Chelsea: Alvaro Morata can aim for Fernando Torres’ UEL scoring pace

Unless Maurizio Sarri has something wholly dispiriting up his short, baggy sleeve, Alvaro Morata will be Chelsea’s striker for the first stage of the Europa League. For once, comparisons to Fernando Torres are a good thing.

Chelsea are entering rotation season for the first time under Maurizio Sarri. The Europa League opener against PAOK likely had as much to do with Alvaro Morata being on the bench against Cardiff City as anything Sarri wanted out of his squad on Saturday. Sarri is still figuring out his best XI for the Premier League. Giroud deserved a chance to show what he could do, and after three league games Sarri may think Morata can do more for the team in Europe than in England.

Morata would not be Chelsea’s first Spanish No. 9 with a similar profile. For all the unflattering comparisons Morata’s detractors have made between him and Fernando Torres, if Morata can replicate Torres’ record in the Europa League he will more than earn his place in the team.

Chelsea’s European campaigns revitalized Fernando Torres, even when he was in the depths of his Premier League struggles at Stamford Bridge. Torres scored six goals in the nine games leading to the Blues’ 2013 Europa League at a rate of one goal every 135 minutes. He scored the opening goals in the semifinal second leg and the final.

He was only slightly less productive in the Champions League, scoring every 175 minutes for 10 total goals. By contrast, he averaged twice that in the Premier League for Chelsea: 20 goals, with one every 340 minutes.

Alvaro Morata is approaching 200 minutes between goals. This is well off his overall domestic goal scoring pace of one goal every 143 minutes (52 total between Real Madrid, Juventus and Chelsea). Morata’s Champions League productivity is almost identical to Torres’ was at Chelsea, with goals coming every 170 minutes. This will be Morata’s first Europa League campaign.

Whatever was behind Torres’ hex in the Premier League at Chelsea (he certainly had no trouble scoring league goals while with Liverpool), he put it all aside on European nights. He had an unforgettable role in the Champions League title, and a vital role in the Europa League title the following season. His individual frustrations are – with the benefit of many years passed – a historical footnote to the period of his career that put the most silver in his trophy case.

The banter about Alvaro Morata’s Premier League woes is greatly overwrought, especially the “new Torres” variety. Morata scored 11 league goals in his first season at Chelsea, more than his countryman did in any of his years in west London. His productivity obviously dropped off after the first few months, and Olivier Giroud overshadowed him before displacing him in the spring. But Giroud, like Torres, had years of Premier League experience that Morata does not have. Giroud could make a more immediate impact than Morata because he knew the league, the opponents and the style of play. This is what made Torres’ struggles so incomprehensible – he was not a new arrival to England.

The return to Europe, then, could be a return to where Morata is most comfortable and most familiar. The settings and the stage are those he is used to when he is at his best, which could restore him to the form that attracted Chelsea in the first place. While Morata, like Chelsea, has never played against PAOK, BATE Borisov or MOL Vidi, he knows his way around Europe. As the Blues progress through the rounds, Morata could find himself more and more at home under the lights on Thursdays.

Between now and December 13, Chelsea have 11 Premier League games, six Europa League games and hopefully more than one Carabao Cup tie. Even if Morata only starts the midweek games and comes on as a substitute for Olivier Giroud in the Premier League, he will not be far off from the Frenchman in total playing time. That will bring the team up to the festive period, when Maurizio Sarri will have to embrace a uniquely English experience of fixture congestion and squad rotation.

Alvaro Morata’s performances in the Europa League and Carabao Cup could go a long way towards his domestic playing time through December and January. The lesser of the two European competitions is no one’s dream at Chelsea, but it is hardly a place for cast-offs. Morata vowed to fight for his place in the team, and it looks like Europe will be his battlefield.

If he can channel the spirit of Fernando Torres and regain his scoring touch in the Europa League he will reclaim his place with Maurizio Sarri and the fans. Then he just needs to do his compatriot one better and continue that form in the Premier League.