If the Blues' coaching staff decide to stick to the system of playing with a lone striker they adopted last season, they are going to have a lot more to worry about. The Happy One himself has proven to be a fan of single striker formations. At Real Madrid he attacked with Benzema (or less frequently with Higuain) and at Inter Milan, Diego Forlan spearheaded his attack. Both worked to great effect.
Chelsea, for those who don't know or refuse to acknowledge it, is embarrassed with an abundance of strikers. And these are not just strikers, but world class strikers who would be a handful for any defender on a good day. In our ranks are Euro 2012 and 2013 Confederations Cup top scorer, Fernando Torres; returning loanee, Romelu Lukaku; and January signing, Demba Ba as well as other players in the team who can fit in well into that highly competitive striking position. Fernando Torres, for his status as a big name player and the costliest player ever bought in England, is likely going to be Jose Mourinho's first choice to pair Wayne Rooney upfront. Coming out tops in the goalscorers chat at two consecutive international competitions and costing us 50 million bucks is no mean feat, right? Well that's for statistics. In goal statistics he also seems to be leading the race. Last season saw him bag 22 club goals as against lower returns for Romelu Lukaku and Demba Ba, the chasing pack. Though he has often been accused of being lazy and not doing enough on the pitch to win balls and put in some tackles, he showed a marked improvement in his form - and most importantly, confidence - towards the tail-end of last season.
Though I'd like to state here that it's not unlike Torres to show an improvement in form towards the end of a season and at the beginning of the next one and then go on to have a prolonged and very annoying dip in form (take a look at his statistics from 2010-2013). In Liverpool, on the heels of a forgetful personal campaign at the 2010 FIFA World Cup where he was hampered by an injury and sunbequently overshadowed by David Villa who managed to grab all the headlines, he netted a great number of goals before he made his move to Chelsea. It was there that he suffered his worst slump in form till date (which could be traced back to his time at Liverpool), scoring just a single goal for the remainder of the season. That sad story was not any different in the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 seasons. Ultimately, picking Fernando Torres over the others could end up being a costly mistake, one that Mourinho and Chelsea would come to regret later on, but I seriously pray he proves me wrong.
Demba Ba is another player who has shown a great level of inconsistency since swapping the Northeast of England for the British capital. This was a player that scored 16 times for Newcastle United in the 2011-2012 season and put 12 past hapless goalkeepers between August and January of the following season before he switched allegiance. In London, this impressive goal tally shrunk abysmally to a meagre 3. The performances he has put in in the two matches he has played so far in our preseason tour of Southeast Asia is not remotely encouraging and it's not what one would expect for a multi-million pounds signing. From the what I can see, the former Premier League Player of the Month (for December 2011) is the least likely to pair Wayne Rooney upfront.
That leaves us with the third and final option in the person of Romelu Lukaku. I have not failed to praise him and particularly single him out for his stellar performances for Chelsea in the two preseason matches he has played so far where he has bagged 2 goals. One came against the Singha All Stars and the other one came against the Malaysian XI on Sunday. He's my natural choice to be paired with Wayne Rooney for obvious reasons which any critically analytic football lover would have picked as well. The physicality of his play makes it possible for him to win the ball upfront and muscle out the defenders and supply the ball to a waiting teammate or slide it into the net himself. The argument borders on if he has attained the level of maturity needed for him to lead the line for the Londoners and I say yes. He showed this last season when he was with West Brom under the tutelage of Steve Clarke and he is showing it again this season by putting up virtuoso displays that makes one remember Didier Drogba. He has said it himself in the past that Drogba is a player he looks up to and this leaves no one in doubt why he plays like him. We all know what Drogba did at Chelsea and we know what we can expect from the youngster. So I believe he should be given a chance to prove himself at the 2011-2012 Champions League winners, after passing the test at the Hawthorns. If he fails, he would only have himself to blame for that, but I don't think he would.
My verdict? Pair him upfront with Wayne Rooney when he arrives. Rooney and Lukaku upfront is a recipe for success.
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