FRANKIE SAYS; "THIS JUAN DOES MATA! ... TO BOTH FERNANDO TORRES AND
CHELSEA’S HOPES OF REGAINING THE PREMIER LEAGUE..."
... and TIPPED FOR THE TOP - ANCELOTTI TO BE NEXT
ENGLAND BOSS?
Your latest Weekly Sport news commentaries direct from Frank Worrall
FINALLY, after a mish-mash of signings and a transfer policy with little obvious calculation or foresight, Chelsea buy a player who can seriously improve their team. Yes, Juan Mata is just the man they need and, even at £29million, could prove the essential catalyst to spark the brilliant but currently underachieving Fernando Torres into life.
Mata showed his potential when he came on as a sub at Stamford Bridge for the Blues last weekend, scoring a late goal to mark his debut, Of course, the former Valencia star was already on the radar as one to watch after his performances for the Spanish national team and Spain’s triumphant U21 side in the Euros just gone.
But it is the potential he brings to boost Torres that is the key to his signing for Chelsea. Both former manager Carlo Ancelotti and current incumbent Andre Villas-Boas have tried and failed to find a suitable foil for Fernando – Anelka, Drogba and Kalou have all been unsuccessful.
The answer was there all the time – and full credit to Villas-Boas for seeing it and seizing it. When at Liverpool, Torres functioned best when paired with Steven Gerrard directly behind him. Now he has the chance to replicate his most deadly form with a similar pairing – with Mata just behind him. And, of course, it will help that he is a fellow countryman, and someone who knows, and is clever enough a player to use that knowledge, just how Torres operates best.
Lumping Torres up front with another big man like Drogba was never going to work. It needed someone smaller and with more guile – a Spanish Gerard if you like, yes, a Juan Mata. As the Daily Mirror pointed out today, when Mata scored on Saturday he became the 26th Spaniard to do so in the Premier League since it formed, and those players have managed 232 goals between them. And guess who tops the pile with 66? Fernando Torres, of course…so the new partnership with Mata bodes extremely well for both Spaniards and Villas-Boas’s hopes of seeing out more than a season at the Bridge.
Other recent buys by the Blues leave me puzzled, though. Why spend £18million on Belgian wonderkid Romelu Lukaku when you have Torres there? At 18, Lukaku may one day be the new Drogba – but is he going to forge any better a partnership with Torres than Drogba did? And why is he needed if Mata is going to be the man who works with Torres? Unless the plan is to dispose of Torres within a season or two?
Too many questions and no answers…it just doesn’t make any real sense.
As neither does the signing of Barca reject Oriol Romeu, a defensive midfielder. OK, he is young and has potential, but would Barca have let him go if he was that good? And, assuming he is going to be that good, what’s the point of allowing the Spanish giants to have a buy-back clause inserted in the deal?
Barca get the best of both worlds – their player educated in London because he is not good enough for their first team, but the safety net of a buy-back just in case he does manage to make the grade!
I feel Villas-Boas could also have cleared out some dead wood from the Bridge – like Kalou and Ferreira – and strengthened the squad with superior replacements. My gut feeling is that Chelsea will struggle to finish in the top two of the Premier League this term – Man United and Man City look shoo-ins – and that they will also find it tough going in the Champions League with United, City and the Spanish duo of Barca and Real Madrid looming large.
But if Mata forms as deadly a partnership with Torres as Gerrard did at Liverpool, you never know. The Blues could still come through…
And there could be a shock at the end of the season – again linked with Chelsea – when the new England boss is announced. Current boss Fabio Capello will definitely leave his post after the Euro 2012 finals in June and the favourite to take the reigns from him is Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp.
But I am told by a source at the FA that former Chelsea gaffer Carlo Ancelotti is also in the running! Ancelotti is currently on a year out of football – more specifically English football – because of a clause in his £6.5million pay-off deal agreed by Chelsea.
But I am also told that Ancelotti is desperate to get back into English football and has already thrown his hat into the ring to succeed Capello. The thought of another Italian running the English national team might not be to everyone’s taste – especially after Capello flopped so badly in last year’s World Cup finals.
Yet Ancelotti has admirers within the FA and within English football as a whole. Unlike Capello, he speaks perfect English and he is much more of a modern, ‘in-tune’ guy rather than a regimented sergeant-major type. Plus his sacking at Chelsea was incomprehensible given that he won the double the year before – and his track record as boss at Chelsea and previously AC Milan (where he twice won them the Champions League) is miles better than that of Redknapp, Roy Hodgson or any of the other wannabe England managers.
Ancelotti to take over from Capello? Remember where you read it first...
