I've been moved to start this thread having heard a caller on Chelsea tv 20 minutes ago. He echoed exactly what I have been saying all season. That is that we have a superb defence and a midfield as good if not better than any side in Europe, but our weakness is our strikers.

In that area we are only the 5th best in the premiership, behind Man U, Liverpol, Arse, and even Sp*rs for f*cks sake.

Drog is hit and miss, world class on his day, but injury prone, let us down in last year's CL final, couldn't be arsed under Scolari, and his conduct on and off the pitch a constant liability.

Anelka is inconsistent, good against poor teams but often goes missing in big games.

After that, Kalou, Di Santo? Not up to the standard of an aspiring CL winning team.

Up front is the area which MUST be addressed urgently in the summer. I'd like to see the back of Drogba and Anelka, so long as we can get suitable replacements....

Agree but weve all said that our strikers and our wingers are whgere we need to improve..

From the little weve seen Di Santo looks pretty good and i REALLY hope he makes the grade with us

Edited May 8, 200917 yr by jack h

Good strikers don't come cheap...

The main question is how much will RA be willing to dip into the billions to finance moves if Drogba & Anelka go...it will have to be pretty deep to finance players of the class required to satisfy our craving for CL glory...we don't know who'll be installed as manager at the beginning of next season( hopefully Guus!!!).

According to some papers today Drogba will be sold if a good offer comes in, who knows???

I don't think it's as much as strikers problem as lack of quality wingers/playmakers that are supposed to create opportunities for those strikers. Strikers feed off support and that's where the problem lies.

Anelka who may not be everybody's favorite is still the top scorer in the league. Drogba for all his character flaws is still the most complete center forward in the world. They both may be past their prime but still top quality players.

The players that surround them though are a class below. Malouda, with the exception of the last five-six matches has been terrible, Kalou plays well once in a blue moon and Joe Cole hasn't been at his best for at least couple of seasons.

That's why we need to buy quality players for this particular area in the summer: players like Ribery,Silva,Zhirkov, etc etc

Having said that, we can definitely use another top class striker, preferably younger, because it's most likely that either Drogba or Anelka will be sold to make way for a new signings.

Of course strikers don't come cheap, but if Roman really wants us to remain at the top of English football and continue to fight for the Champions League, he will have to find a way of signing the best available strikers.

That doesn't just mean signing 1 additional striker, but replacing the lot of 'em. Yeah Di Santo is supposed to be a great prospect, but he still hasn't scored for the first team and seems to have gone backwards since last season. Maybe he's the only one of the 4 we should keep for a while, just in case he proves to be the top player we all hoped, but I'm less and less optimistic about him...

Yeah, but we'd have won everything if we'd have signed Robinho :(

I don't think it's as much as strikers problem as lack of quality wingers/playmakers that are supposed to create opportunities for those strikers. Strikers feed off support and that's where the problem lies.

Anelka who may not be everybody's favorite is still the top scorer in the league. Drogba for all his character flaws is still the most complete center forward in the world. They both may be past their prime but still top quality players.

The players that surround them though are a class below. Malouda, with the exception of the last five-six matches has been terrible, Kalou plays well once in a blue moon and Joe Cole hasn't been at his best for at least couple of seasons.

That's why we need to buy quality players for this particular area in the summer: players like Ribery,Silva,Zhirkov, etc etc

Having said that, we can definitely use another top class striker, preferably younger, because it's most likely that either Drogba or Anelka will be sold to make way for a new signings.

I totally disagree. Malouda is doing just fine now and Joe will be back next season. I don't think it'll be easy to improve on our wide players. If we can get Ribery then great, but I read that he wants to go to Spain, so I don't know who else (who is available) could improve on what we've got.

However, for me the strikers are where we need to improve as a matter of urgency. Anelka scored lots of goals in the first half of the season, but not many since.

Also. closer examination shows that most of his goals were scored against the leser teams.

It is so difficult to really think logically about comings and goings until we know ho the manager is going to be next season. FOr me it is vital that there is clarity over that matter without excessive delay beyond the end of the season as we don't want to waste time in a period of uncertainty.

If we were to get a new manager that is going to favour playing two strikers up front then I think we would maybe get away with only buying one new striker (assuming we keep the three we have) as Anelka will be far more effective if played to his strengths.

However if we are to carry on favouring a formation with only one striker then I think we need to sell Anelka and bring in a replacement with that replacement being someone who can play in the role that Kalou does but do it far more effectively. Although if we release Kalou then he would need to be replaced.

Obviously if we sell Drogba then we will need to spend big to replace him as without him we are toothless.

I want us to stick with Di Santo and I want is to have the bottle to give him some decent playing time rather than 10 minutes here and there. The little I have seen of him has been enough to make me think he COULD be a player of some quality and also can inject a little more of a direct approach then say Anelka does.

So if I had to make a call on it I would propably veer toward selling Anelka, releasing Kalou, and buying two players to replace them. One replacement to be a striker and the other to be an orthodox right winger so we can try and move away from playing strikers out of position on the wing.

That would give us Drogba, AN OTHER, and Di Santo as three striking options and Joe Cole, Malouda, AN OTHER, and Stoch as wide options.

I guess just having Drogba, AN OTHER and Di Santo might be seen us leaving us a little light up front however if we bough two new strikers as well as Drogba and Di Santo then we would struggle to keep players happy. Look how unhappy Tevez is at United and they are a side that could well win the treble this season.

I don't see how anyone could think our strikers are a bigger issue than the sh*t width we have. Quaresma is awful, Cole hasn't made an impact in years, Kalou is woefully inconsistent and Malouda has only played well for a handful of games. This is the key area we need to address. Oh, and neither Arsenal nor Tottenham have better strikers than us. Are you mad?

I think Tevez would suit us down to the ground, JM is apparently interested in signing him for Inter, and i very much doubt if Ol' Red Nose would let him go to another BPL team...

Quaresma is awful? Drogba puts us 5th in the Premiership in terms of strikers? What the f**king hell is going on in this thread.

I don't see how anyone could think our strikers are a bigger issue than the sh*t width we have. Quaresma is awful, Cole hasn't made an impact in years, Kalou is woefully inconsistent and Malouda has only played well for a handful of games. This is the key area we need to address. Oh, and neither Arsenal nor Tottenham have better strikers than us. Are you mad?

Be careful criticising Joe Cole on this site. You'll have JUST and others after you who thinks the sun shines..

In all seriousness, surely Defoe or Pavlyuchenko would get goals in our team - not that I want either of them, I just feel that they are better than what we have. For me, an ageing Drog aside, our strikers aren't good enough.

Definitely need to concentrate on the wide players. When you look at Utd the other night they had Ronaldo and Rooney with Berbatov and Tevez on the bench. That's a pretty strong lineup.

I'd have no problem with having Drogba and Di Santo as our two strikers if we could get the quality of Ronney and Ronaldo to go with them.

Be careful criticising Joe Cole on this site. You'll have JUST and others after you who thinks the sun shines..

In all seriousness, surely Defoe or Pavlyuchenko would get goals in our team - not that I want either of them, I just feel that they are better than what we have. For me, an ageing Drog aside, our strikers aren't good enough.

You can't be serious, wicksy. Defoe? Pavlyuchenko? Even as a Russian I can't bring myself to even imagine someone like Pavlyuchenko at Chelsea. He's struggling at Spurs, ffs. Drogba and Anelka are light years ahead of him in terms of ability and I'd rather take a risk on a youngster like Di Santo than go for an average players like Defo and Pavlyuchenko.

Edited May 8, 200917 yr by abramovich

Be careful criticising Joe Cole on this site. You'll have JUST and others after you who thinks the sun shines..

In all seriousness, surely Defoe or Pavlyuchenko would get goals in our team - not that I want either of them, I just feel that they are better than what we have. For me, an ageing Drog aside, our strikers aren't good enough.

You really think those two are better than Drogba and Anelka?

Pav has been brilliant in Cup competition but he's been pretty mediocre in the league. Defoe's decent but I don't think he'd be any sort of a fit for us in terms of playing style. And we saw what happened to Keane when he played for a big club. None of them have the track record of Drogba and Anelka, none of them have the physical talent and none of them have the attributes we need.

You're totally entitled to your opinion, I just don't agree with it.

Edited May 8, 200917 yr by That Boy Brandinho

You can't be serious, wicksy. Defoe? Pavlyuchenko? Even as a Russian I can't bring myself to even imagine someone like Pavlyuchenko at Chelsea. He's struggling at Spurs, ffs. Drogba and Anelka are light years ahead of him in terms of ability and I'd rather take a risk on a youngster like Di Santo than go for an average players like Defo and Pavlyuchenko.

Regarding Pavlyuchenko I honestly don't know. Many players have struggled in England in their first season or so (Drogba to name but one) and apparently he can hardly speak a word of English which can't help when you can't communicate with your team mates. Let's just say the jury's still out. But there was a rumour that Hiddinck wanted him for Chelsea - could be just paper talk I appreciate, but we'll see..

Regarding Pavlyuchenko I honestly don't know. Many players have struggled in England in their first season or so (Drogba to name but one) and apparently he can hardly speak a word of English which can't help when you can't communicate with your team mates. Let's just say the jury's still out. But there was a rumour that Hiddinck wanted him for Chelsea - could be just paper talk I appreciate, but we'll see..

I believe the Hiddink rumor came from Guus being asked his opinion of Pavlyuchenko. To which he obviously replied that he rates him highly, what else is he going to say, that's a player from his national squad so he throws him moral support knowing he's facing a challenge of proving himself in a new club and tougher league.

The English press as usual twists his words and next morning headlines say something like:"Hiddink wants Pav at Chelsea".

By the way, the only reason he was starting for Russia at the Euros was due to Pogrebnyak(centre forward from Zenit who imo is a better player) missing the tournament through injury.

I believe the Hiddink rumor came from Guus being asked his opinion of Pavlyuchenko. To which he obviously replied that he rates him highly, what else is he going to say, that's a player from his national squad so he throws him moral support knowing he's facing a challenge of proving himself in a new club and tougher league.

The English press as usual twists his words and next morning headlines say something like:"Hiddink wants Pav at Chelsea".

By the way, the only reason he was starting for Russia at the Euros was due to Pogrebnyak(centre forward from Zenit who imo is a better player) missing the tournament through injury.

Russian footy is not my speciality. Obviously it is yours, so I bow to your superior knowledge on the subject. I've never heard of Pogrebnyak!!

If we get either Defoe or Pavluychenko I will lose all faith in our strike force.

I really think we should sign Aguero and David Silva. That would really cost a hell of a lot of money, but Aguero is just brilliant, and David Silva is a great winger, and has been known to play as a support striker in his time at Valencia.

If we get either Defoe or Pavluychenko I will lose all faith in our strike force.

I really think we should sign Aguero and David Silva. That would really cost a hell of a lot of money, but Aguero is just brilliant, and David Silva is a great winger, and has been known to play as a support striker in his time at Valencia.

I'm not sure if Silva could live in this league, Aguero probably could.

Benzema could.

Benzema WOULD. He has the strength and the pace.

Ahhh, Benzema's someone I forgot about. Yes, get him over Silva, Aguero has pace to play wide right or left surely.

If we get either Defoe or Pavluychenko I will lose all faith in our strike force.

I really think we should sign Aguero and David Silva. That would really cost a hell of a lot of money, but Aguero is just brilliant, and David Silva is a great winger, and has been known to play as a support striker in his time at Valencia.

I would agree with you 100%. Aguero is the striker I'd love us to sign and I can't think of a better winger than Silva, apart from Ribery perhaps.

But why do you assume that these players would join Chelsea if we just snap our fingers (and Roman opens his wallet). It's not that easy! Maybe they would, but players seem reluctant to swap Spain for England...

I would agree with you 100%. Aguero is the striker I'd love us to sign and I can't think of a better winger than Silva, apart from Ribery perhaps.

But why do you assume that these players would join Chelsea if we just snap our fingers (and Roman opens his wallet). It's not that easy! Maybe they would, but players seem reluctant to swap Spain for England...

I'm not assuming, hence why I said it'd cost a hell of a lot of money. But they're certainly players that should be on the top of our shopping list this summer, and we should battle right to the very end to get their signatures.

P.S. Everybody. Anelka is no longer the premiership's leading scorer. Ronaldo has 17, Anelka is 1 behind.