Alvaro Morata endured another difficult night as he was sent off in Chelsea's FA Cup tie against Norwich.
With the help of Jamie Carragher, we explore the reasons for his dip in
form after such a strong start and why Chelsea supporters should keep
faith in the forward.
If there were doubts over the £75m fee that Chelsea paid for
Alvaro Morata, there was also excitement. "I had seen enough over the
years to know he was a good striker, albeit just below the absolute top
level of strikers in world football," Jamie Carragher tells
MNF Extra.
"But
there is a dearth of great ones in the game right now. That is why
Morata cost so much and that is why Chelsea got him. I felt this was a
move that would put him in that top bracket if he did as well as I
expected and he certainly started very well."
Morata scored six goals in his first six Premier League appearances
following his move from Real Madrid. Having scored his 40 career goals
in Serie A and La Liga at a rate of one every 127 minutes, this further
encouraged the idea that he just needed more time on the pitch.
But
Morata went off injured during the first half of Chelsea's home defeat
to Manchester City in the very next game and his record since then is
less impressive. The Spaniard has scored only four goals in his last 14
Premier League appearances for Antonio Conte's side.
He has been criticised for missing chances. Most notably, there were
three one-on-one opportunities spurned in the 2-2 draw with Arsenal at
the Emirates Stadium earlier this month. It was not the first time that
Morata's profligacy cost Chelsea points in a big game.
According
to Opta, the Chelsea striker has the worst big chance conversion rate of
the eight players to reach double figures for goals in the Premier
League this season. Alarmingly, he has scored only one of six such
opportunities in games against the top six teams.
"I have read
that he is a deep thinker about the game who gets frustrated, so perhaps
that is why he is snatching at chances," says Carragher. "He has
struggled in front of goal when he has had a bit too much time to think.
That is something that he has got to work on."
Conte himself has also expressed his concerns about Chelsea's record
in front of goal, understandably so given that no team has a better
defensive record. "We are not showing great quality in our finishing,"
he said recently. "This is the truth." But is it the whole truth?
As
well as being accused of missing too many chances, there are also
concerns that Morata does not get enough of them. Against Leicester last
time out, he did not have a single shot. It is not clear that Chelsea's
setup is designed to get the best out of their record signing.
Morata
has scored six headed goals this season - more than any other player in
the Premier League - but four of them came courtesy of Cesar
Azpilicueta. Chelsea do cross the ball but with Eden Hazard just off
Morata, Conte is now opting for a system without genuine width.
"The goals he has got this season show how good he is in the air and
Azpilicueta has been a revelation," says Carragher. "That is an added
bonus that Morata maybe would not normally be getting from a centre-back
stepping out. He has certainly gained from that.
"But when you
are playing three at the back you are not playing with wingers who you'd
think would naturally cross the ball. In Marcos Alonso and Victor Moses
they still have players who get to the byline but not as much as a
traditional wide-man would."
But perhaps the biggest problem for
Morata is not his finishing or the service. It is the fear that
extrapolating his scoring rate over a full season overlooked the strain
that those added minutes on the pitch would bring. The real concern now
is that Morata has hit the wall.
"I think it is a massive factor," says Carragher. "Normally he is
probably sunning himself somewhere in the winter break and that's a
problem. It's not just physical but the mental side too. He may be
mentally tired with this being his first year in the Premier League.
"When
you look at his career record, he has not played a great deal of
football really. At both Real Madrid and Juventus, he very rarely
completed the full 90 minutes in games so he is going to have to get
stronger the longer he is in the Premier League."
It is not just
that Morata has already played more minutes in the current campaign than
he has in any other season of his top-flight career. It is that he is
having to keep going for longer too. He has played 75 minutes or more in
15 of Chelsea's Premier League games.
He had never previously stayed on the pitch that long for more than
10 league games in a season and there are signs that managing that
workload is becoming trickier. The Premier League tracking data suggests
that Morata's physical output has dipped.
During those first six
games of the season, he was clocked as Chelsea's fastest player in three
of them but that has only happened twice in the 14 games since. He
averaged 59 sprints per 90 minutes in those early games but only 52
sprints per 90 minutes since then.
The indications are that he is
feeling the effects of playing so often. "He is someone who relies on
his sharpness," says Carragher. "He is not Diego Costa or Didier Drogba.
He does not have that physical frame that can put up with those knocks
every three days."
So what is the solution? Could Morata rediscover his best form when
used in rotation? Would holding him back for Chelsea's bigger games pay
off? "The problem that Chelsea have is that Conte has no faith
whatsoever in Michy Batshuayi," says Carragher.
"If he had a good
back-up striker then Morata could have been taken out of the firing line
and come back fresher for the next game. But Chelsea are so reliant on
him that when he is not there, they don't actually play with a striker,
they go to the false nine with Hazard."
Morata just needs support.
"I still think he is a very good player," adds Carragher. "There is no
doubt about his quality or his class. He made a great start and with the
quality of the players around him, he will come through this. Chelsea
should not lose faith too early."
