Following their draw with Everton, it became more obvious that, though Chelsea are definitely good and improving, they’re still missing a few pieces.
One of the things that worries me most about Chelsea is how, when things aren’t working, there do not seem to be many other options. Sarrismo is a beautiful style of play when it’s working. The opponent is as much in awe as they are in action as Chelsea run away with things. But a resolute team like Everton, a well-coached attacking side willing to scrap, give Chelsea’s issue nowhere to hide.
Chelsea just don’t have enough firepower. The only player actually consistently worth his salt as an attacker is Eden Hazard. He’s a little genius and there’s nothing more to say on the subject.
But that brings us to the unholy trinity of the inconsistent: Pedro, Willian and Alvaro Morata. Between the three of them, there’s only ever going to be one good game in a week, and you still have to roll the die to figure out who it will be.
Hopefully Chelsea move on from Willian in the summer, remembering his part in the mutiny under Antonio Conte. Pedro should stay, but that’s as much for his good attitude and intelligence, and what that can mean to the youngsters of the squad having him as a mentor.
The club need a star addition, and at this point it seems to be entirely between Leon Bailey, Paulo Dybala and James Rodriguez. Too few people are talking about James, but he is going to be on the move again soon.
Why those three? Chelsea need a naturally left-footed right winger who they can play on the opposite wing from Hazard. The balance is off having Willian or Pedro on that side. Willian simply isn’t much of a goal threat given the natural angle provided by his inclination to drop a shoulder and go to his right. He often depresses his own shooting angle in the exact moment he creates it. Pedro is simply getting on in years and can’t play every match.
Paulo Dybala has seen his playing time reduced at Juventus by the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo. He’s left-footed and, on his day, can change a match. He became more popular for his own personal destruction of Barcelona a couple of years ago. He would be the biggest-name solution for Chelsea, and would effectively use the entire transfer budget.
That wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Chelsea don’t need many changes – what they need are quality ones. Too often Chelsea take the approach of buying in quantity and hoping that something sticks. Dybala would fit Sarri’s style of play, and his technical ability and tactical understanding of the game would mesh very well in aiding Hazard and Jorginho in the team’s transformation.
Leon Bailey has been one of the hottest young properties in world football for as long as many will be able to remember. At 16, when he came to Europe, each of the big clubs was chasing him. His father, though – correctly I might add – steered him down a more conservative path so he would be able to play and mature outside the major theaters of European football. Thus he began his European career in Belgium before moving to his current club, Bayer Leverkusen.
Bailey is often compared to Arjen Robben for his running style and the way he cuts inside from the right onto his left. What Bailey has that Robben didn’t at the time he was at Chelsea is a stronger stature. Robben was an unbelievable player during his time at Chelsea, but really developed his physicality when he got to Bayern Munich.
The Jamaican is already an unbelievably strong player and supposedly a Chelsea supporter. Adding him at a fee somewhere between £55-75 million would be a very sharp piece of business. The goal threat he would provide would pull the defense off Hazard like an elastic band. This would create a greater array of opportunities for Hazard and perhaps even spare the Belgian a few of those ridiculous kicks to the ankle he’s forced to put up with time and time again.
The final and most complicated option would be James Rodriguez. The inconsistent Colombian would be a gamble, but one worth taking. One of Chelsea’s biggest issues is how they carry truly no threat from distance. There’s not a single reason in the world not to simply park in front of the goal and wait for Chelsea to try to work their way in. This compresses the available space and minimizes the ability of the technical players to make a difference.
Rodriguez is one of the best long-distance shooters in Europe. His natural left-footed shot is taken with perfect technique, and he also possesses an eye for a pass.
The hard thing will be negotiating him out of his loan at Bayern Munich and his contract at Real Madrid. But Bayern supposedly want to cancel given that they’re in the middle of a terrible season, and Madrid are moving away from the galactico route. Of the three options, Rodriguez could be the cheapest.
Chelsea would then boast quite a forward line. Adding someone else would make Eden Hazard more of a threat. We still don’t know just how good the little magician can be. It’s always too obvious to teams that they can simply bully him and Chelsea will stall. By providing another elite talent, Chelsea will deny their opponents that option. The pitch will open up more for Hazard and we could see him start to regularly break the 20-goal mark, or even have the sort of seasons Dries Mertens had under Maurizio Sarri at Napoli.
There are, of course, other options but they’re of secondary interest to these three. Federico Chiesa at Fiorentina seems to be an excellent young technical player, one who would add to the level of quality at Chelsea and will be a great player someday. He is quite young, though, and Chelsea are in win-now mode. Wilfried Zaha is another option, but not one that would be worth the gamble given the price Crystal Palace would extract of the Blues.
Chelsea are moving in the right direction. They’re playing wonderful football but they mustn’t make the mistakes that got them here in the first place. Aggressively adding top-level talent is necessary. Manchester City and Liverpool do it, they are excellent and it won’t be easy to hold them down in the title race.