Alvaro Morata had a dream start to his Chelsea career after scoring 8 goals and setting up 2 more for the club in his first few matches. Chelsea’s record signing from Real Madrid had hit the ground running and proved himself to be an able replacement for Diego Costa.
Morata’s red-hot form last year for club and country helped him rack up 10 goals in the early part of the season. This included a weekend hat-trick against Stoke in the Premier League followed up by a commanding display in Chelsea’s 2-1 win over Atletico bagging a goal in the process.
Morata hit an unfortunate snag in the middle against City when he limped off in the 35th minute clutching his left hamstring. Conte’s decision to snub Michy Batshuayi, who is a direct replacement for Morata and introduce Willian instead, showed his lack of faith in Chelsea’s back-up striker.
Batshuayi despite scoring 10 goals this season has not shown the consistency Conte demands and the Italian’s decision to rebuff the striker for the City match exposed Chelsea’s lack of options up front while in crisis. Chelsea is already 15 points off the pace in the title race and has to buckle down from here onwards if they want to finish in a Champions League spot come May.
With so many important matches coming up, Chelsea needs to hit the ground running and Conte needs an alternative for Morata especially with the Blues still alive in all four competitions.
Resultantly the Blues have now been linked with Bosnian forward Edin Dzeko. The 31-year-old centre-forward currently plies his trade for Italian side AS Roma. Dzeko is said to be one aspect of a huge deal between AS Roma and Chelsea that would see the Blues splash out around €50m and Belgian forward Michy Batshuayi in exchange for Dzeko and Emerson Palmieri.
The former Manchester City forward has a good memory of playing in England where he won two league titles, one FA Cup and a league cup. However, with his game time suffering, he opted to move to the Italian capital where he has been instrumental for them for the last two and a half years. Chelsea’s 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 Morata making Conte desperate for the Bosnian hitman.
