Lean into Kai Havertz or bring back Romelu Lukaku? Examining Thomas Tuchel’s striker options for League Cup final
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Published 25/02/2022 at 12:00 GMT
Ahead of the EFL Cup final against Liverpool Pete Sharland looks at the options available to Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel when it comes to his striking options. Should he stick with Kai Havertz after the German scored against Lille or should he bring back Romelu Lukaku? Plus what does this say about Chelsea’s ability to sign strikers?
ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - FEBRUARY 12: Kai Havertz (L) and Romelu Lukaku of Chelsea celebrate with the FIFA Club World Cup trophy following victory in the FIFA Club World Cup UAE 2021 Final match between Chelsea and Palmeiras at Mohammed Bin Zayed
Image credit: Getty Images
Let’s start this off with a question.
Since the turn of the millennium how many truly elite strikers do you think Chelsea Football Club have had? Not necessarily the reputation or what they did elsewhere, it’s about being elite while being a Chelsea player.
The answer, depending on your view of how good Nicolas Anelka was, is three, maybe four. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Didier Drogba and Diego Costa, maybe Anelka. Others have had their moments (Hello Hernan Crespo, Eidur Gudjohnsen, Tammy Abraham and Olivier Giroud) but in reality they are the only group who really were at an elite level.
And even though it’s early, it is time to probably start having a conversation about where on the list Romelu Lukaku is going to slot in.
Lukaku is in a bit of a rough patch. His goals in the semi-final and final of the Club World Cup recently ended a month long goal-drought but he is goalless in the Premier League since netting in the 1-1 draw at home to Brighton on December 29.
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Romelu Lukaku
Image credit: Getty Images
Part of this was down to injury, as well as a self-imposed exile from the team after Tuchel dropped him in the aftermath of his explosive interview with Sky Italia, and part of it is down (in some way) to how he has been used, but in reality Lukaku has not been anywhere close to a £100 million player.
Last Saturday against Crystal Palace, Lukaku set the record for the fewest touches in a Premier League game since Opta began keeping records. It was a horribly disjointed display that was genuinely awkward to watch at times. This author has seen strangers get roped into a game on a Saturday and have more chemistry with their team-mates than Lukaku seemed to have against Palace.
As a result Tuchel dropped him for Tuesday night’s Champions League clash with Ligue 1 champions Lille. Instead Kai Havertz was preferred, resuming his false nine/lone striker hybrid experiment. It worked, with Havertz scoring the first in a 2-0 win and that leaves Tuchel with a decision to make ahead of the weekend, when Chelsea will face Liverpool in the EFL Cup final at Wembley.
Let’s start with the argument for starting Lukaku, because it certainly seems based on some small reports that it is more likely Havertz starts, and it seems like the fanbase would agree with that.
The argument for playing with Lukaku is pretty simple, he’s an actual striker. He makes the runs of a striker, links up like a striker and scores like a striker. Well, when he’s on form at least. Playing Lukaku presents a very different proposition to Havertz, Chelsea would likely look to try and play slightly more aerially and see if they can unsettle Virgil van Dijk that way.
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Romelu Lukaku
Image credit: Getty Images
In principle it’s a nice idea. Lukaku can theoretically help Chelsea in the transition as he can play off the attacking players and give his team-mates time to get up the pitch when they try to counter Liverpool. Plus his striking instinct could pay off in a final given chances may be limited.
The problem is that on a surface level, Havertz offers the same threats. He has intelligent movement like Lukaku and he has a history in finals (see last year’s Champions League final for example). He’s not a true striker of course but the way he moves around the front lines will present a different problem for the Liverpool defenders and when it clicks the combination play with the other two attackers can be devastating.
Tuchel might well feel that slowing down the play with Lukaku is not the way to go. It might be better to use Havertz in conjunction with some combination of Mason Mount, Christian Pulisic and Timo Werner. Theoretically there would be more interchange in positions and there would be far more freedom to break fluidly when presented with the opportunity.
Of course when that doesn’t work then things can get a bit messy for the Chelsea attack, with the attackers getting shut out by the opposition and then most of the shots end up coming from the wing-backs or central midfielders. But if you have that come to pass you can always change things up with Lukaku from the bench and have more of a focal point.
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Kai Havertz
Image credit: Getty Images
Regardless, it’s not a perfect solution. And it will be fascinating to see how Tuchel handles it in the final few months of the season. If you watch what he does it should be instructive to how he sees the summer unfolding.
If he tries to reintegrate Lukaku on a regular basis and gives him a solid run of games then it suggests they will not give up on him. But if Havertz, or even Werner, gets more chances then it might suggest that the club would look to see what they could get for Lukaku. There is a school of thought that Havertz could be moulded into an effective striker eventually, with Lukaku so out of form there’s no time like the present to find out.
There’s a wider question at play too. Under Roman Abramovich, Chelsea have consistently gotten the striker wrong except for Drogba and Costa. They have been bailed out by elite goalscoring from either a midfielder (Lampard) or a winger (Hazard). There are a lot of potential goalscorers on the Chelsea roster but for various reasons they have been unable to score on a consistent basis.
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Eden Hazard and Frank Lampard
Image credit: Reuters
They are being linked to Lille’s Jonathan David (seems likely) and Erling Haaland (far less likely) predominantly if Lukaku does leave. We’re not an elite top level scout so we’re not going to tell you who the perfect striker for Chelsea is but they have to get this right. Whether it’s Tuchel, Petr Cech, Marina Granovskia or someone else. They have to be certain they are getting it right.
Because they can’t afford to get it wrong. They are probably going to need to replace one centre-back this year, probably two, it might even be three. If they get the centre-forward wrong again it will have a knock-on effect on the rest of the squad’s make-up.
They have three months to figure out if the Lukaku (And to a lesser extent Werner) situation is salvageable and/or what Havertz can be as a striker permanently. Then you can look at the external options. For Sunday? The most logical option seems to be Havertz. He’s the man in form and he’s the man who seems to be clicking better within the structure of the team.
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