Alvaro Morata is seemingly finding his feet again at Chelsea and that has meant a return in goals from the Spaniard.

The £60m man has now scored four goals in his last four Premier League appearances. In total, he’s got a respectable fives strikes in ten league outings this term.

Yesterday the Spanish international forward struck a brace as The Blues beat Crystal Palace at Stamford Bridge. Yet in reality Morata could’ve and should have bagged himself a hat-trick against The Eagles.

The forward hasn’t fully turned the corner and nor is he nailed on the remain the club’s number nine. He has to continue his recent vein of good goalscoring form.

Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri stated after Sunday’s victory that he’s happy for the Spanish striker but he also has room for improvement:

“He improves in confidence, in personality, in playing with the team, so now I am very happy.”

“He can improve more because the technical potential and physical potential is great, now he has confidence he can improve more.” 

I think that’s a bit of a warning to Morata from the Italian coach, basically saying you’ve proven you can do it and now you need to do it regularly!

In the win over Palace, Morata took his goals well but interestingly it’s when the chances called for fast, instinctive finishes. When Alvaro had little time to think about it, he just instinctively controlled the ball and expertly drilled his shots into the back of the net.

In the very last minute, Eden Hazard released Morata and the striker found himself one on one with the opposition goalkeeper. That chance should’ve been easier than the two that he scored earlier, yet the twenty-six year old never looked totally comfortable. He had too much time to contemplate on what he was going to do next. You could read exactly what he was going to do. He rushed forward; just looked up once, thought the keeper was charging out and then Alvaro opened up his body shaping to chip the keeper. Palace goalie Wayne Hennessy just stayed tall and easily saved the chip shot.

Morata needs to work on those situations constantly in training, to the extent that what he ends up doing comes as naturally to him as his quick one or two touch finishes. Look up at least twice and then read the keeper. If in doubt keep it low and hard.

His link-up play looked better yesterday and he was offering himself up more too. As we know he’s good in the air and he can make intelligent runs. So he clearly has the makings of a top class attacker.

The Blues have recently been linked with Serie A hitmen Krzysztof Piatek and Mauro Icardi, yet an in-form Morata could save them a lot of money on that front. People forget that it was only in his second season at The Bridge before we started seeing the best from Didier Drogba.

I believe Alvaro Morata has the ability to go on a scoring run and really help Chelsea out. I’m not overly convinced he believes in himself tough.

He should be targeting a Premier Legaue goal return of between five and ten goals between now and Christmas. If he can do that, then he could be the striker that Chelsea have been calling out for!

 

Posted on November 5th, 2018 by scott
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