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.
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 cash and Belgian forward Michy Batshuayi on loan in exchange for Dzeko and Emerson Palmieri.
The deal would be a good move for Batshuayi who would finally be getting regular game time after a frustrating one and a half years at Chelsea. The 24-year-old Belgian striker was brought from Marseille for £33.1m in 2016. He arrived from the French club with a decent reputation as a talented hitman who had scored 23 goals in 50 games for the club in the 2015-16 season.
However, ever since his arrival to Chelsea, he has had to play as a backup option; first to Diego Costa and now to Alvaro Morata. With Dzeko now rumoured to be joining Chelsea, Conte feels it would be good for Batshuayi to have a loan spell outside.
He said: “It’s the same as Kenedy. If arrives another striker, then Batshuayi will go on loan. I think he wants to have the opportunity to play with regularity. I think this is right.“ Only time will tell now if the Belgian can find his form again.
