Higuain on His Way to Chelsea
Gonzalo Higuain
Photo Credit: Juventus
It has been reported by SkySport (The European version of ESPN) that Chelsea FC have agreed to terms for Gonzalo Higuain with Juventus FC. As I’ve stated many times before and what anybody with a brain would agree with, Chelsea’s biggest weakness currently is in attack. There is a huge void at the striker position that Chelsea have been unable to fill since Diego Costa left 2 seasons ago. After Costa’s fallout with then head coach Conte, following the title winning campaign, Chelsea brought in Alvaro Morata for a club record transfer fee of £60 million. The Spaniard got off to a hot start last season but a few big misses in key games, the Arsenal game last January comes to mind, and it’s been a struggle for Morata to ever regain his own confidence as well as a vote of confidence from the fans. While Morata has looked decent at times, he’s struggled for the most part this year only scoring 5 goals in 16 games so far in the Premier League. Morata has been benched a handful of times for back up striker Olivier Giroud, but when that didn’t work out, both have been benched for in favor of a formation without a striker. With all this Chelsea have still managed a top 4 spot through through a little over half the season with a 6 pt lead on 5th place.
The addition of Higuain is really a win win scenario. If he’s able to score goals then great you’ve given your team a legitimate goal threat which is something we haven’t had in 2 seasons and should all but lock up a top 4 spot, but if he struggles then you’re just right back to where you are now with Morata, a striker struggling to score goals and fighting hard for that Champions League next season. The terms of this deal are apparently for a 6 month loan with the option to either extend the loan into next season or an option to buy. I’ve heard both of these being floated around. This deal is obviously an attempt at a short term fix. Higuain is 31 yrs old so he probably has a couple of years at a top level left in him but he’s not the striker of the future for this club, that’s still an issue that needs dealing with in the coming summer transfer window. But for now, landing Higuain is a good start, let’s hope that he can return to his form that we saw under Sarri at Napoli or his last 2 years at Juventus, and not this season in which he’s struggled at Milan. In the end it’s a real shame that Morata didn’t work out but once this deal is announced, likely tomorrow, it’s just a matter of time before Morata is out the door.
For what it’s worth, the first thing that always comes to mind with Higuain is the time he was playing for his home country of Argentina and Manuel Neuer bodied him in the World Cup final. I mean Higuain takes a knee straight to the head and gets rocked.