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The Belgian captain has been forced into a position he does not like in recent weeks because of Maurizio Sarri's mistrust of his current henchmen.
For the second consecutive January, Chelsea finds himself at the center of an armory for attackers. They want Gonzalo Higuain. He is loaned by Juventus to AC Milan, where he was forced to give way to Cristiano Ronaldo.
Higuain has a bad season in San Siro and has scored only once in Serie A since October. This goal was registered against SPAL on December 29th.
But there remains the tempting potential of a rapprochement with Maurizio Sarri in Chelsea, the coach with which Higuain has undoubtedly made his reputation in a record season with Napoli in 2015-16.
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The Blues have an agreement with the player, Juventus and AC Milan, which is not an easy task, but there are other complications.
Indeed, Chelsea must free space in his team as well as his payroll. For this purpose, they are lending Alvaro Morata to Atletico Madrid for the rest of the season.
Atleti does not want to pay for a permanent deal at the moment and fees could be settled instead for the summer. Atleti will not pay the full salaries of the Spanish international if they can help it.
Michy Batshuayi, meanwhile, was sent back from a difficult loan to Valencia. Sarri did not bring the Belgian to play on the front but in the hope of making money in the form of a permanent sale.
It is hoped that he will join Michael Emenalo and Cesc Fabregas in Monaco, but the fees charged by Chelsea prove to be prohibitive.
In short, it's a mess.
Morata has had many opportunities to prove herself at Stamford Bridge and has blown up most of them. He is not at the helm of a Sarri team and is suffering from a crisis of confidence in front of the goals.
He did not have the full confidence of Antonio Conte, who entered the market last year to sign Olivier Giroud.
Although Giroud was relatively popular with Chelsea fans and played well with Eden Hazard's football when they played together, he did not completely convince Sarri of his merits.
Last year, Diego Costa was shipped to Atletico, while Batshuayi was transported to Borussia Dortmund. It is a revolving door in the strikers' department of Chelsea and, despite the money spent and agreements reached, none have been upgraded.
That's why Sarri made the unusual decision to play Hazard at the forefront this season. The Belgian captain did not like playing there with Conte and would not have been happy to go under the new coach.
This has worked for the team, however, and Sarri, at least in public, thinks Chelsea has a better form of defense when Hazard plays from the front.
Sarri has the form of playing a small man at the top, after successfully converting his teammate Hazard in Belgium, Dries Mertens, into a "false nine" Napoli after the departure of Higuain for Juventus.
Arkadiusz Milik has been replaced as an expensive replacement. However, a knee cruciate ligament injury was detrimental to the Polish season. Sarri therefore had to look for solutions within the team.
Mertens worked. He is one of the most intelligent attackers in world football according to those who know him well.
However, although Mertens and Hazard may have similar highs and share the same nationality, they are very different players.
Mertens is content to wait for the right moment for him and many of his goals owe a lot to his movement, his anticipation and only have one or two keys.
Hazard is a natural game maker. He wants the ball all the time. Whether it's dribbling, playing in pairs or searching for a deep pbad, Hazard requires some involvement. And his teams usually benefit from his ability to lead a game.
Even though he might well be doing some work for the team on the front, this takes a lot of things out of the whole group to isolate him. That takes his abilities face to face and, with that, Chelsea's chances of tipping the scales in their favor.
It removes what is described in Spanish as "la pausa"It's the intelligence to slow down the game until the right moment to play the pbad.
Few players master this trick and if they do, they are world clbad. Hazard did it, but it has become useless if he does not run the game from behind.
But the Chelsea mess on the market has led them to this point. It's frustrating for Sarri that his best point guard is also his best forward. And currently, he feels that he can better compensate for his absence in the middle of the field than in the beginning.
The transfer of Higuain can not happen soon enough. It's better than Morata or Giroud. He is not as selfless as Giroud but is more clinical than Morata.
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He has already prospered in front of creative and fast attackers such as Jose Callejon and Paulo Dybala. Chelsea has these kinds of players.
What he will sign is to offer the double advantage of an upgrade to position # 9 and a relief for Hazard, as he will no longer have to play centrally and will be able to resume his best position.
For a Chelsea team that lacks goals, at least relatively, it should be enough for them to establish at least the third best team in the Premier League.
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