Alvaro Morata has had a dream start to his Chelsea career after scoring 7 goals already. The £60m forward from Real Madrid has hit the ground running and has so far proved himself to be an able replacement for Diego Costa.
Morata has been in red-hot form for club and country after racking up 8 goals and 2 assists before he got injured against Manchester City, earlier this season. He followed his hat-trick against Stoke with a commanding display in Chelsea’s 2-1 win over Atletico, bagging a goal in the process and then injured his hamstring against City.
Chelsea’s striker problems faced an emergency with his injury. Their lack of options up front coupled with Conte’s lack of willingness to bank on Batshuyai for the big matches clearly shows their dependency on the 24-year old Spanish forward.
After missing out on Llorente in the summer, Chelsea have fallen short and the lack of goal scorer might just bring down an early curtain to their season in terms of major trophies, especially the defence of their domestic title.
Batshuayi has had a very good pre-season and has already scored 6 goals this season including a hat-trick against Nottingham Forest. However, he failed to make any impact against the bigger sides and his inability to join in Chelsea’s link-up play or to help hold up the ball for his teammates, has clearly pushed Conte away from trusting the fun-loving Belgian.
Such a situation at Chelsea has led to reports that Antonio Conte is looking at Arsenal hitman Olivier Giroud as an attacking option.
Conte met Giroud at this week’s FIFA Awards ceremony. The manager was nominated this year for the manager of the year and he met Giroud, who came to collect the Puskas award for the best goal.
It is believed that Conte enquired about the Frenchman’s availability this season and given that the 31-year old is now a backup option at Arsenal, a move for Giroud is not out of the cards. He has fallen behind the ranking order and is now preferred behind Arsenal’s summer signing Alexandre Lacazette and Englishman Danny Welbeck.
Given that Chelsea also need a new backup striker for Alvaro Morata, it makes sense for Chelsea to make a move, especially since the move will not cost Chelsea a lot and at the same time they will be able to weaken a direct rival. However, surely, Arsene Wenger will not sanction this move especially with Sanchez and Ozil at the final year of their contracts.
So should Chelsea go all in?
