It wasn’t that surprising to see Chelsea finish an away match against a top 4 club without scoring or trying that hard to get the goal either. It’s even less surprising that the scoreless run by their strikers, which at the moment consists of the Fernando Torres, Samuel Eto’o and Demba Ba bunch, couldn’t get a goal on an away match, a consistent trend going through all of 2013.
Yes, no Chelsea striker has scored an away Premier League goal; not just this season, but this entire year. Eto’o might be excuses because he only arrived this season, but Torres and Ba? It just goes to show of what a huge disappointment they are, and Chelsea’s attacking game with it. Last season they scored 34 goals in 19 away matches, which is quite acceptable. This season? Only 13 goals in nine matches.
You can’t blame an offense not scoring just strikers. It’s a team thing, and the way Chelsea have been playing over the last couple of seasons relies on the ability of their attacking midfielders to create chances. Strikers are less involved in this style of play, and apparently it takes better and more focused finishers than what Chelsea have at the moment in order to make do with the limited amount of touches and chances they get.
In general there’s nothing to be happy about when it comes to their strikers. Mourinho might praise their work rate, but all three of them don’t do too much of anything else to deserve some slack for their misses and awful goal production. Out of Chelsea’s 32 goals this season, only five have come from strikers, while Eden Hazard (6) and Oscar (5) seem to be a much better outlet of finding the net.
Does this cost Chelsea a title? Is this why they’re slightly behind? It’s probably more than just not having a consistent player to finish players in the box. Chelsea’s midfield and defense could use some improvement, be it in tactics and in personnel. However, it’s hard to think of a team winning a championship while having a useless striking force like Chelsea have at the moment.