Chelsea reaches deal to sign Alvaro Morata from Real Madrid

Chelsea have picked up their new line leader.

Between Diego Costa’s clear desire to go to Atlético Madrid and Michy Batshuayi not quite looking ready for prime time, it was clear that the Blues needed a striker this summer. They were beaten to Romelu Lukaku by Manchester United, but their second choice — Real Madrid’s Alvaro Morata — is certainly a great consolation prize. He’ll join Chelsea on a five-year contract, and cost a reported £75 million.

At 24, Morata isn’t exactly a veteran, but he’s already made nearly 200 appearances for Real Madrid and Juventus, collected 20 caps for Spain, and picked up plenty of medals on the way. In 2016-17, despite spending much of his time as a substitute, he put together his first 20-goal season. In exchange for a near-guaranteed starting position, Antonio Conte will be expecting his goal return to swell commensurately.

Diego Costa is in no way technically deficient, but layoffs and one-twos aren’t a huge part of his playing style. Alvaro Morata is a fast striker with a nose for goal, but he’ll want to get involved with build-up play too, and he might be a touch less selfish in front of goal than the man he’s replacing. Eden Hazard will enjoy playing with him.

In that respect, he makes for a slightly strange second choice to Lukaku. He’s not nearly as strong and doesn’t have as good of a scoring record as the Belgian, but he’s arguably a more complete player. Then again, there’s not exactly another Lukaku-like player sitting out there on the transfer market.

But as a Costa replacement and upgrade, Morata will certainly do. He’s less tenacious than the man he’s stepping in for, but does just as much running off the ball. No one’s ever doubted Morata’s work rate. He should be an excellent line leader for Chelsea.

Morata might be a more complete player than Costa, but he doesn’t quite come with the same guarantee of goals. As noted above, he’s only reached the symbolic 20-goals-in-a-season mark once. Presumably, Chelsea are calculating that a guaranteed first-team place will lead to an improvement in this regard.

Though this summer appears to have sent transfer fees spiraling well out of control, the seeds for this fee was planted a year ago by Juventus. They paid Gonzalo Higuain’s full €100 million release clause to sign him from Napoli, seemingly not caring how much they spent to get their most important missing piece after fetching a world-record fee for Paul Pogba. By that standard, £75 million for considerably younger players like Morata and Lukaku seems quite reasonable.

With Lukaku, Morata, and Alexandre Lacazette off the market, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang remains as the last world-class, prime-age striker available for less than nine figures. Borussia Dortmund probably knows this and will be holding out for a lot of money. If your team still needs a center forward, they really should have moved faster.