tbf he was already past his prime by the time he went to Chelsea. Eversince his knee surgeries and especially after his injury in the WC final he was never the same.
It was strange seeing Torres' rapid decline in those years - maybe only Rooney's comes close in my mind in terms of its steepness. But I do have a nice memory of going to watch Chelsea v Norwich at Stamford bridge in (I think) his second season. We had decent seats close to the pitch, and I recall me and my mates just amazed at his technique on the ball and the quickness of his feet. Even in that slightly sad post-peak era of his career, it was a pleasure to watch him play up close
Me as long time Chelsea fan, I always firmly believe that the strikers at Chelsea were never the problem, it's always been the lack of support from their midfielders. Diego Costa had Cesc Fabregas and Didier Drogba had Frank Lampard.
That was always the problem. They never had a really good creative midfielder like other teams. I know lampard and matta was good but they weren’t consistent.
You're right. Our problems are not the strickers but rather the midfield and constant back passing. GP had brentford playing attacking football..but with Chelsea we are back to our old ways. Very disappointing. The coach should pick the right players and drop sterling.
We literally had Tammy and sold him… like wtf. He was young, strong, driven, home grown, PRODUCED RESULTS. I love this club the decisions we make sometimes is dumbfounding
come on man, tammy was far from strong, he cant properly do a hold up play against any cb in the league, he isnt bad but for a big team like chelsea, we want more and thats it, tammy is good but not someone we should be relying on as a starting centre forward on our club. we just want more
On the final bit- Auba is a deadline day signing, but he's one that we've been trying for since the beginning of August. Not particularly last minute but I get how it looks that way.
Been watching these videos with my girlfriend to try and get her into football! She’s growing more interested and she really enjoys your videos, please keep it up!
The Torres one was so weird 😭 He was literally one of the Best Strikers in the League when he was at Liverpool. Expected him to bang in the Goals at Chelsea but it just never happened. Instead he was creating his own Top 20 for worst misses 😭 Let's see how Auba does 👀 I think he'll get the goals for them.
Aw man great memories of 2011 there Tinashe! I remember the joke at the time was that Mohamed Al Fayed had just spent £10m on a statue of Michael Jackson outside Craven Cottage, but Roman Abramovich wasn't to be out done, so he spent £50m on a statue of Fernando Torres in the 6 yard box! Man, the old ones are the best hahaha!
They still have some creative players: Sterling, Pulisic, Ziyech, Mount, Havertz, even James and Chilwell. The problem is the system that Tuchel uses. Tuchel prioritizes not conceding over attacking football. Unfortunately this isn't even working, Chelsea are still conceding a lot of goals while being ineffective in attack. He should switch to a 4-2-3-1, similar to what Ten Hag is using at Manchester United.
@@TVChannel350 Yeah I honestly don't get it. I'm neutral in regards to Potter, he has done a good job at Brighton but like you said, he uses a similar system to Tuchel. If he uses a similar system and the players start performing then we can conclude that the issue was Tuchel and not really the system. Time will tell.
It was strange seeing Torres' rapid decline in those years - maybe only Rooney's comes close in my mind in terms of its steepness. But I do have a nice memory of going to watch Chelsea v Norwich at Stamford bridge in (I think) his second season. We had decent seats close to the pitch, and I recall me and my mates just amazed at his technique on the ball and the quickness of his feet. Even in that slightly sad post-peak era of his career, it was a pleasure to watch him play up close
I think you missed out an important reasoning behind this curse. Chelsea are in some ways indebted and cursed by the shadow of Drogba. Drogba was not a typical striker who scores goals, he was a physical player who pushed the ball forward and brings teammates to the attack. This is always how Chelsea have played at their attacking best. Costa worked out well for Chelsea because he played the same way. But you cannot take a goal scoring forward like Torres and expect him to play like Drogba. Chelsea always tries to buy the most expensive forwards but they will never work under Chelsea's defensive minded philosophy.
I think you are mostly right, Mourinho did set the whole Chelsea blueprint for the Roman ownership. But I don't think it's due to a defensive mindset, but more making use of the creative players in our team. Think first, Lampard, Robben, Joe Cole, Wright-Phillips, Essien even. Then you had Hazard, Schurle, Mata, Oscar.
The Drogba curse is real lol. It’s always funny to me how people insist that Chelsea was a defensive team/club. Honestly, it’s not uncommon to use the CF mainly for link-up play and hold-up play creating chances for the wingers or the AM. Real Madrid and Bayern employs this system sometimes nowadays where the winger is the main man. Only, when Real or Bayern or Barca does it, it’s called innovative. When Chelsea did it, it’s called defensive. What’s so innovative if Chelsea has done it years ago? At the time Drogba was playing, Chelsea had world-class wingers like Robben, Duff and Cole. All of them are creative and are capable of finishing on their own. Not to mention the Drogba-Lampard duo. Even with this, Drogba had some decent goals himself. Goals were coming from everywhere in Chelsea. I don’t know why Chelsea fans just take this “defensive” shit. You don’t get to dominate the league by being defensive.
Man, I still remember the season where the great Sheva flopped, and I thought to myself, maybe they’ll find another quality striker that is better, or at least on par with Drogba’s calibre. Little did I know, I was watching the beginning of a ‘curse’.
Torres had a team playing for him at Liverpool. Steven Gerrard starts the attack & El Nino was the focal point in the team. World class at that stage. Since Abramovich came at Chelsea there are always world class midfielders & wingers who can create & finish goals on their own which limits the strikers service. Torres even once complained that Chelsea midfielders did not pass him often.
I feel like something you missed, which is very important to mention is how the striker role got established at the start of the Abramovic era. TL:DR = Mou established the striker position as winning games/trophies over scoring lots of goals to make the most of Lampard and our wingers. This then set in place the team building we would use for the next 15 years. We brought Drogba in, but we never played him as a stat padding striker, he was always used as a utility striker, providing for others and scoring important goals. This is due to Mou saying you to him 'you can be a king somewhere else and score lots of goals, or you can be a legend here and win trophies' (paraphrased, as I couldn't remember the quote). This in turn meant we always structured our teams around our creative players to score and the striker to be more of a utility player who won't score many goals. This is why Costa done so well, Conte played a very different style of football than we normally played and this allowed Costa to be more of a number 9, but obviously this hampered people like Willian, Hazard, Pedro, etc. This is the issue Tuchel has now, he done well to relate back to Chelsea's history and use Havertz as a utility striker, which won us the champs, but we don't really have the creative players to make the best use of that sort of player.
I really like how you present all the different cases and in general the narrative that you use in your videos, it would be really nice if you add a conclusion part at the end of your videos when you try to explore why this is actually happening to have a more complete view of the problem, anyway, nice job man!
Thanks man! I actually did have a conclusion to this one pertaining to Chelsea's playstyle over the past few years not favoring #9s . But it didn't make much sense after the Aubameyang signing haha
I think you can make an entire video about Alvaro Morata's carrer he played for so many top clubs and has failed to impress at any of them. Was he ever even the top player people thought he was?
I started getting into football in 2011, after I had been playing PES 2010 for a while. I had never been interested in football before but that game was so fun, and the main thing I remember was the intro, with Messi and Fernando Torres. The guy looked so cool. Then when I heard Torres was in Chelsea, and he was having a bad time, I started watching every Chelsea game just hoping that El Niño would score. He never got his form back, but at least he made some important contributions in the UCL and Europa League, and I'm still following Chelsea to this day.
2 main reasons why , We buy strikers that don’t suit our system for example lukaku and Werner flourish in counter attack systems and we play more of a possession based football and second reason is we don’t create a high volume of chances for our strikers so we expect strikers to score with every chance therefore when a player misses a chance it ruins their confidence cuz they don’t get an opportunity to get another chance
@@tompale Werner In the bundesliga was the exact same he was never the clinical striker he’s more of a striker who always needed high volume chances created for him to score
You know when Football Iconic uses "Oof" we are in for one hell of a ride. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Eiður Guðjohnsen still my favorite Chelsea strikers.
For every Drogba, there are five Kezmans... for every Costa, there are five Moratas... as a lifelong Chelsea fan, it's tough consistently not having a good frontman... I'm just hoping Aube can re-ignite his form with us (but I am tentative in saying that).
Never took note of this curse lol. Great work bruv. Problem could be that they sign strikers based on goals n not the ryt style of play. Conte and Costa are a perfect example
Most of Chelsea forwards were really bad but there’s a main thing that people don’t touch on and that’s the supply. Chelsea have lacked a creative midfielder since Fabregas left and it’s no coincidence that the last couple times we won the premier league was when Fabregas was part of the team putting up a huge amount of assists. We also had players like Hazard, William, Pedro who were all brilliant on the ball and were great passers as well.
Thank you, finally somebody else sees it. That absence of a creative spark in midfield was even more evidence last season when good passing options opened up bur Mount and co never made that pass. We don't have that player who will try something in the middle of the park for us.
This is strange because there are so many creative midfielders that Chelsea could have went for this summer. Lucas Paqueta, Bernardo Silva, Gavi, Ruben Neves, Pedro Goncalves, Renato Sanches, Houssem Aouar, Maxence Caqueret, Marcos Antonio, Davide Frattesi, Youri Tielemans, the list goes on and on. Instead chelsea spends 85m on Fofana after already buying Koulibaly, sends almost 200 million worth of strikers on loan, sign a past-it Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, and continue to persist with a negative 3-4-3 system despite having one of the best squads in the entire league
@@symptomofsouls I don’t think city would sell Bernardo Silva to Chelsea or anyone in the league but you’re making fair points. I think everyone who watched Chelsea since Tuchel arrived would say that we lack creativity in the midfield. All of the other teams in the top 6 have some sort of creative player that can make a progressive, penetrating pass except Chelsea. The amount of times last season and the season before we had opportunities to play in our attacking players we didn’t either because the current players don’t have the capabilities to do so or they are downright scared to take a risk. We miss Fabregas so much.
@@iamwahman that’s very true. I vividly remember the first time we played City last season and Lukaku was waiting for the ball and hakim completely scuffed it. I was raging lol
I wished this video was more detailed in terms WHY do strikers struggle at Chelsea? Is it constant change of tactical system due to Chelsea constantly changing its coaches, which almost all use different tactics? Or is it just hard for them to bond with coach and the rest of the team?
Shitty scouting, poor player identification, poor tactics to suit most of them, toxic fan culture, and a changing of managers fairly consistently doesn’t help. The guy didn’t do a good job at all explaining. I could literally run through any one you can name and give a tactical reason. Curses aren’t real.
@@xavier1752 With Lukaku I kinda already know, I watched some of tactical explanations how Conte used him and what Tuchel wanted from him? What about Torres, Morata, Higuain and Werner?
Yeah that Gary Nevile noise was epic. Glad you highlighted that and the bit when Torres went up and looked at the Barca fans after he scored was also good.
Fernando Torres at LFC 🔥🙌🏽... My god, were those some memorable seasons... That Stevie G/ Fernando connection, coupled with the criminally underated skill of Dirk Kuyt🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽 Glorious to watch...
Been a Blues fan for 20years, and here's how I see it. 01. Mutu - Did okay but his off-field problems were wayyy tooo much. 02. Crespo - Did kinda okay but never really settled in England. 03. Drogba - Chelsea's goat striker, of course. 04. Kezman - Ohhh don't even start lmao 05. Shevchenko - Looked so out of place in PL. Could see his qualities in some of the goals he scored at Chelsea but simply a disastrous signing. 06. Anelka - A lowkey signing that turned out to be really really good. 07. Sturridge - He wasn't bad at all but never really got the chance, I guess. 08. Torres - I had a feeling that he was gonna be a flop because since 2010, he hadn't really been the same. Liverpool cashed in on him. 09. Eto'o - Not too bad considering he was a very short-term signing. Did better than most others. 10. Demba Ba - Never really got the chance, I guess. 11. Diego Costa - He had that Drogba DNA. Absolute beast. Chelsea won 2 PLs in his three years stint at the Bridge, so. 12. Remy - Another one who never really fit in. 13. Falcao - Ohh boy I don't know what to say. 14. Pato - Same as above 15. Batshuayi - He actually had a decent G/A contribution with the minutes he had. The problem was that the way he played on the pitch was just painful to watch. 16. Morata - Started out really well and then his misses were, unforgivable I would say? Lucky he was sold for a big fees. 17. Giroud - Now, this one also was a lowkey signing that really helped the club. His experience was a very important factor in their 2021 UCL triumph. 18. Higuain - Man turned up only once, against Huddersfield lol 19. Werner - Sighhh. He wasn't all bad but never found his feet in the Prem, I would say. His impact in UCL was actually really good. 12 G/A in 12 games time. Glad he went back to RBL. 20. Lukaku - Another terrible signing that lots of fans didn't want. We knew how it was gonna turn out with that gigantic price tag on him. The management was horrible too. A complete waste of money. 21. Aubameyang - Well, let's just see.
I’ve seen a advanced stats split of Timo Werner games, there was a sample size of like 8-9 games where he played centrally in front 3, and spend most of his time between the goal posts, I think his record was like 6-7 goals in those games, problem is, you can’t play 3 CB’s, midfield 3, and front 3 at the same time, considering Chelsea won UCL and denied City, it was the right call, but one has to wonder if they went back 4, midfield 3 and front 3 and really used the glut of forwards properly, how their numbers and record might look like…..
No curse, we've just bought bad players many times: Shevchenko (owner's vanity buy), Torres (dunno why he flopped honestly), Sturridge (not good enough), Pato (really stupid purchase), Falcao (he was finished already), Morata (mentally weak), Werner (bad accuracy) and Lukaku (worst of them all). We've had some effective strikers besides Costa and Drogba, for example Anelka, Giroud and to some extent Abraham, despite his limitations. Marina and our previous scouting team did some good deals but also did many terrible ones, hopefully we fix that in our new regime.
ur clueless werner and lukaku were only bad due to the systems if anything chelsea r to blame themselves for poor recruiting timo n lukaku r counter attacking players.they got their best numbers from a counter attacking system but sadly chelsea play possesion based football
Your videos are very fun, entertaining, and also very educative. It seems like watching a story about football talent. 😀 And it helps to disconnect a lot at nights. Keep it up Football Iconic. I will see what's struggling with Chelsea strikers as the title says :)
Tinashe's great honetly. Like his editing style, his jokes get me for the most time and and his voice is soothing. And of course the most important part, he is a damn good researcher. Props to him for not trying to be another Tifo copycat.
No mention on Mutu he started amazing.. Torres scored 22-23 goals in on season. Mostly in europe.. Huguain came from juve after beeing having back injuriy and he did not bad scored beautiful goals
I might take an unpopular opinion from Irish Guy: Chelsea gave up too early on Lukaku last season. My headcanon would be that if Chelsea banned Lukaku to return to Inter, Lukaku himself would improve in chelsea's ground...Idk maybe to pipe out his griefs(?) But this isnt baseless trend.. take a look at Suarez or Kane in 2013 and 2021 respectively. Both are rebelling their club, yet they stay and came back with outrageous performance.
I'm on the same take as you see. Yes the interview did not do him any favours but there is just too much talent there for us to just let go without trying to get the most out of him.
I think this is a testimony to Chelsea's style of football. They were never known for being agressive (that would be ManU and City) They have been consistently, since the arrival of Jose Mourinho, a defensive squad. Playing rough, relying on genius' strokes, counterattacks, and longshots to score, and in a solid defense and great goalkeepers to win matches and titles. And even though I don't like them at all, I can respect them for being loyal to their identity.
Yeah the striker Chelsea should have bought/look into are the ones who can finish off the rare chances they've been given which is what they haven't done in a while (Probably why Diego Costa fits them well as he is a great finisher at that point in his career and also played for a Simeone side who relies on counter attacks and good finishing from their attackers to win games).
It’s funny how much money lukaku cost Chelsea overall. The fact they sold him then tried to buy him but had to go buy morata for 60million because they couldn’t get him then spent all that money on Werner and others to get their striker. Then they finally get lukaku back for 97million just to send him back on loan. Shambles!
Amazing video as always! It would be interesting if you made another video about United, now that they have won three game in a row, including against Liverpool.
You have a fair point throughout, and it fully remains to be seen if Auba will confirm or contrast this hex. Personally, I was expecting Werner to break the proposed curse, and yet he succumbed and was consumed by it, Havertz seems to be going the same way. If I was a betting man, Id say Aubameyang..... will need some gypsy magic support. Maybe some Chelsea pensioners in their red coats and medals can do a march or something to break it, otherwise Pierre-Emerick will also be rickety in front of goal
The system utilized at Chelsea doesn’t help the strikers. All of them that have played there are poachers and need service. Other than Hazard and Lampard not one payer there can give proper passes that open up defenses for the striker. Drogba was a freak with how strong and powerful he was. Costa was really good and strong as well and was playing with Hazard. Torres relied on his explosiveness just like Pato who both lost a step because of injuries. Combine that with the defensive style they play there and it is a recipe for disaster. Lukaku is a great player. He has done great in England for other teams as well as Italy so his quality shouldn’t be questioned. Both the players and managers need to be flexible and in his case neither were. Honestly Tuchel in my opinion is a fraud. A more scared version of Mourinho. At least Mourinho wasn’t so scared to play with 5 defenders…
I wouldn't call Tuchel a fraud but I do think he's slowly losing his touch. I hope he'll rebound but frankly I won't count on it, he needs a break I think. Maybe we can bring Marco Rose in? Just someone that's not Pochettino.
Pierre Emerick is similar to Wesley fofana- we’ve been working them for months, deals just happened to be made now. Zakaria though… let’s just say that I’m glad that Boehly has this much money to throw around, because these budget breakers end up just breaking my heart every season
12:09 I, as a man who frequently tried to play combinations with the trampoline in our back yard, can confirm, that a trampoline in fact has no good first touch. Mine's still worse tho
Chelsea stirker curse for me is because of the levels of expectations everyone has for the player when he first signs and also Chelsea lack of planing of the right player to the right system
It's the number 9 shirt. Both Drogba and Costa did their incredible things not in that shirt number. Now since Auba is given that shirt number, I thing we can maybe expect something similar.
I'm a Chelsea fan and I loved watching Torres play. He always worked so hard and never ever gave up. He had a few amazing moments too. I'd also say it's unfair to include Kalou on this list. He was never our striker. And he played more than his part in Chelsea's success
I feel that of all positions, strikers need to get into a “rhythm”. Due to the constant chopping and changing of squads it makes it difficult for strikers to get into form
Hey man, lovely video and great channel. Keep up the good work. When are you going to talk about Kevin de bruyne man. He's arguably the greatest midfielder In the premier League. I mean look at that assist for haaland against villa. My Word.
because they always sign strikers that don't suit the manager... or the other way around. Werner only fit for 2 striker formation, he and Lukaku are the same type of striker : making runs behind defender. The problem is the people behind their scouting and transfers.
I'd argue Abraham (sorta-kinda-but not really) broke the curse. But what happened to him? Oh, wait. Chelsea sold him!
I think he was talking about signed players
i don’t know if you did or not, but leading up to Tammy’s exit, he was dreadful in games like he couldn’t even trap a ball
Tuchel*
@@TUF68 He got a goal contribution in almost every game he starts, not too bad imo
Only chelsea will know how bad he started playing before he was sold.
Diego Costa was arguably their best number 9 in recent memories, but we all know he was a prick 😂
Believe me, us Arsenal fans know about him 😭 Our worst nightmare when he was around.
For us Chelsea fans he was a beautiful prick
Diego Costa played with the number 19. Number 9 shirt is cursed.
He's a prick but he's OUR prick
Yep.
Fernando Torres at chelsea was so sad as a liverpool fan, seeing him not on form was so different
tbf he was already past his prime by the time he went to Chelsea. Eversince his knee surgeries and especially after his injury in the WC final he was never the same.
@@bluepearl_22 nah, by the end of that season he. was good for liverpool
@@bluepearl_22 True.
It was strange seeing Torres' rapid decline in those years - maybe only Rooney's comes close in my mind in terms of its steepness. But I do have a nice memory of going to watch Chelsea v Norwich at Stamford bridge in (I think) his second season. We had decent seats close to the pitch, and I recall me and my mates just amazed at his technique on the ball and the quickness of his feet. Even in that slightly sad post-peak era of his career, it was a pleasure to watch him play up close
Ruined by Liverpool and Spain by overuse. He was damaged goods by the time he came.
Me as long time Chelsea fan, I always firmly believe that the strikers at Chelsea were never the problem, it's always been the lack of support from their midfielders. Diego Costa had Cesc Fabregas and Didier Drogba had Frank Lampard.
Speaker of truth ☝🏻
That's right. 👌
That was always the problem. They never had a really good creative midfielder like other teams. I know lampard and matta was good but they weren’t consistent.
You're right. Our problems are not the strickers but rather the midfield and constant back passing. GP had brentford playing attacking football..but with Chelsea we are back to our old ways. Very disappointing. The coach should pick the right players and drop sterling.
Fábregas couldn't help Morata, Falcao or Higuain
We literally had Tammy and sold him… like wtf. He was young, strong, driven, home grown, PRODUCED RESULTS. I love this club the decisions we make sometimes is dumbfounding
Tammy has an egregious first touch, poor aerial ability, and poor movement in the box.
Under Mourinho, he has improved
@. Just like lakaka then
@@faded9621 i would re-buy him to chelsea, when auba is finished
come on man, tammy was far from strong, he cant properly do a hold up play against any cb in the league, he isnt bad but for a big team like chelsea, we want more and thats it, tammy is good but not someone we should be relying on as a starting centre forward on our club. we just want more
On the final bit- Auba is a deadline day signing, but he's one that we've been trying for since the beginning of August. Not particularly last minute but I get how it looks that way.
Fair enough!
It IS a last minute buy, what it ISN’T is what we Gunners are famous for, a panic buy.
Yeah, Utd fans said that about Anthony and Casimero as well 😂
@@ArsenalGunners89 I wouldn’t call Jesus and Zinchenko panic buys
@@StoutProper he didnt say "Arsenal panic buyed this trnf.season"...pls read again his comment.
Been watching these videos with my girlfriend to try and get her into football! She’s growing more interested and she really enjoys your videos, please keep it up!
For the culture 😎
Baller
You're a real one, man!
Lol
Doing gods work
The Torres one was so weird 😭 He was literally one of the Best Strikers in the League when he was at Liverpool. Expected him to bang in the Goals at Chelsea but it just never happened. Instead he was creating his own Top 20 for worst misses 😭 Let's see how Auba does 👀 I think he'll get the goals for them.
Still one of the greatest deals liverpool ever pulled. Completely swindled chelsea.
He was pretty crap for Liverpool for a while before that transfer though
@@hnz5404 they also got swindled hard by andy carroll as well.
won the DROGBAAAAAAA corner tbf, and that barca goal
He got injured and lost his pace...he couldn't adapt to not having pace
That Gary Neville moment is my favorite moment of his whole career
My favourite moment's when he kissed Scholes.
Aw man great memories of 2011 there Tinashe!
I remember the joke at the time was that Mohamed Al Fayed had just spent £10m on a statue of Michael Jackson outside Craven Cottage, but Roman Abramovich wasn't to be out done, so he spent £50m on a statue of Fernando Torres in the 6 yard box!
Man, the old ones are the best hahaha!
🤣
Fun fact: the number 9 curse had been there since Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink left Chelsea in 2004
Yep
I still remember fawning over Crespo
Chelsea: We need a striker!
Chelsea: Proceeds to sell strikers
Also Chelsea: Lacks creative players or attacking style to help strikers score.
They still have some creative players: Sterling, Pulisic, Ziyech, Mount, Havertz, even James and Chilwell. The problem is the system that Tuchel uses. Tuchel prioritizes not conceding over attacking football. Unfortunately this isn't even working, Chelsea are still conceding a lot of goals while being ineffective in attack. He should switch to a 4-2-3-1, similar to what Ten Hag is using at Manchester United.
@@kirapoodle Well this didn’t age well. Tuchel got sacked and now Chelsea are linked to Potter, who uses a similar system.
@@TVChannel350 Yeah I honestly don't get it. I'm neutral in regards to Potter, he has done a good job at Brighton but like you said, he uses a similar system to Tuchel. If he uses a similar system and the players start performing then we can conclude that the issue was Tuchel and not really the system. Time will tell.
It was strange seeing Torres' rapid decline in those years - maybe only Rooney's comes close in my mind in terms of its steepness. But I do have a nice memory of going to watch Chelsea v Norwich at Stamford bridge in (I think) his second season. We had decent seats close to the pitch, and I recall me and my mates just amazed at his technique on the ball and the quickness of his feet. Even in that slightly sad post-peak era of his career, it was a pleasure to watch him play up close
I think you missed out an important reasoning behind this curse. Chelsea are in some ways indebted and cursed by the shadow of Drogba. Drogba was not a typical striker who scores goals, he was a physical player who pushed the ball forward and brings teammates to the attack. This is always how Chelsea have played at their attacking best. Costa worked out well for Chelsea because he played the same way. But you cannot take a goal scoring forward like Torres and expect him to play like Drogba. Chelsea always tries to buy the most expensive forwards but they will never work under Chelsea's defensive minded philosophy.
I think you are mostly right, Mourinho did set the whole Chelsea blueprint for the Roman ownership. But I don't think it's due to a defensive mindset, but more making use of the creative players in our team.
Think first, Lampard, Robben, Joe Cole, Wright-Phillips, Essien even. Then you had Hazard, Schurle, Mata, Oscar.
@@joshbrown2217facts
The Drogba curse is real lol.
It’s always funny to me how people insist that Chelsea was a defensive team/club. Honestly, it’s not uncommon to use the CF mainly for link-up play and hold-up play creating chances for the wingers or the AM. Real Madrid and Bayern employs this system sometimes nowadays where the winger is the main man. Only, when Real or Bayern or Barca does it, it’s called innovative. When Chelsea did it, it’s called defensive. What’s so innovative if Chelsea has done it years ago? At the time Drogba was playing, Chelsea had world-class wingers like Robben, Duff and Cole. All of them are creative and are capable of finishing on their own. Not to mention the Drogba-Lampard duo. Even with this, Drogba had some decent goals himself. Goals were coming from everywhere in Chelsea. I don’t know why Chelsea fans just take this “defensive” shit. You don’t get to dominate the league by being defensive.
Man, I still remember the season where the great Sheva flopped, and I thought to myself, maybe they’ll find another quality striker that is better, or at least on par with Drogba’s calibre. Little did I know, I was watching the beginning of a ‘curse’.
I'm Watching From TEMA. Ghana West Africa. 🇬🇭
Best sports channel of all time.👑❤️💯
Torres had a team playing for him at Liverpool. Steven Gerrard starts the attack & El Nino was the focal point in the team. World class at that stage. Since Abramovich came at Chelsea there are always world class midfielders & wingers who can create & finish goals on their own which limits the strikers service. Torres even once complained that Chelsea midfielders did not pass him often.
I feel like something you missed, which is very important to mention is how the striker role got established at the start of the Abramovic era.
TL:DR = Mou established the striker position as winning games/trophies over scoring lots of goals to make the most of Lampard and our wingers. This then set in place the team building we would use for the next 15 years.
We brought Drogba in, but we never played him as a stat padding striker, he was always used as a utility striker, providing for others and scoring important goals. This is due to Mou saying you to him 'you can be a king somewhere else and score lots of goals, or you can be a legend here and win trophies' (paraphrased, as I couldn't remember the quote).
This in turn meant we always structured our teams around our creative players to score and the striker to be more of a utility player who won't score many goals.
This is why Costa done so well, Conte played a very different style of football than we normally played and this allowed Costa to be more of a number 9, but obviously this hampered people like Willian, Hazard, Pedro, etc.
This is the issue Tuchel has now, he done well to relate back to Chelsea's history and use Havertz as a utility striker, which won us the champs, but we don't really have the creative players to make the best use of that sort of player.
I really like how you present all the different cases and in general the narrative that you use in your videos, it would be really nice if you add a conclusion part at the end of your videos when you try to explore why this is actually happening to have a more complete view of the problem, anyway, nice job man!
Thanks man! I actually did have a conclusion to this one pertaining to Chelsea's playstyle over the past few years not favoring #9s . But it didn't make much sense after the Aubameyang signing haha
@@FootballIconic should have kept it in and made the edit about auba perhaps bucking the trend?
Some video ideas for you Iconic -
The fall of Bolton Wanderers
Daniel Sturridge’s Career
Preston North End and the first Invincibles
Thanks man!
Can u do a video where u do a deep dive into the midfield 3 of xavi, iniesta, and busquets plz
I think you can make an entire video about Alvaro Morata's carrer he played for so many top clubs and has failed to impress at any of them.
Was he ever even the top player people thought he was?
Morata scores loads of goals in just sure they are all in training no other way he get into all the teams he’s been at
That guy has the best marketing team behind him.
hes a quality allround player people only hate because they dont watch him
Morata is a money laundering chip
"promising player"
I started getting into football in 2011, after I had been playing PES 2010 for a while. I had never been interested in football before but that game was so fun, and the main thing I remember was the intro, with Messi and Fernando Torres. The guy looked so cool. Then when I heard Torres was in Chelsea, and he was having a bad time, I started watching every Chelsea game just hoping that El Niño would score. He never got his form back, but at least he made some important contributions in the UCL and Europa League, and I'm still following Chelsea to this day.
2 main reasons why ,
We buy strikers that don’t suit our system for example lukaku and Werner flourish in counter attack systems and we play more of a possession based football and second reason is we don’t create a high volume of chances for our strikers so we expect strikers to score with every chance therefore when a player misses a chance it ruins their confidence cuz they don’t get an opportunity to get another chance
But werner has so many clear chances that he misses
@@tompale Werner In the bundesliga was the exact same he was never the clinical striker he’s more of a striker who always needed high volume chances created for him to score
@@michaelkeitof4666 but he had many chances to score in peemier league, was offside all the time and terrible ball control
@@tompale dont get me wrong werner is still a poor footballer, he applies more to the first point i made of buying players that dont suit our system.
You know when Football Iconic uses "Oof" we are in for one hell of a ride. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Eiður Guðjohnsen still my favorite Chelsea strikers.
For every Drogba, there are five Kezmans... for every Costa, there are five Moratas... as a lifelong Chelsea fan, it's tough consistently not having a good frontman... I'm just hoping Aube can re-ignite his form with us (but I am tentative in saying that).
Never took note of this curse lol. Great work bruv. Problem could be that they sign strikers based on goals n not the ryt style of play. Conte and Costa are a perfect example
Most of Chelsea forwards were really bad but there’s a main thing that people don’t touch on and that’s the supply.
Chelsea have lacked a creative midfielder since Fabregas left and it’s no coincidence that the last couple times we won the premier league was when Fabregas was part of the team putting up a huge amount of assists. We also had players like Hazard, William, Pedro who were all brilliant on the ball and were great passers as well.
Thank you, finally somebody else sees it. That absence of a creative spark in midfield was even more evidence last season when good passing options opened up bur Mount and co never made that pass. We don't have that player who will try something in the middle of the park for us.
This is strange because there are so many creative midfielders that Chelsea could have went for this summer. Lucas Paqueta, Bernardo Silva, Gavi, Ruben Neves, Pedro Goncalves, Renato Sanches, Houssem Aouar, Maxence Caqueret, Marcos Antonio, Davide Frattesi, Youri Tielemans, the list goes on and on. Instead chelsea spends 85m on Fofana after already buying Koulibaly, sends almost 200 million worth of strikers on loan, sign a past-it Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, and continue to persist with a negative 3-4-3 system despite having one of the best squads in the entire league
@@symptomofsouls I don’t think city would sell Bernardo Silva to Chelsea or anyone in the league but you’re making fair points.
I think everyone who watched Chelsea since Tuchel arrived would say that we lack creativity in the midfield. All of the other teams in the top 6 have some sort of creative player that can make a progressive, penetrating pass except Chelsea. The amount of times last season and the season before we had opportunities to play in our attacking players we didn’t either because the current players don’t have the capabilities to do so or they are downright scared to take a risk.
We miss Fabregas so much.
@@iamwahman that’s very true. I vividly remember the first time we played City last season and Lukaku was waiting for the ball and hakim completely scuffed it. I was raging lol
Tbh I don't rate our scouts. I'm happy we are getting proper AI based scouting and building a team to TT's image.
They got cheap Salah and FDB to be fair to them.
TT is gone now🤣🤣👍
Ah yes, let's sign POTTER
That didn't last long
Another quality and well informed video 😎
I wished this video was more detailed in terms WHY do strikers struggle at Chelsea? Is it constant change of tactical system due to Chelsea constantly changing its coaches, which almost all use different tactics? Or is it just hard for them to bond with coach and the rest of the team?
Shitty scouting, poor player identification, poor tactics to suit most of them, toxic fan culture, and a changing of managers fairly consistently doesn’t help. The guy didn’t do a good job at all explaining. I could literally run through any one you can name and give a tactical reason. Curses aren’t real.
@@xavier1752 With Lukaku I kinda already know, I watched some of tactical explanations how Conte used him and what Tuchel wanted from him? What about Torres, Morata, Higuain and Werner?
Yeah that Gary Nevile noise was epic. Glad you highlighted that and the bit when Torres went up and looked at the Barca fans after he scored was also good.
Fernando Torres at LFC 🔥🙌🏽... My god, were those some memorable seasons... That Stevie G/ Fernando connection, coupled with the criminally underated skill of Dirk Kuyt🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽 Glorious to watch...
Been a Blues fan for 20years, and here's how I see it.
01. Mutu - Did okay but his off-field problems were wayyy tooo much.
02. Crespo - Did kinda okay but never really settled in England.
03. Drogba - Chelsea's goat striker, of course.
04. Kezman - Ohhh don't even start lmao
05. Shevchenko - Looked so out of place in PL. Could see his qualities in some of the goals he scored at Chelsea but simply a disastrous signing.
06. Anelka - A lowkey signing that turned out to be really really good.
07. Sturridge - He wasn't bad at all but never really got the chance, I guess.
08. Torres - I had a feeling that he was gonna be a flop because since 2010, he hadn't really been the same. Liverpool cashed in on him.
09. Eto'o - Not too bad considering he was a very short-term signing. Did better than most others.
10. Demba Ba - Never really got the chance, I guess.
11. Diego Costa - He had that Drogba DNA. Absolute beast. Chelsea won 2 PLs in his three years stint at the Bridge, so.
12. Remy - Another one who never really fit in.
13. Falcao - Ohh boy I don't know what to say.
14. Pato - Same as above
15. Batshuayi - He actually had a decent G/A contribution with the minutes he had. The problem was that the way he played on the pitch was just painful to watch.
16. Morata - Started out really well and then his misses were, unforgivable I would say? Lucky he was sold for a big fees.
17. Giroud - Now, this one also was a lowkey signing that really helped the club. His experience was a very important factor in their 2021 UCL triumph.
18. Higuain - Man turned up only once, against Huddersfield lol
19. Werner - Sighhh. He wasn't all bad but never found his feet in the Prem, I would say. His impact in UCL was actually really good. 12 G/A in 12 games time. Glad he went back to RBL.
20. Lukaku - Another terrible signing that lots of fans didn't want. We knew how it was gonna turn out with that gigantic price tag on him. The management was horrible too. A complete waste of money.
21. Aubameyang - Well, let's just see.
Shevchenko had a injury before being sold to Chelsea
Crespo simply wasn't fancied by Mourinho he liked the more physical Drogba
I’ve seen a advanced stats split of Timo Werner games, there was a sample size of like 8-9 games where he played centrally in front 3, and spend most of his time between the goal posts, I think his record was like 6-7 goals in those games, problem is, you can’t play 3 CB’s, midfield 3, and front 3 at the same time, considering Chelsea won UCL and denied City, it was the right call, but one has to wonder if they went back 4, midfield 3 and front 3 and really used the glut of forwards properly, how their numbers and record might look like…..
No curse, we've just bought bad players many times: Shevchenko (owner's vanity buy), Torres (dunno why he flopped honestly), Sturridge (not good enough), Pato (really stupid purchase), Falcao (he was finished already), Morata (mentally weak), Werner (bad accuracy) and Lukaku (worst of them all). We've had some effective strikers besides Costa and Drogba, for example Anelka, Giroud and to some extent Abraham, despite his limitations. Marina and our previous scouting team did some good deals but also did many terrible ones, hopefully we fix that in our new regime.
Why do people not know why torres flopped? He literally had a serious injury he never recovered from
ur clueless werner and lukaku were only bad due to the systems if anything chelsea r to blame themselves for poor recruiting timo n lukaku r counter attacking players.they got their best numbers from a counter attacking system but sadly chelsea play possesion based football
And now we have Auba as the 9, let’s only hope…
I would to see a prequel vid, focusing on strikers of the pre-Abramovich era, the likes of Flo, Jimmy-Floyd, etc.
Your videos are very fun, entertaining, and also very educative. It seems like watching a story about football talent. 😀 And it helps to disconnect a lot at nights. Keep it up Football Iconic. I will see what's struggling with Chelsea strikers as the title says :)
Tinashe's great honetly. Like his editing style, his jokes get me for the most time and and his voice is soothing. And of course the most important part, he is a damn good researcher. Props to him for not trying to be another Tifo copycat.
No mention on Mutu he started amazing.. Torres scored 22-23 goals in on season. Mostly in europe.. Huguain came from juve after beeing having back injuriy and he did not bad scored beautiful goals
I might take an unpopular opinion from Irish Guy: Chelsea gave up too early on Lukaku last season.
My headcanon would be that if Chelsea banned Lukaku to return to Inter, Lukaku himself would improve in chelsea's ground...Idk maybe to pipe out his griefs(?) But this isnt baseless trend..
take a look at Suarez or Kane in 2013 and 2021 respectively. Both are rebelling their club, yet they stay and came back with outrageous performance.
Issue is lukaku ruined any chance of staying by releasing that interview which essentially burned bridges between him and the club
I'm on the same take as you see. Yes the interview did not do him any favours but there is just too much talent there for us to just let go without trying to get the most out of him.
Lovely Video As Always, Keep Up The Good Work Man!
😀
You know Chelsea would have still qualified if Torres didn't score against Barca right? That goal was simply icing on the cake
Yep! Still a legendary moment. When the world knew for sure Barca were out
@@FootballIconic love your channel btw
@@jhonnybravo5284 no, Chelsea had the advantage anyway, Torres just killed the game
one thing u missed 15 goals of morata out of which most of them were from bench ...
Perfect timing my guy! Just Made my food and opend yt
This guy makes awesome videos. He’s become a must watch whenever he comes across my feed.
I think this is a testimony to Chelsea's style of football. They were never known for being agressive (that would be ManU and City) They have been consistently, since the arrival of Jose Mourinho, a defensive squad. Playing rough, relying on genius' strokes, counterattacks, and longshots to score, and in a solid defense and great goalkeepers to win matches and titles. And even though I don't like them at all, I can respect them for being loyal to their identity.
Yeah the striker Chelsea should have bought/look into are the ones who can finish off the rare chances they've been given which is what they haven't done in a while (Probably why Diego Costa fits them well as he is a great finisher at that point in his career and also played for a Simeone side who relies on counter attacks and good finishing from their attackers to win games).
Chelsea’s transfer policy is like throwing everything at the wall and see what sticks.
Exactly
love ur vids dude keep up the great work, you should make a video on world cup 2022 predictions for groups and knockouts, i'd love to see that!
It’s funny how much money lukaku cost Chelsea overall. The fact they sold him then tried to buy him but had to go buy morata for 60million because they couldn’t get him then spent all that money on Werner and others to get their striker. Then they finally get lukaku back for 97million just to send him back on loan. Shambles!
Amazing video as always! It would be interesting if you made another video about United, now that they have won three game in a row, including against Liverpool.
Remember back when i was watching every Chelsea just hope to see Torres score
Great content my guy!! Top tier stuff this
Oooh nice a new vid, ive been binging your videos
You have a fair point throughout, and it fully remains to be seen if Auba will confirm or contrast this hex. Personally, I was expecting Werner to break the proposed curse, and yet he succumbed and was consumed by it, Havertz seems to be going the same way. If I was a betting man, Id say Aubameyang..... will need some gypsy magic support. Maybe some Chelsea pensioners in their red coats and medals can do a march or something to break it, otherwise Pierre-Emerick will also be rickety in front of goal
that's a big oof in the last part. Cheers my guy, you now understand Xavi's feeling about Auba too.
This must be Drogba’s spirit looming over them
Auba is going to wear no. 9👀👀
We are finished
That bamyang Aresnal tattoo actually suits the blue top :D
The system utilized at Chelsea doesn’t help the strikers. All of them that have played there are poachers and need service. Other than Hazard and Lampard not one payer there can give proper passes that open up defenses for the striker. Drogba was a freak with how strong and powerful he was. Costa was really good and strong as well and was playing with Hazard. Torres relied on his explosiveness just like Pato who both lost a step because of injuries. Combine that with the defensive style they play there and it is a recipe for disaster. Lukaku is a great player. He has done great in England for other teams as well as Italy so his quality shouldn’t be questioned. Both the players and managers need to be flexible and in his case neither were. Honestly Tuchel in my opinion is a fraud. A more scared version of Mourinho. At least Mourinho wasn’t so scared to play with 5 defenders…
I wouldn't call Tuchel a fraud but I do think he's slowly losing his touch. I hope he'll rebound but frankly I won't count on it, he needs a break I think. Maybe we can bring Marco Rose in? Just someone that's not Pochettino.
@@FunkyGhostHD someone that's not pochettino🤣🤣🤣
Falco was injured the whole time and pato was finished before he came
The most bizar thing was.. Chelsea signed Khalid Boulahrouz back in 2006 as number 9. Surprisingly as defender he didn't score..
Your humour is always on point, amazing work🤣👍🏻
Drogba and Costa were lethal
@Football Iconic you have to make a video on Zidane's 3x UCL winning Madrid team
Interesting how this one dropped just days before the other Chelsea curse struck again.
Torres was incredible man 😭😭
The Diego Costa part is so funny 🤣😂😂😂...you are the best man
As always you are one of my favourite football youtubers ❤️ always bringing an entertaining information for us all
Pierre Emerick is similar to Wesley fofana- we’ve been working them for months, deals just happened to be made now. Zakaria though… let’s just say that I’m glad that Boehly has this much money to throw around, because these budget breakers end up just breaking my heart every season
12:09 I, as a man who frequently tried to play combinations with the trampoline in our back yard, can confirm, that a trampoline in fact has no good first touch.
Mine's still worse tho
Newish PL fan and needed this
Chelsea stirker curse for me is because of the levels of expectations everyone has for the player when he first signs and also Chelsea lack of planing of the right player to the right system
It's the number 9 shirt. Both Drogba and Costa did their incredible things not in that shirt number. Now since Auba is given that shirt number, I thing we can maybe expect something similar.
@@iamwahman I doubt dat but hopefully will work
@@iamwahman also drogba and Costa had no 11 and 19 respectively
@@theophilusagbator4994 I forgot to include their numbers but they both did their rad tingz without the no.9 shirt.
I'm a Chelsea fan and I loved watching Torres play. He always worked so hard and never ever gave up. He had a few amazing moments too. I'd also say it's unfair to include Kalou on this list. He was never our striker. And he played more than his part in Chelsea's success
Have you made a full video about Pedro? Amazing player, under-under-rated.
Shevchenko should’ve never left Milan. Bro was a beast
your videos are amazing and so detailed
You cold make a similar video about AC Milan nr9 curse. Spreading from Inzaghi to Giroud.
Diego Costa's case was really a sad one, Chelsea didn't get a good striker post that but for him it was even worse
and here we are tuchels gone after getting auba
I feel that of all positions, strikers need to get into a “rhythm”. Due to the constant chopping and changing of squads it makes it difficult for strikers to get into form
Yo bro awesome upload as always! I am a chelsea fan and I’ve been saying it for a while now, we could have R9 and he would still flop
Hey man, lovely video and great channel. Keep up the good work. When are you going to talk about Kevin de bruyne man. He's arguably the greatest midfielder In the premier League. I mean look at that assist for haaland against villa. My Word.
because they always sign strikers that don't suit the manager... or the other way around.
Werner only fit for 2 striker formation, he and Lukaku are the same type of striker : making runs behind defender.
The problem is the people behind their scouting and transfers.
Chelsea is a defensive team. Were not Real Madrid, we dont win like that but we do win. Reece James is World Class.
Demba Ba was amazing
1:26 I completely forgot those three played for Chelsea
9:43 because we had Marina Granovskaia back then
Auba is not necessarily a last minute signing though. As Chelsea has been negotiating that deal for a while. We'll see if it works out.
Abraham definitely could of broke the curse but we sold I hope they activate his buy back clause
Chelsea fans also remembers torres 9 goals in 11 matches when we won the european cup in 2013 and scored the opening goal in the final
Except for Jose & Carlo no other manager really played a Striker scoring focused tactics
Vidić held Torres to 3 goals in 15 matches, pretty fantastic for the GOAT PL CB
hey, can you please do a video of one of the greatest midfielders of all time, arguably (and is) the greatest midfielder of all time, Andres Inietsa??
Another great vid!
No.9 = Goals
If you’ve the jersey but don’t score them, you’re perceived as failing the team and that can be a lot of pressure for a player.
Problem with the Chelsea striker is they are cursed because they aren’t subscribed
Giroud was succesful I think, top scorer in EL and next year a perfect wildcard from the bench for UCL.
Can't believe you left out Giroud, man is a center forward, didn't wear the 9 jersey and had success at the bridge
The only reason that would make me say that Torres wasn't a flop is that goal against Barca