Samuel Eto’o is yet to put in a decent performance since arriving at Stamford Bridge in the summer and admits that he has been taken aback by the physical nature of English football, but will do his utmost to raise his level.
The Cameroon legend had previously worked with Jose Mourinho at Inter Milan and even though the manager recognises his forward isn’t at the level he was at during his days in Seria A and Barcelona, he wouldn’t have brought him to Chelsea for no reason and as a free transfer it was a low risk move to make.
In his three successive starts it was clear that although the movement was good and he was a little unlucky with the finishing at times, it looks quite easy to knock him off the ball which is a problem when you’re leading the line but he realises this and says he can adapt.
Eto’o told the Chelsea Magazine:
Already I have noticed that English football is very physical – more physical than other types of football.
“It hasn’t been too much time yet, so I need to continue working to make sure I keep improving my level. Every game here is important and I realise that – I have come here to enjoy playing for Chelsea and to enjoy the football. I go into every game with the same approach.
“It doesn’t matter where you put me, I will play football. My team-mates are helping me a lot and also the coaches, so I feel that I am settling into the team.”
Mourinho has faced a similar conundrum to a number of his predecessors at the club, how does one get the forwards to score goals?
Chelsea has spent a fortune on trying to remedy the issue as large sums of cash were invested in the likes of Juan Mata, Eden Hazard, Willian, Oscar and Andre Schurrle but creativity isn’t the issue. Nobody can quite put their finger on why the Blues’ forwards have struggled so much but we’re at a point in which they have run out of the excuses that have been made on their behalf and responsibility has to fall on their shoulders.
Fernando Torres was looking much brighter just ahead of his injury and even though Demba Ba didn’t manage to score at the weekend he still helped the team and made a nuisance of himself, which comes down to Mourinho’s coaching and he’ll hope that one of the three with soon fire on a consistent basis, but it’s more than likely the club will have to stop kidding themselves and sign a forward.
I’m starting to think that getting our strikers to score is not as important as all that. Dan Levine had a nice blog the other day about the strikers filling an important role regardless of their goal tally. Not being a football tactician, I kind of look at them as decoys. You can’t ignore them, and while the defense is marking the striker down low, the AM’s like Oscar, Mata, Hazard etc etc etc can find net from the edge of the box, or create some other havoc for the opponent. In any case, I’m no longer looking for a huge goal tally for our strikers. We just need to score more goals than our opponent, week in and week out. It doesn’t matter who gets them.
it is definitely important in games like those against the likes of man city, CL final, etc or any tight ones on the edge; it is good to have all team scoring, but in addition to the strikers doing it not instead of ..