Goals for both clubs

It has often been said that football is a simple game made complicated by managers.  At the most basic level, football is a game played by a group of 11 players against an opposing 11 players where the primary goal of both teams is to get a round ball between the opposition’s goal posts.

During the latest English Premier League transfer seasons, we’ve witnessed the priority that all managers place on acquiring and retaining football players whose ultimate skill is to get that round ball over the opposition’s goal line.

Before the season began, the longest serving EPL manager, Alex Ferguson, successfully acquired the services of the young Mexican striker Hernandez and kept Rooney in his squad.  We also remember that it was just last season when the Manchester United manager spent a large fortune in order to have Berbatov play in the red half of Manchester.  It is no surprise that United are top of the EPL table then, they have refreshed their squad with new goalscorers who have done what they were bought to do... Score goals.

The January transfer window has now seen players such as Carew, Gudjohnson, Bent, Martins all change clubs in an effort to provide the buying clubs with the most treasured of football skills – Goals.

It is therefore no surprise that two of the biggest EPL clubs spent the larger part of yesterday finalising a deal that saw both clubs strengthen their strikeforce department.  Liverpool and Chelsea have much in common this season and the deals that saw Torres go to Chelsea and Suarez + Carroll arrive at Anfield surprisingly can be seen as good news for both clubs.

Both Chelsea and Liverpool are in severe slumps.  Both slumps are due in part to the loss, for sizeable parts of the current season, of a great attacking midfielders (Lampard for Chelsea, and Gerrard for Liverpool).  The loss of these integral players has seen a decline for both clubs in goals, and in the words of so many armchair critics, if you can’t score goals, you can’t win matches.

To remedy the situation, Chelsea raided the paper thin strikeforce of Liverpool and took one of Anfield’s most prize possessions Fernando Torres to Chelsea.  Consider these stats:  Torres has scored 81 goals in 142 appearances for Liverpool.  The fee of 50 million pounds may seem steep for a player that has only scored 9 goals in 26 goals in the current season, but such a negative outlook has a major flaw in that it overlooks the fact that in the last season of 2009/10 Torres hammered in 22 goals in 32 games when he missed portions of the season through injury.

The acquisition by Chelsea of Torres will see the Spaniard pair up with the Ivorian Didier Drogba, who is quite possibly the best striker in European football in recent years.  Drogba’s goal ratio for the Blues is eye-popping.  In 286 games, the strength of Drogba has seen him score 141 goals for Chelsea in all competitions.  Can Drogba and Torres co-exist on the same team?  And what role, if any, is there for Nicolas Anelka whose 13 goals this season is more than both the Ivorian and the Spaniard? 

Perhaps the answer to these questions lies with Drogba getting to the twilight of his football career and a recent statement by Chelsea’s Frank Lampard.  For many years the elephant in the figurative room has been how will the Blues replace Drogba...  In acquiring a 27 year old Torres who should have his prime footballing years ahead of him, the Chelsea management seem to have emphatically answered that question.  So what now?  If Torres is to be Drogba’s ultimate replacement, then what happens in the years before Drogba’s eventual departure from the Bridge?

Going back to Lampard’s statement where he said that he will never be the same player after suffering a sever groin injury, the move by Chelsea to acquire Torres and pair him with Drogba takes us back to the most fundamental objective of a football team to score goals.  If Lampard, who has scored 103 goals in 161 games for Chelsea is not going to be the same player anymore, then clearly the goals that he provided the side in the past needs to come from other avenues, maybe even a Spaniard avenue.

It seems that as Chelsea have slowly drifted into crisis mode during this recent slump that their Italian manager Ancelotti has gone back to his Milan roots.  At Milan, the Italian manager often employed a flexible 4-4-2 diamond that morphed into a 4-3-3 at times.  The Torres signing could see Ancelotti use this formation at Chelsea with Anelka/Malouda, Drogba and Torres forming a deadly front three and being supported by a midfield of Lampard, Essien and Mikel/Ramires/Zhirkov.

Recent times have seen the rare sight of Drogba sitting on the bench at the start of matches.  Whether this is due to lack of form or the draining effects of his recent malaria infection is an answer that can only be answered by the Chelsea management.  Drogba has recently found his scoring touch oncemore and there have been signs that Torres too has regained the competitive fire that so suited his El Nino nickname.  What the future holds for the Blues is unknown, but what is known is that for now, Chelsea will have the most feared attacking strikeforce in the footballing world, and this should see many round balls crossing opposition’s goal lines.

At Anfield, the acquisitions of Suarez and Carroll fall in the shadow of the departure of the ex-Liverpool favourite Torres, but fans of the Reds should not be disheartened.  Although losing a world class player such as Torres should negatively affect any top flight club, Dalglish and the Liverpool management have done a remarkable job in negating the loss of the Spaniard.  The prices may have steep, but take heed of these goalscoring stats.  The Uraguayan Suarez has scored an incredible 111 goals in 159 appearances for Ajax Amsterdam and though he is more well known for “that hand ball”, Suarez is a goal poacher who will surprise many EPL fans in years to come. 

During his successful managerial career at Blackburn Rovers, Dalglish employed a standard 4-4-2 formation and paired two lethal strikers together (Sutton & Shearer), which eventually resulted in a Premier League trophy being deliver to the Ewood Park trophy cabinet.  The next few months will show us whether Carroll and Suarez can form a similar striking partnership although all the signs are there that their playing together should be successful for the Reds.  Similiar to Sutton, Carroll is a tall centre forward who has the ability to score the ugly goals.  The additional attributes of energy, competitiveness and work-rate that the young Carroll possesses will surely see him as a regular 20 goal a season striker during his time at Anfield.  Carroll already has 11 goals in 19 games this season.

What Liverpool fans will have to digest over the next few weeks and months is whether anyone in their side can provide goals on a scale of a Shearer...  For now though, it appears that Liverpool may not need such a player as the recent spike in the form of Gerrard (8 goals in 19 games this year) and the clear natural ability of Suarez to score goals on a consistent basis is sure to see Liverpool continue to climb the league table despite a Champions League place been out of their reach for this season.  The tandem of Carroll and Suarez should see the Reds compete for Champions League positions for years to come...  Whether the tandem can bring the much sought after League trophy to Liverpool is doubtful for now, but similarities between the League winning strike pair of Sutton and Shearer is immediately apparent.

Yesterday’s transfer developments will have many consequences.  Fans have already begun to burn Torres shirts and Newcastle fans will call for owner Mike Ashley’s head, but what should not be overlooked by both Liverpool and Chelsea fans is that the most sour and glum faces on this Tuesday morning will not be the faces of fans of these clubs, rather when the EPL games kick-off tonight and tomorrow evening, it will be clear by looking at the reactions of the 18 managers of the other clubs in the EPL that both Liverpool and Chelsea have swung deals that show their intent to fill their trophy cabinets and fill opposition goal nets.