Chelsea FC Transfer Targets: Christmas Wishlist
Alex Teixeira – Andre Carlisle
This losing thing started early for Chelsea. In the summer after last year’s campaign Chelsea were snubbed by Douglas Costa as royal blue confetti still sat in the grass. While I’d like to reverse that, at my age, I recognize the need to be rational with Santa. You don’t ask for a McLaren P1 while still living in an apartment. Rather, you ask for something more sensible, more economical. You ask for Alex Teixeira.
While Douglas Costa spins the ball around the pitch with something akin to sorcery, Teixeira is much more direct. With Eden Hazard, Willian, and the occasional planet alignment that reveals Good Oscar, Chelsea employ enough wizards – they need targets and workers.
You can find Teixeira in the spaces between defenders, just onside, with his mind engaged on an opportunity to shoot or make himself a human post for a quick one-two. He just knows where to be in order to create danger, while his RW/CAM/LW versatility allows him to fill spaces east-to-west. Chelsea do a hypnotic amount of sideways passing; having a target with industry is a way forward.
It also doesn’t hurt that any club to snag a Brazilian from Shakhtar Donetsk has not yet regretted it. Though I’ll always gawk at a P1, taking stock of where we are, the additional functionality of an M3 is – in the immediate – more appealing.
Next: Javier Hernandez