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Gonzalo Higuain, the 31-year-old Argentine striker, has been signed by Chelsea on loan recently from AC Milan. It has been a much-anticipated move and the World Cup runner-up medal winner is supposed to help Maurizio Sarri revive Chelsea’s fortunes. Chelsea now have 47 points from 23 matches in the Premier League and lost their last match 0-2 against Arsenal.
Chelsea’s striker Alvaro Morata has struggled with his form throughout this season so far and has been able to score only 24 goals in 72 matches for them.
Olivier Giroud, their other striker, has played in only 44 matches for them and scored 10 goals. Quite understandably, Chelsea have found the goals very difficult to come by and signed the veteran Argentine striker as an emergency arrangement.
However, Higuain’s reunion with Sarri, his former manager at Napoli, might not turn out be very successful for Chelsea. We would like to discuss the three reasons why Higuain should find it difficult at Stamford Bridge:
#1 Being new to the Premier League
Higuain has played in a number of major clubs like Real Madrid, Napoli, Juventus and AC Milan in his career, but has not played in the Premier League so far. He has scored 290 goals in 569 matches in his club career so far but should face some difficulties in adjusting to the fresh demands of Premier League at this stage of his career.
Higuain is already on the wrong side of 30, and also has had some injury problems this season. Moreover, the Premier League is the most competitive football league in the world and therefore, would demand a lot from the ageing striker. The expectation of the supporters and media attention would also be more in the Premier League than in the Serie A, and the Chelsea faithful would pin their hopes on him.
Therefore, Higuain would have to absorb a lot of pressure and cope with the playing conditions too. The climate is a lot warmer in countries like Spain and Italy, and Higuain might be troubled somewhat by the colder English climate. It would be really interesting to see whether he can cope with so many challenges in the twilight of his career.
#2 His ordinary form in the season so far
Higuain was not exactly very successful for Milan this season. He scored 8 goals in 22 matches for them and hardly looked very threatening inside the opposing penalty box. Milan’s other strikers like Patrick Cutrone have looked more impressive than him at times and his current form is not something to rave about.
He also missed a crucial penalty against Juventus in a Serie A match and allowed them to carve out a victory as a result. He missed some matches owing to an injury and continues to have some fitness issues as well.
Therefore, he should find it difficult to score goals past the defenders of Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur. Chelsea have not been able to score too many goals the big clubs this season so far, and Higuain is unlikely to help them reverse that trend.
#3 His playing style might not suit Chelsea’s
Higuain is a typical penalty box striker, which means that he is not very comfortable dropping down to the middle third and help in creating moves. Chelsea usually plays in a 4-3-3 formation and would typically need their frontman to be a good ball-player.
They have also used Eden Hazard as a false 9 in quite a few matches, as his ball-skills have proven to be very useful in the final and middle thirds.
Moreover, Chelsea does not have too many good passers and crossers in their line-up and there might not be a steady delivery of balls to Higuain in the opposing penalty box. Chelsea’s playing style is not very direct, and Higuain would not find it easy playing like a typical no. 9.
This is precisely the reason why Morata has been a failure for the Blues, as he is also a penalty box striker primarily. It would be interesting to see how the Chelsea management deals with this conundrum upfront.
