News from Stamford Bridge today has the Premier League’s top scorer sidelined for anywhere from three weeks to thirty days with a toe injury. The injury was apparently suffered in Chelsea’s 1-0 loss to Tottenham on Saturday. Based on the injury’s time frame, Anelka will miss Chelsea’s Premier Leauge games against Newcastle, Bolton, and possibly Everton as well as France’s home-and-home fixtures with Lithuania next week and the first leg of their Champions League clash with Liverpool.
And, yes, maybe that title’s a little harsh. Anelka, after all, is not only the Premier League’s top scorer, but is also tied for most goals in all competitions (at 21) with Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard. Losing a player capable of logging that kind of performance is never a good thing.
On the other hand, Anelka’s not exactly been on fire lately. Read on after the jump for a little chat on Nicolas Anelka.
The first thing anyone critical of Anelka will be pointed to is his goalscoring record this season, and regardless of what you think of him those goals stand there to tell you that he definitely has skill; nobody just stumbles upon 15 Premier League goals. The thing that most frustrated Chelsea fans would probably point out is that, in the Premier League, he’s only scored once since December 14th in the league.
Phil Scolari was partially fired from Chelsea for failing to get performances out of his strikers as a unit; Drogba and Anelka were, notoriously, never on the field at the same time under his tenure (Scolari experimented with Anelka on the left wing on occassion with limited success). Early in the season, that was alright; Drogba was injured, so the two couldn’t play together, and Scolari almost exclusively ran some variant of a 4-5-1 (this was occasionnaly a 4-1-4-1, and was also occasionally a 4-3-3 with two more offensive-minded wingers; Anelka was essentially acting as a lone striker in each of these systems). Anelka thrived under this set-up.
Since Drogba’s been back and Guus Hiddink has arrived, Chelsea have run a lot of dual-striker systems. Hiddink’s fluctuated between the 4-1-3-2 and the 4-3-1-2 a little, but there’s always a partnership at the top. This system seems to be working well for the team; Anelka’s recent form doesn’t coincide with Chelsea’s (Saturday’s result notwithstanding, Chelsea had only dropped two points since they lost 2-0 at Anfield back on February 1st).
Anelka’s injury brings with it a little irony: due to the lack of quality strikers available on the roster at the moment, Chelsea may be forced to temporarily return to the 4-5-1 that Anelka saw so much success with. Unfortunately for him, he’ll be watching them, not reaping the rewards.
This ruined my Monday. And the Chelsea woes just keep piling on top of each other.
Anelka’s a quality player, there’s no doubt about it. The number of goals he’s scored proves it. His play lately has been disinterested, almost the lazy way Drogba played under Scolari. I don’t know if he’s just incapable of playing with Drogba up front. It seems like it. When one of them have a good game, the other is practically invisible on the field. Regardless, his presence on the field is just a boost in terms of potential quality, even if he hasn’t really showed any of it since Dec.
My one hope with Anelka being out is that Drogba takes advantage of playing alone up top and Quaresma gets put out on the right wing. I think that pairing will work well and hopefully provide some chances.
Fingers crossed.
Setting aside the injury, there’s a reason that he’s moved 9 times to 8 teams in his 13 year career. “Bluesfan” hit it right on the head: he’s quality, but he’s also frequently disinterested. He’s averaged about a goal every three matches throughout his career, and that’s appealing to just about any club. At the same time, none of these clubs seem to hesitate to transfer him when the price is right or to make much of an effort to resign him when his contract expires. It makes you wonder…