With Diego Costa finally out the door, now the hard work really starts for 'polite' Alvaro Morata
Antonio Conte will be expecting the Spaniard to bring a certain fight and edge to Chelsea's game now that Costa has returned to Madrid
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Your support makes all the difference.If Antonio Conte was unwilling to discuss Diego Costa and everything that was problematic with him off the pitch, even now that the striker’s Chelsea exit has been confirmed, he was only too willing to gush about his replacement - and especially what Alvaro Morata himself is like off the pitch, to the point he paid him a rather strong personal compliment.
“He’s a really good guy,” the manager said. “It means if you have a daughter, you’d be open to have this type of person with your daughter, to marry your daughter, a really good guy, a polite person…”
But that also raises a question, that is partially fired by Morata’s effective but conspicuously clean performances so far, and Conte’s other description of him as a “polite player”. Should a striker be so polite? Does the 24-year-old need a bit more anger in his game, a bit more of Costa?
It’s certainly difficult to imagine Morata so mischievously looking to get opponents into trouble in the way his predecessor did, just as it’s hard to imagine him seeing one of the Chelsea staff’s golf-style buggies unattended and driving it into a ditch - in the way Costa did.
Conte doesn’t exactly wanting him doing the latter, but he does admit that the former is one specific reason why this is “the right moment” to be bringing Morata to Chelsea at 24. It is something the manager can work on to add to his game, to give him that fire.
“I think for Alvaro it’s the right moment to have this situation, to be the striker in a great team and don’t forget with previous experiences with Juventus and Real Madrid he played but not every game, not regularly. For this reason, he is at the right age to have this responsibility.
“He is a good player, he is a complete player, technically strong, a good leader … he has a lot of room for improvement. Morata is 24 years old which means you have possibility to work with this player for 10 years.
“This is a process for him, when I speak about a lot of room for improvement it also means this aspect, to be [aggressive].
“I like him because he’s a complete player and also he has a lot of room to improve in every situation, tactical, physical, technical aspect, he’s very committed, his behaviour is always fantastic. He is a very polite player, I like this, also I like he’s a good finisher, he feels the goal in every moment, he’s very good to understand which is the best position in the box to receive the ball, to understand where the ball is going.”
It is one of Morata’s main positives, that has already been so obvious, and that will be tough for Stoke City to deal with at the bet365 on Saturday. There is a good argument he has the best off-the-ball running of any striker in the Premier League, and that has allowed him to score so many headers and be at the centre of so many such good chances. If a Chelsea player puts the ball in the right area, and even if Morata is being marked, the 24-year-old has the admirable ability to evade even the possibility of a challenge and get his header off. Many who know him think he’s so good at this it almost seems like a second sense.
The one issue is that this still fosters the perception of a ‘cleanliness’ to his game, and Chelsea didn’t last season always play in a way that involved the ball going straight into the box. Morata doesn’t go and abrasively retrieve the ball and create something out of nothing in the way Costa did.
So it does mean that either Conte is going to have to tailor his team’s game, or Morata is going to have to tailor his individual game? The manager’s comments indicated it will be more the latter.
“For me No 9 is very important, because No 9 is a point of reference for our play, but I think last season Costa played well, and in this season we have changed the striker and we have Alvaro and [Michy] Batshuayi, but don’t forget I can have another option - Eden Hazard. Last season he played No 9 twice, but I ask specific work to my strikers.
“We are talking two players who are very strong, two really good players, two No9s very strong. But I ask the same work of Alvaro and Michi, and in this position when I play Eden I ask the same. The No9 position is important as it’s point of reference for our play.”
It also marries so much of their play together - and Conte feels Morata will eventually be ideal for that too.
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