It doesn’t take a genius to see that Borussia Dortmund forward Erling Haaland is pretty good at football.
The Norwegian sensation, who has scored 29 goals in 27 appearances for Red Bull Salzburg, followed with 35 goals in his first 35 appearances in Germany. He scores goals in the league and in Europe. It is good.
Players of this kind of caliber will always be welcome at a club like Chelsea, who are reportedly willing to break their transfer records to sign Haaland over the summer, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the Blues should move for him.
Physically putting the ball in the net wasn’t the biggest problem for Chelsea. Offside forwards Olivier Giroud and Tammy Abraham have combined for 17 goals this season, while Timo Werner has scored nine, despite spending most of his time as a winger.
The art of the goal hasn’t been a major issue for Chelsea, who finished third in the Premier League scorecard last year and are currently tied at the same place.
The problem for Chelsea has been pretty much everything else.
Creating chances was not easy for the Blues. Neither of them won the midfield battle, and we don’t even need to waste our time talking about their constant defensive struggles. There are glaring holes in this Chelsea side, and spending £ 100million on Haaland won’t fix that.
Of course, Chelsea could score more goals, and that could lead to more wins, but the problems will remain the same. If you take a Chelsea striker out of the game, the Blues have nothing.
There’s reason to believe Chelsea will solve their creativity problem soon – Kai Havertz, Christian Pulisic, Hakim Ziyech, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Mason Mount are far too good for these issues to persist forever – but everything behind that front line. East so fragile.
Central midfielders like Jorginho and Mateo Kovacic have been exposed too many times leading to more problems in defense. It can’t be denied that Chelsea are better at the back this year, but things are still not going well.
Goalkeeper Edouard Mendy appears deadly again after an electric start to the season, while center-back duo Thiago Silva and Kurt Zouma have both positives and negatives. Off wide, Ben Chilwell and Reece James impressed, but both could do more defensively.
If we inject £ 100million into this team to level them up, that money just can’t be spent on offense.
As Frank Lampard has always said, Chelsea’s offensive pieces just need time to gel and figure things out. You won’t find a lot of people who don’t think the Blues have the potential to be the most exciting attack in the league. The talent is there.
Instead of throwing another costly cog into the already broken machine, Chelsea must tackle the problems on the other end of the pitch.
Chelsea appear to be aware of the need to get back on the defensive. West Ham’s Declan Rice has been at the top of the list for some time, while RB Leipzig center-back Dayot Upamecano and AC Milan goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma have also been discussed.
Whether these are specific goals or not, Chelsea must follow this plan. If that means Haaland is going elsewhere, so be it. Watching him score goals for someone else will be a lot less painful than pulling his hair out during another defensive disaster.
This rebuilding has been too difficult for Chelsea to continue blurring their priorities. It’s time to put the record straight and say goodbye to Haaland.
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