Didier Drogba: The player Chelsea will face but still miss

“I am the luckiest man in the competition because I will be playing both legs at home,” said Didier Drogba as Galatasaray were drawn to play Chelsea in the UEFA Champions League Round of 16. A real legend for Chelsea, The Drog will always be welcome at Stamford Bridge and be given a standing ovation when he plays there. Of course, as soon as I saw the draw and thought of Drogba, the obvious thought came into my head: will we ever have another like him at the club?

What makes every Chelsea fan think similarly is not just the lure of such a rhetorical question, it is also the fact that the club is facing a very major striker crisis at the moment. Yes, you heard me right: I am not one who is going to brush this under the carpet by saying that Chelsea have three ‘very experienced’ marksmen in the first team squad. Indeed, as a Chelsea fan I am pretty clear on the fact that the strikers we have are nowhere near dependable, and I am not even thinking of calling them excellent.

Some would argue that Fernando Torres was excellent in his time, but that is the precise point – in his time. He is nowhere near excellent now. True, he does put in a decent shift once in a while and bags a reasonable number of goals, but there is one huge problem with him- consistency.

One day he’ll give you a nine on ten performance, then he drops to four for a few games, and then we see him play so miserably one day that even giving him two on ten would be too lenient. And he’s certainly lacking in pace, ambition and creativity, compared to what he was five years ago. A good option as a standby, he can never lead the line for a Champions League club.

Samuel Eto’o, too, is an average centre forward, but no better. He chips in a good performance when on as a substitute for twenty or thirty minutes but cannot sustain himself for a full game, nor he is able to impose himself on opposition defences as he once could. And Demba Ba is another who can manage a few goals a season but again he is the last person you would actually rely on in a pressure situation. In fact all he ever does is foul opponents.

So, we’re left in a situation where we have an excellent goalkeeper and defenders, an army of creative midfielders and the best manager we can get, but not one half-decent striker. It is no wonder the manager is complaining that the team cannot find goals to kill of teams.

Up to the time Chelsea have the ball in the opponents’ box it is fine but beyond that the players lose it and everything breaks down, owing no doubt to the absence of someone who can finish moves off, provide assists, make brilliant runs or simply hold the ball up. Exactly what Drogba did so well in his time! No wonder defenders were terrified of him!

‘Will we see another Drogba?’ we ask. I think we already have someone who can fill those boots. Or rather, had. Until we loaned him again this season, now to Everton. Romelu Lukaku is one of the best strikers in the world at the moment, and what we did is kick him out to keep three absolutely useless strikers at the club. I wonder what logic Mr. Mourinho used there: hardly something you expect from him.

To get Lukaku back now, the club has to seriously offer him support and a starting place in the first team, not to mention a good salary. Everton and West Brom, among others, will be looking to steal him away from the Bridge for good and we can just hope, as Chelsea fans, that he stays. It’s time to work on what has become a very serious hurdle preventing the team from winning football matches. In the meantime, the club needs to find a replacement striker in January if they have any hopes of silverware at the end of the season.