Around 21 games in and it has already been an exciting season in the the Barclays premier league. The championship is perfectly poised with three, possibly four, teams in with a shout of winning the title. Both Manchester City and Chelsea have seen new personalities take charge of the clubs this season, but it is the latter of the two that this article is focused on.
Under Jose Mourinho , Chelsea have made a strong bid for the top spot so far. They have won an impressive 15 games this season and have retained Stamford Bridges difficult reputation for visiting sides, winning 10 of their home matches. There have been a number of positives so far this season. Whilst 22-year-old Brazilian Oscar has grown as a player this season, the Belgium international Eden Hazard has shown fantastic ability throughout this current campaign and has proved a tricky customer for opposition teams.
As well as this, both of the above individuals have been scoring. Having shown his potential as a creative player, Oscar has also shown us his ability in front of goals, snapping up 6 goals so far. In contrast, Hazard has also shown his worth as a goal scorer. He leads the way in the club, having netted 9 times this season.
Despite this, all has not been a breeze for Chelsea . Even with exciting wing players and influentialmidfielders, the club have been lacking in the goals department when regarding others around them. Many people don’t believe that Arsenal will be able to sustain current efforts but to date the Gunners have scored marginally more goals than Chelsea overall. This is a statistic that has to change if Chelsea are serious about winning the title.
Manchester City have scored significantly more goals than both Arsenal and Chelsea and, if they’re not careful, Chelsea will begin to lose ground on the North West club who have already scored an incredible 58 goals already this season. This high amount of goals is largely down to the conversion rates of the forwards at City. Both Negredo and Aguero have been excellent this season, scoring 9 and 13 goals respectively and have helped give their team to have real chance of winning the Premier League.
I am not for on moment suggesting that Man City are overall the best team outfit in the league though. For me, Chelsea have so much more to offer this season and Mourinho’s side have actually managed to win and draw games without being anywhere near their best so far this campaign.
With the influential and creative players that they have, Chelsea have the ability to create an enormous amount of chances. What they need (as do many other teams) is a real goal getter, someone who is capable of finishing off the chances, players such as Hazard, Oscar, Willian and Schurrle (to name a few) can create. A lot of people are arguing that actually, Fernando Torres is slowly coming back in to the mould. I don’t for one second doubt this, however I believe he does need yet more time and the chances of him reaching past heights is slim.
The remainder of this transfer window is huge for Chelsea. An impressive Samuel Eto’o hat-trick in their 3-1 win over Manchester United this weekend was very important. The Cameroon international Eto’o has previously been the world’s best player; however whether he can sustain good performances week in, week out at the age of 32 is questionable. I believe that a consistent striker is what Chelsea should be looking for this January.
A deal giving Chelsea a new forward would make them very hard to contend with for the title this season, giving them that goal scoring edge that arguably they have lacked at certain points this campaign.
There are several strikers out there at the moment who are making a name for themselves. As well as the big guns, others are coming up through the ranks. Diego Costa is a name that everyone is becoming familiar with. So far the 25 year old has had a fantastic season, scoring 19 goals in 20 games, meaning that he is getting a lot of media attention.
Another, admittedly less high profile striker, who has also had a good season is Vincent Aboubakar. The 23- year-old plays in the French league for Lorient and has netted 11 times this season, making it look as though he is an exciting prospect for the future. 11 goals may not seem like masses, but if he can do it with Lorient, then surely at a club like Chelsea he has a chance of hitting the net more due to the players he would have around him.
So there are options out there for Chelsea to take. Admittedly they are few and far between but if the London club could get themselves on the right end of a deal, they could start to really take this campaign by storm.
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