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Does Alvaro Morata lack confidence?

David Nugent in Editorial, English Premier League 4 Jan 2018

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Many influences of outside life have moved into football in recent years. The welcoming of sports psychologists into the game has been an indication of the lengths that football clubs go to get the best out of their players.

One player who could benefit from this sort of help is Chelsea striker Alvaro Morata. The Spaniard missed a number of good chances during the Blues 2-2 at Arsenal on Wednesday night. He only needed to score one of the chances to win the game.

He never really looked like scoring any of the chances and seemed to lack conviction in front of goal. The striker received widespread criticism for his misses from both fans and pundits alike after his poor display.

Alvaro Morata has many good attributes

There is no doubt about it, Morata has many good qualities and the striker is highly rated. A player does not play for European giants like Real Madrid and Juventus if he is useless.

Morata’s has decent pace and has good technical ability. However, the striker’s main attribute is his football intelligence. He knows how to get himself into good scoring positions, even if he is missing the chances. Morata is also very good in the air.

While he has scored ten goals in 20 appearances for Chelsea, there are doubts about the striker’s ability to sustain a career at the top level of the game. Unfortunately, he is often compared to predecessor Diego Costa, who is a completely different player and personality.

Morata mental strength questioned

Alvaro Morata is known to be a nice guy on and off the pitch. Some have accused him of being too nice at times and not having the ruthless streak in him to become a truly world-class striker.

Question marks over his mental strength have dogged him throughout his football career. Morata has never been afraid to reveal his vulnerabilities. He even admitted that he did not want to live in stressful London for too long earlier this season.

His former Juventus teammate Gigi Buffon once stated that Morata could be one of the best strikers in the world “if only he could get over his mental hang-ups”.

Morata seems like a guy that lacks confidence in his very considerable ability. At 25-years-old, he is finally starting games on a regular basis for a big team in a big European league after being a bit-part player at Real Madrid and Juventus.

Chelsea had the faith in Morata to replace Costa. However, everybody at the club needs to give the striker time to adjust to being the focal point of a team. The striker is a confidence player and needs to feel happy to produce his best form. Some Chelsea fans are already writing the Spaniard off on social media.

Morata can be a major success at Chelsea

It is fair to say that at odds of 40/1 the Chelsea striker will not be winning this season’s Premier League golden boot. However, if as Buffon says he can sort out the mental side of his game things will come together for the Spaniard at Chelsea and he could be a challenger for the award next season.

Alvaro Morata is a striker built for the Premier League. He is big, strong and has very good movement. With the right help, he could become a major success at Chelsea.

Whether he will get the right help to become a more clinical striker only time will tell. If he scored half of the chances that he is getting at the moment he would be right up there challenging the likes of Mohamed Salah and Harry Kane for the Golden Boot.

For now, though, Morata just has to keep working hard and getting into good positions. I hope the striker can turn things around, as he does seem like a really genuine and honest guy from his interviews. He deserves better than being a laughing stock on social media.

Does Alvaro Morata lack confidence?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Nugent


David is a freelance football writer with nearly a decade of experience writing about the beautiful game. The experienced writer has written for over a dozen websites and also an international soccer magazine offline.
Arguably his best work has come as an editorial writer for Soccernews, sharing his good, bad and ugly opinions on the world’s favourite sport. During David’s writing career he has written editorials, betting previews, match previews, banter, news and opinion pieces.

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