January Strikers - who is available

[ozboy]

Title says it all. Big Phil has said he would like another striker. Realistically who could we get in January? Of course by time any new striker fits into the team and the system, the season will be virtually over, look at Anelka last year. Nevertheless still seems interesting to speculate who we might actually end up with.

This is not a wish list of the world's best, just trying to work out who we could actually get.

Do we want a number 3 striker, like a Pizzaro, or should we go for a developing talent, like a Kalou who can shoot? Or are there any top flight strikers really available now?

Which team is in financial strife that might be a seller?

[kalpitv]

I was watching the Dutch League the other day, and saw Ajax in action. Huntelaar ofcourse is out injured (and already moved to Spain to recover in time to play in January for Real?), the player who impressed me was Luis Suarez. At 21, his dribbling is amazing and was always a menace to the oppostion's defence. He even scored a good goal to round off the impressive display. He plays as a striker or a supporting striker and can do much more than just scoring goals (unlike Anelka). The only negative about him been his 'serial diving skills'. He received 6 yellow cards for doing so last season.

However, he joined Ajax just last year and i don't know whether they'd be willing to lose him after selling Huntelaar. Perhaps we could offer Sahar on loan for 6 months or simply loan him just for now.

I've put up this name just because I think he will be ideally suited to our system though signing him wont be so easy.

[loz]

The tabloids are once again linking us to a January move for Michael Owen. If we are cutting back on transfer fees then he probably represents the best deal we can as you won't get a better goalscorer for round about £5m (which is what his fee is rumoured to be around).

However signing Owen would be a waste of time if we intend to carry on playing with a lone striker.

[ethicalstrategy]

If we can get Drogba and Anelka fit and both available at the same time - which in theory at least is now - then our need is diminished quite a lot. We would have Di Santo and Kalou as back up and options in terms of playing either one or two up front. I would say that what we need is someone who could backup for Drogba. Given that they would most likely not play much I really don't know who we could go for or who would be interested. Maybe the old chestnut that is Kenwyne Jones?

[loz]

If I had to choose between us signing Heskey or Jones I would choose a night with Kerry Katona and a pot bellied pig (nothing like the old twins fantasy).

I never did understand the hype about Jones when he was tipped to be the 'next Drogba' and he is much worse now than he was then.

[ozboy]

heskey is more of a drogba sub and owen an anelka one I guess. Its depressing if that is the most that is on offer. Personally I'd prefer an up and coming 21 year old not carrying ten years worth of injured knees and ankles.

I suppose kaka is out of the questions. Who cares if they are excluded from the champions league, its the premier league that interests me.

[Virosh]

Podolski - a high scoring support striker, who's young and eager to prove himself. Has a reasonable amount of experience for a 23-year old. He is not the most technically gifted player, but by far the best striker available in the winter now that Huntelaar is not an option.

If we can offer Bayern a reasonable amount early enough for them to get a decent replacement, we could be game.

[Elliott]

I would have to agree with the Podolski option.

Owen's fitness worrys me these days. If we could get him on a 'pay as you play contract' then i would say he was worth a chance, but there's no way he would agree to that. He's on mega wages at Newcastle, so i couldnt see him taking a pay cut to come to ''Chelski''!?!

I also think Wagner Love from CSKA is a very realistic option - on a loan deal i think?

[evissy]

Could we potentially rely on DiSanto? If Anelka gets injured during the ACN and Drogs is playing for his country. That scenario is not even far fetched.

We can always bring back Pizarro who has actually been one of the players to watch in Bundesliga this year. It would just be cruel to him, but still that is the flipside of the loan deal.

I wouldn't even think about Owen or Heskey before turning the Pizarro card. He is still owned by us so we have every right to get him back.

Huntelaar is gone now who I personally would have loved to see in Chelsea blue. There are lots of younger guys like this Suarez available but I think we have able enough youngster in DiSanto.

Vagner Love is an option but his pricetag will be relatively high as the seller is CsSKA and I'm not sure if he is good enough anyway and then again Pizarro is available as well.

Tough one but I would rely on what we have.

[Elliott]

I'm sure either Roman himself or one of his friends has a hand in running CSKA, so i dont actually think it would be that difficult to aquire Love. (Cue crap Beatles jokes).

There is no African Cup of Nations this year. It's every 2 years.

I dont have much faith in Pizarro, so would consider anything else before getting him back.

[The Moos]

The question is: Do we go for any striker or just the ones who aren't cup tied?

Podolski would be a good signing, but he's cup tied so we would still just have Drogs and Anelka in the CL.

Are the players at CSKA Moscow cup tied? If not, then we should use Romans influence there and get either Love or Jo.

And a player that we could loan for awhile is Henrik Larsson. Old, yes, but he's still a good player.

We've been linked with Owen and even though I know he's prone to injuries I think he's worth a gamble. If he can stay healthy I'm sure he would score quite a few goals for us.

But I would prefer to get a backup for Drogba.

[evissy]

The question is: Do we go for any striker or just the ones who aren't cup tied?

Podolski would be a good signing, but he's cup tied so we would still just have Drogs and Anelka in the CL.

Are the players at CSKA Moscow cup tied? If not, then we should use Romans influence there and get either Love or Jo.

And a player that we could loan for awhile is Henrik Larsson. Old, yes, but he's still a good player.

We've been linked with Owen and even though I know he's prone to injuries I think he's worth a gamble. If he can stay healthy I'm sure he would score quite a few goals for us.

But I would prefer to get a backup for Drogba.

Podolski would be good option but I believe Klinsmann just said that he is not going anywhere and that he needs to fight for his place.

No African Cup of Nations this year. WOW. We might have a chance of winning the title then. Great news. ACN has become some what of a curseword.

Larsson is one of my favorite strikers of all time but lets face it the man plays floorball and is 37. He is class but should know when to stop.

[4EVERCHELSEA]

I wouldn't mind us getting owen.

I'd have to say Podolski would be a great signing!

[bjd]

The tabloids are once again linking us to a January move for Michael Owen. If we are cutting back on transfer fees then he probably represents the best deal we can as you won't get a better goalscorer for round about £5m (which is what his fee is rumoured to be around).

However signing Owen would be a waste of time if we intend to carry on playing with a lone striker.

Agrred 100%.

Ive always rated Owen. Fitness of course is the issue though. If we could get a gurantee he would play a minimum of 35 games a season i would have no hesitation in going for him.

Ive read he wont move down South so im not sure it is a realistic option.

I pray these rumours about Love are just that. We honestly would be better of getting Pizarro back.

[andy]

I would go for Owen... I think he still a great goal poacher and that is all we need.

Someone on talkscouse the other week said why not Doyle at Reading.. yeah I laughed for a bit then thought about it and thought why not. :D

Hows Terry Henry doing at Barca ??

[Maksimov]

<_< Hows Terry Henry doing at Barca ??

Last I heard he had just scored a hat-trick in the Spanish league.

[Tim]

To be brutally honest, none of the above names really excite me that much, and shows how hard it is to sign genuine quality in the Jan transfer window.

In an ideal world, we would not need to buy anyone, but I have to admit that we are just too thin up front, and were it not for Nico's admirable scoring record, we could well be in the sh*t by now, so getting someone in has to be a top priority.

Having said that, I do just hate the idea of us splashing 5-10 million on a 'decent' striker now, as it is almost a certainty that we will have to spend again in the summer, when the real quality players will be potentially on the market. By that I mean a Benzema or Aguero - someone young (and I can't emphasise that attribute enough), hungry and with genuine world class potential.

I wish that we could make do until the summer, and had enough faith in Sinclair, Stoch, Kakuta to provide the attacking threat instead of a new signing, but that just isn't going to happen.

Out of the above names, I really can't pick one I want. I do like Zaki, but I think he would actually be out of our price range at the moment, and he is still largely unproven.

Rambliong post, which perhaps sums up how I feel about things. Confused.

[coco]

We should use Di Santo, Sinclair, Stoch, & Kakuta more, from now until May.

We dont need to buy anyone in January, we need to save the money until May, then we can go out and spend big on someone like Benzema.

[loz]

The other option not mentioned on here and one that will get Dorset reaching for his quill is Tevez.

Clearly not in much favour at Utd and he has to go somewhere in the Summer (and that somewhere is not going to be back to West Ham). I don't know what the terms of the loan to Utd are other than they have to fork out £30m if they want to make it a permanent move (although I could see them trying to negotiate that down of they do decide to keep him) so whether there would be any possibility of pinching him in January is something I'm not sure about.

I have never been keen on signing Tevez and I am still not however I am just throwing it out there as an option to consider.

[ethicalstrategy]

Is he the pot bellied pig you mentioned earlier?

[abramovich]

Arshavin seems desperate to leave Zenit. Not a bad option, considering that we lack that kind of players - fast, creative and able to switch between wing and center of attack. Better if we could get him on loan.

Vagner Love is a decent player but I wonder if he's capable of rising to the challenge of the better tougher league. Still wouldn't mind adding him in January, again preferably on loan.

Not necessarily on the subject, but I also would love to replace Malouda with somebody like Yury Zhirkov from CSKA. We need speed and creativity on the left wing and he can certainly provide that.

As for the upcoming summer I feel that Benzena is the only top striker left out there that can potentially move. Aguero is rumoured to be joining Barca pretty soon, so that leaves the Lyon striker as the only viable option to replace Drogba with.

Edited December 8, 2008 by abramovich

[andy]

Out of the above names, I really can't pick one I want. I do like Zaki, but I think he would actually be out of our price range at the moment, and he is still largely unproven.

Yeah not much about is there.. young and Brilliant is what we need (Robinho or Messi if they were available!)

Zaki I think is one of those flash in the pan stickers for me... I could be wrong but I can see us going for a bigger name.

[evissy]

Now that someone mentioned Tevez he would be a great addition to our squad. Why? Because we would snatch him away from ManU. I would love it. Although if we'd have to pay strawberries I wouldn't have him. He is not that good.

[The Moos]

Nobody seems to have mentioned David Villa yet. He's a really good player and he has the ability to score loads of goals.

Valencia have some money problems too and unless they can get a Roman to help them they will have to sell players.

Make a nice offer for Villa and they will be tempted.

And unless I'm mistaking he's not cup tied. So he has got to be one of the best non cup tied players out there.

[Maksimov]

Nobody seems to have mentioned David Villa yet. He's a really good player and he has the ability to score loads of goals.

Valencia have some money problems too and unless they can get a Roman to help them they will have to sell players.

Make a nice offer for Villa and they will be tempted.

And unless I'm mistaking he's not cup tied. So he has got to be one of the best non cup tied players out there.

Villa would be one of the players I'd have on our shopping list in the summer in any case(probably out of our price range, though), not just this January shopping window. With the financial troubles at Valencia we could do worse than to inquire about their player. They've had to let Timo Hildebrand go on a free so I think it speaks volumes about their financial crisis that they let a quality keeper go to save them from paying his wages instead of waiting until January and get something out of it by selling the player. Surely there would be interested buyers. <_<