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Dante's Chelsea Striker Graveyard
- Thread starter TheReligion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Sheva, Torres, Eto'o and Crespo were all past their primes when they joined to be fair. The rest of them weren't top strikers or were just young players so hard to call them failures
It's always a gamble signing a player from an arguably weaker league. People like Depay can look world class in France, Mkhitaryan and Kagawa other examples.
It's sort of why I'm a bit nervous about Sancho. Maybe he'd be amazing but I don't know. And I never was massively impressed with either Werner or Havertz - I adore the German league for a lot of reasons but generally their football teams do well because their clubs and managers are tremendously system based and all their players fit into those systems - our coaching is all technical and physical these days and so our players tend to be a bit more multi-faceted. The likes of Muller might not work in England and he's one of the best strikers of all time, for instance, and this might be controversial but I honestly believe that not one of the Leipzig squad would get into our side (defenders possibly aside but even then they looked a bit slow and would get found out a bit). What I'm getting at is it's not Chelsea that's the graveyard, it's the Premier League.
It's sort of why I'm a bit nervous about Sancho. Maybe he'd be amazing but I don't know. And I never was massively impressed with either Werner or Havertz - I adore the German league for a lot of reasons but generally their football teams do well because their clubs and managers are tremendously system based and all their players fit into those systems - our coaching is all technical and physical these days and so our players tend to be a bit more multi-faceted. The likes of Muller might not work in England and he's one of the best strikers of all time, for instance, and this might be controversial but I honestly believe that not one of the Leipzig squad would get into our side (defenders possibly aside but even then they looked a bit slow and would get found out a bit). What I'm getting at is it's not Chelsea that's the graveyard, it's the Premier League.
The main theme there is they've taken a lot of hopeful punts on declining stars who were already physically past their best - Eto'o, Weah, Torres, Shevchenko, Falcao, Higuain, Pato. They've spunked a lot of wages which they can well afford, but I imagine signing these players at their peaks would have yielded much different results.
And to be fair to Crespo he was very good at Chelsea when he got on the park. His goals-to-minutes ratio is in the top 10 in Premier League history. I don't think he was a great tactical fit for the way Chelsea played at the time, where they relied heavily on Drogba's back-to-goal hold-up play to bring in the midfield runners.
And to be fair to Crespo he was very good at Chelsea when he got on the park. His goals-to-minutes ratio is in the top 10 in Premier League history. I don't think he was a great tactical fit for the way Chelsea played at the time, where they relied heavily on Drogba's back-to-goal hold-up play to bring in the midfield runners.
I wonder what the club is thinking about Chelsea kid Bamford banging in goals, after never even giving him a single premiership game to see what he could do.
Simply down to off-field problems with his wife not happy living in London.
Eto'o was past it and everyone knew it
Crespo was slightly past it and everyone was in denial
Sheva was a top5 player in the world. He declined after signing for them
Torres was never that good in the first place, still he was great and he was 26
Eto'o was quite good I thought, hat trick v Man. United and think he scored some crucial goals in CL for them. One of those who'd have been scary in premier league if he'd move here in mid 20s instead of going to Barca where he was brilliant.
Poor Werner
I'm sending my CV over as we speak
Pedro, Crespo, Ba, Eto'o and Remy weren't flops.
He still owes us the €17m odd we paid for him unless he got it overturned by ECHR finally...Drogba was alright tbf...
Mutu was my favourite. They spent about 20m (in 2003, so probably like 60m now) on him & then sacked him a year later
Other clubs wish they could deal with flop signings like that. Ruthless
Would you say you get a more balanced and fair discussion here (about Chelsea) than on a Chelsea forum? Just curious.
Pedro wasn't, and he wasn't a striker.
Ba was a backup player and handy at that.
Crespo blamed his evil identical twin for how poor he made him look but managed 25 goals in 73 matches, having been a 1 in 2 at AC Milan and even better at Lazio.
Remy scored 12 in 47. Spent the rest of his careers at lesser clubs.
Eto'o played 35 games, scored 12, assisted 7 in that one season, at 32. That's not too shabby.
The standout examples are Torres (not least because of the price) and Shevchecnko (just over a goal every 4 matches).
Crespo's return isn't bad actually. What is interesting though, and pretty damning, is he has one of the best records bar Anelka, Drogba, Costa etc yet spent 3 of 5 seasons at the club on loan!
Fewer people wumming about Chelsea on the Chelsea site but a lot more people getting defensive and arguing.
I think the vast majority of people on here don't give much of a shit about Chelsea but there's a few who have a real bee in their bonnet.
Cheers. Was just wondering whether one would get a more nuanced take on a team when there's not the emotional investment.
surely that's to be expectedYeah of course! I do genuinely enjoy the "bantz" 95% of the time. I wouldn't be here otherwise!
What is the theme with these strikers? Incredible mental strength/self belief. I believe there is something in that tbh.
Awesome, awesome stuff! Quite the list of 'elite' strikers. Chelsea do not get near the scrutiny we get; it's bonkers!
Sheva had a poor end to 2005-06 and Milan were happy to get rid for £30m knowing he was just about to turn 30 and was on the decline.
He was also signed by Abramovich who was his mate and had been obsessed with bringing him to Chelsea for years. Mourinho had no use for him as he was a 4-3-3 zealot and his whole system was built around Drogba as target man.
He was the wrong player in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Higuain - Hoped he'd be better than he was
Morata - started well but i think the injury did him in
Falcao - flop. Also a flop for Utd
Pedro - Wtf is he doing in that list. Not a striker and by no means a bad signing, at all
Remy - Was never fussed myself
Salah Lukaku - Dont think they can be included, werent flops, just not used by respective managers
Eto'o - I actually didnt mind him
Ba - Backup striker, even 3rd choice occasionally so dont see how for £7m he's a flop
Torres - Enough said
Shevchenko - As above, sadly
Sturridge - Used primarily as a right winger with us
Di Santo - No idea why he is in this list, was a youth signing who only played 8 games mainly from the bench. You might aswell include every single youth striker signed if Di Santo is being included.
Crespo - Not a flop. 20 goals in 49 league games. This myth he was a flop is quite mental. Wanted to go home, but has since said he regrets leaving. Comfortably one of the best finishers i have seen at the club
Mutu - His own fault, not the club
Pato - weird signing
Batshuayi - Cant work him out. He's obviously a decent striker he has shown glimpses with us, and in France. And Dortmund
Pizarro - shite
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And Sturridge under Ancelotti was mainly a right winger, cutting inside. For 4m, hes not a flop really. Made 8m on him, too!
The standard for a flop/poor signing is quite generous judging by this thread. And i guess it missed mateja kezman too!
That'd surely cost any team over £150m, or is there a release clause?
If Tore Andre Flo and Eidur Guðjohnsen was signed during Abramovich's era, they would have entered that list. They were good strikers though, but Abramovich demands a very high standards to put pressures on every strikers that he signed.
Eidur was excellent, his partnership with Jimmy Floyd was a joy the Chelsea fans still remember with longing!
Flo was decent, we bought him for £300,00 and sold him for years later for £12 million, he was most certainly not a flop.
If you're going back pre Roman then you'd add Furlong, Fleck and Sutton, not those two.
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Pedro is a striker now ?
Anyone remember Schurrle? Not a striker per se, but was another forward who did alright for a few games then nosedived.
Yeah heck of alot of dross in that list. You also forgot Kezman. Why do you think they seem to struggle?
Crazy that Crespo spent 3 or 5 years at the club out on loan.
Whilst the list probably does embellish the situation I feel the fact remains that Chelsea have bought a lot of strikers under Ambramovich and only 2 have been really successful and spearheaded the club to titles Drogba (under Mourinho and then Ancelotti) and Costa (Mourinho and then Conte)
The likes of Shevchenko, Torres and Morata were obviously bought to do similar and flopped badly, then you have those who were bought to be backup or just part of the squad Anelka, Giroud, Ba, Remy etc etc who either exceeded in that role and regularly played their way into the starting XI, performed it or struggled
On Crespo it seems a similar situation to when some United fans say Veron wasn't a flop, I personally loved Veron but then even I can see that you don't pay that amount of money for a player who you sell 2 years later if he's been a success and so yeah Crespo 100% does have a place on the 'another that didn't work out list'
What all this does point out though is the poor recruitment; how old was Shevchenko when he went to Chelsea? Late twenties? It's a risk buying someone at that age from the Italian league given how much slower the football was back then. All was not right with Torres at Liverpool before Chelsea signed him. Morata an expensive punt on a player never deemed good enough for Real Madrid (one we were looking at signing before we got a just a big a flop in Lukaku)
The likes of Shevchenko, Torres and Morata were obviously bought to do similar and flopped badly, then you have those who were bought to be backup or just part of the squad Anelka, Giroud, Ba, Remy etc etc who either exceeded in that role and regularly played their way into the starting XI, performed it or struggled
On Crespo it seems a similar situation to when some United fans say Veron wasn't a flop, I personally loved Veron but then even I can see that you don't pay that amount of money for a player who you sell 2 years later if he's been a success and so yeah Crespo 100% does have a place on the 'another that didn't work out list'
What all this does point out though is the poor recruitment; how old was Shevchenko when he went to Chelsea? Late twenties? It's a risk buying someone at that age from the Italian league given how much slower the football was back then. All was not right with Torres at Liverpool before Chelsea signed him. Morata an expensive punt on a player never deemed good enough for Real Madrid (one we were looking at signing before we got a just a big a flop in Lukaku)
Wouldn’t have Pedro there anyway
Ludicrously premature to add Werner to a list of flops. He could end up making OP and @Dante look very silly indeed.
That ship sailed a long time ago.
Fairly sure Salah was being played as a right winger not a striker if my memory serves me correctly.
He's not been added yet. @Dante is simply busy marking out his plot. Like a modern day Beatlejuice some might say. Me? Well I'm just the curator.
Yeh I wish Crespo had stayed, but 20 league goals in 49 games just isnt a flop. That's not a million miles away from a goal every 2 games. And lest we forget he 'only' cost £16m. I think he gets included on these lists as people incorrectly believe he was another Torres or Sheva. The player himself has stated he regrets leaving, I'd have loved to see how he'd done if played regularly throughout his stay
Kezman was just not right for the prem, but another of those who looked excellent in Eredivisise. He lacked the strength for the physicality of the prem.
I think it was family issues with him. He has since stated he wished he'd stayed. £16m and 20 league goals in 49 league games is a good return. I think his goals to minutes ratio is amongst some of the best in premier league history, or not far off. He was a incredible finisher. Would have loved him to stay, but for the price, his goals return was fine