, which is one of the reasons why I can’t understand Mourinho’s rumoured admiration.

He drifts through games without making much of an impact and is only really dangerous when the ball finds its way into the final third of the pitch. Mourinho expects every one of his players to put in a shift both on and off the ball and doesn’t condone slackers, no matter what position you play.

Icardi attempts fewer tackles, passes, dribbles and interceptions than every one of Chelsea FC’s current strikers. His goals per minute ratio is even worse than all of Chelsea FC’s strikers (even Loic Remy who hasn’t played a lot of games) considering the fact that he plays in a relatively less difficult league than the EPL.

At 5’11 (181 cm), he is shorter than all Chelsea FC’s current strikers (Bamford included) and isn’t as physically imposing as any of them except for Bamford and so he cannot play the target man role as effectively as any of Chelsea’s current strikers. He is also similar to players like Balotteli and Banega in temperament, who were players that had huge potential but carried a lot of emotional baggage and eventually failed to come good.

He is currently married to the ex-wife of Maxi Lopez who was a really close friend of his while they were both at Sampdoria. But they later fell out when Icardi started dating Wanda just 3 months after she split up with Lopez, according to a report on Daily Mail. It was even speculated that they were having an affair while the marriage was starting to show signs of strain.

He was also involved in a bust up with fans of Inter Milan after a recent defeat to Sassuolo. While Mourinho is known to bring the best out of players which such flaws, having both him and Diego Costa in the team could be too much for even him.

Even in his Inter team, of the players who have played up to 1000 minutes in Serie A, his whoscored.com of 6.93 makes him the teams 7th most important player in the squad, which, for a player as highly rated as he is, indicates that he isn’t making as much effort as is expected. This season is also his most prolific season so far as he had never managed more than 10 goals prior to that.

While it might indicate that he is getting better, it doesn’t warrant Chelsea putting up the 30 million pounds fee that Inter have placed on him as I do not think he is worth that much. And even then, it makes little sense having 2 strikers purchased for so much when one would have to spend a lot of time on the bench.Signing him would also mean that there would be little opportunity for players like Bertrand Traore and Patrick Bamford, who have been exceptional for their various loan clubs, to make their marks at Chelsea FC.