Chelsea have zero upside in recalling Alvaro Morata: Everyone loses

Chelsea have had some bad ideas over the years, but the prospect of recalling Alvaro Morata is so bad this has to be what silly season stories under a transfer ban look like.

Friday ended on an unusual note, with The Telegraph’s Matt Law reporting that Chelsea are trying to strong-arm Atletico Madrid into buying Alvaro Morata for £50 million this summer, six months into his 18 month loan contract. Chelsea’s leverage for this demand is the threat of recalling Morata, presumably to force him to play at least one more year of his contract as a Blue.

A no-win situation would be a vast improvement over this scenario. This is a lose-lose-lose, and we’ll just keep adding losses as we go along here.

The only possible justification Chelsea could have for recalling Morata is the belief that none of the three other strikers they have under contract – Olivier Giroud, Michy Batshuayi and Tammy Abraham – are capable of leading the line next season.

They certainly don’t need the money, since they can’t spend anything that comes in this summer and are already sitting on over £100 million from the other side of Madrid.

Even if you accept the insufficiency of those three strikers, it implies the front office believe that incoming manager Frank Lampard and technical adviser Petr Cech will not be able to develop some sort of platoon arrangement for them. This needlessly undercuts the judgment of two of football’s smartest ex-players, oddly so, since they both saw how it could be done during their time at Chelsea, when the Blues relied on no single No. 9 in the starting XI, but rotated through Fernando Torres, Demba Ba and Samuel Eto’o as each game and in-game situation demanded. That model could very well be the best solution for next season, given the differences in age, experience, skills and tactical abilities of the Blues’ current strikers.

Recalling Morata, then, also implies the belief that Alvaro Morata will and can out-perform any of the others individually or collectively. As we said many times when comparing Morata with Gonzalo Higuain, the point of any transfer or loan business is not to get one player who does as well as whoever he replaced. It’s to improve the squad.

Bringing back Morata to improve the squad above what Olivier Giroud, Tammy Abraham and Michy Batshuayi offer is the sort of idea and decision we thought Petr Cech was hired to snuff out.

And this is all while working under the benignly implausible assumption Morata performs at his previous Chelsea levels.

Alvaro Morata could not get out of west London fast enough, and with good cause. The fans (and even some supporters) treated him quite poorly. Maurizio Sarri called him “fragile” in a press conference and, like many other players, made no tactical adjustments to optimize Morata’s performance. Morata struggled with different aspects of the Premier League, but Chelsea must take their share of responsibility for the inhospitability he experienced and had no desire to continue enduring.

Morata looked happier in his half season at Atletico Madrid than he did in his 18 months at Stamford Bridge. Ignore his buncombe about how happy he is to be at his lifelong dream club, where his football career started and he can now follow in the footsteps of his heroes. He says such things quite loosely.

Morata simply played like a happy, satisfied footballer at Atletico Madrid. The tactics of the team and style and culture of play in La Liga fit him well. Diego Simeone’s hyper-intense motivation somehow worked for Morata. Morata looked happy to be there, happy to play there, and rewarded the team and the club for it.

An involuntarily return to Chelsea would be like Morata hearing his name selected as tribute to the Hunger Games, knowing nobody was going to volunteer to take his place.

Unless Chelsea’s front office thinks Frank Lampard will be the arm-around-the-shoulder feel-good manager Morata needs, there is little reason to expect anything but dejection, apathy and resentment from Morata this season. He is a professional footballer, but we all have our limits.

The hope also would have to be that Lampard will not only flip Morata’s perspective on the club, but would bring the fans around to Morata’s side as well.

If anyone could change the fans’ minds on anything, it would be Frank Lampard. But again, we all have our limits.

If Lampard was not able to motivate Alvaro Morata into being the beloved and true blue 20-goal scorer Chelsea apparently think they still might have in him, the Blues would be in an even worse position when they try to unload him next summer. The recall is presumably a one year stop-gap until the club can hit the transfer market in 2020 for a better option. However, a decrease in performance will further ensure that no one will want him other than Atletico Madrid.

Atletico will be rightly resentful of their treatment at this juncture, so they will not be willing to pay what Chelsea ask, unless Chelsea lower their asking price accordingly with his decreasing value based on a third Premier League season of subpar performances. Or Atletico may just move on from Morata altogether and buy another striker this summer, leaving Chelsea with no willing buyers next summer.

Demanding £50 million now could result in them receiving £40 million (or less) next year.

Will he be worth that £10 million difference plus his wages this season, stewing in resentment and negativity?

And, of course, this all comes at the direct expense of Michy Batshuayi and Tammy Abraham. The two strikers are even candidates to leave if Morata comes in.

Abraham is younger and less experienced than Batshuayi, so the club may send him out for a season of top-flight football before bringing him back next season. However, he might escape a loan through the club’s presumed pivot to a commitment to youth. On the other hand, his playing style is closer to Morata’s than Michy Batshuayi’s, so the club may deem him redundant if they want a striker battery with complementary skills.

Either way, both would miss out on their chance to prove themselves at Chelsea after several years each of checking what should be the necessary boxes.

I say all this as a fan of Alvaro Morata. Morata suffered from comparisons to Fernando Torres and contrasts to Diego Costa. Antonio Conte may not have managed him as well as he could have. Maurizio Sarri managed Morata about as well as he could have, which is to say, p**s poorly. The fans turned negative on Morata, and the two parties then went into a downward spiral together.

Alvaro Morata belongs at Atletico Madrid in every sense. He does not belong at Chelsea FC, and I say that in the most pro-Morata way possible.

Chelsea may be dumb, but it’s hard to imagine them being this dumb. Let’s hope this story reflects worse on Matt Law’s professional judgment than Chelsea’s.