Chelsea's striker problems can be remedied with a change in style

Jose Mourinho

Before you jump to any conclusions, let me make it clear that I am in no way advocating that Chelsea switch over to a proper False 9 system, mainly because it’s not feasible. The chances of Chelsea playing possession-based football under Jose Mourinho are about as likely as Pep Guardiola getting Bayern Munich to play a direct, long-ball game because that’s never going to happen.

Chelsea’s striker woes over the past season or so have been rather well-documented. The fact that the club didn’t have a striker who was capable of scoring 25 plus goals in the League was seen as one of the reasons the club struggled at times last season.

The fact that this problem hasn’t been remedied during the course of the transfer window is baffling. However, Chelsea’s problem doesn’t only involve the man firing in the goals. It also involves the men playing behind him who are loading the bullets.

Now I know what you must be thinking- “Chelsea have some of the best creative players in the world. How is it that their striker’s can’t seem to score too many? They should be firing in 25-30 goals per season, no questions asked!” In theory, that’s plausible enough. However, the reality of the situation is slightly different.

Chelsea’s current 4-2-3-1 system uses three players (a right attacking midfielder, a left attacking midfielder and a central attacking midfielder) behind the striker as a supply line, their main job being to provide incisive passes for the lone striker to latch on to and score goals.

Chelsea currently have a plethora of attacking talent in their ranks, some would argue too many. The likes of Juan Mata, Oscar dos Santos, Eden Hazard, Victor Moses, Andre Schurrle Kevin De Bruyne and Willian are all options to play in one of three positions behind the striker. However, the problem isn’t the talent, not as far as Chelsea are concerned. Rather it’s the way the talent is used.

The three behind the striker are given a lot of freedom to interchange positions, something that can confuse the best of defences. However, the main problem is they tend to play within themselves. Instead of feeding the ball to the striker, they try to take on the shot on their own.

Last season, both Fernando Torres and Demba Ba were proof of this. Both often looked isolated up front even when the team were playing well.

Torres, due to the fact that he is more comfortable on the ball, often dropped deep and looked to offer himself as an outlet. His link-up play with the attacking midfielders was generally decent, unless he was having one of those games wherein he couldn’t care less about anything at all. The same couldn’t be said about Demba Ba, who often stayed in and around the 18-yard area, making decent runs whenever he got the chance and patiently waiting for service that rarely (if ever) arrived.

The frustrating part was that even when the striker’s got involved in the link-up play, nothing really changed for them. Whenever either Torres or Ba made an attacking run, they were often used as a decoy by the attacking midfielders.

Therefore, in a somewhat ironical manner, they remained as isolated as before despite being more involved in the attacking play. They were playing as a False 9 despite being proper strikers.

The problem isn’t exactly unsolvable, but it will no doubt take up some time in training. The main focus should be to get the midfielders to stop playing among themselves and pass the ball to the striker whenever they can. At the same time the striker’s will need to be encouraged to make more runs into the box to get into goal-scoring areas whilst also getting involved in the link-up play, ensuring that Chelsea’s football is free-flowing and efficient at the same time.

While Chelsea could most certainly do with another striker in the squad. If Mourinho can solve the ‘lack of service’ problem, they can expect a few more goals from their current crop of forwards.