It has been a while since I last posted a fresh article, I know. Work and a few other commitments (but mostly work) had me engaged. However, I am back to conclude this series. And also post other things.
This is part of a series of articles examining the impact of the five most expensive footballers. For an overview of the rules guiding this (unscientific) study and the players being examined, please see the introductory article.
The current captain of the Spanish national football team, Álvaro Borja Morata Martín rounds off our list of players. For many, his position on this list comes as a bit of a surprise; it certainly was to me.
After all, he’s not typically talked about in anywhere near the same breath as some of the players we’ve considered so far. And in typical conversations about “great” modern-day strikers among casual football fans, you’d be hard-pressed to find his name mentioned. Yet, his goalscoring exploits compare pretty favourably against some of the more fashionable players.
Take, for example, a comparison with compatriot Fernando “El Niño” Torres, who was once described as “a deadly finisher and a player of such high class with the ball at his feet that he routinely makes the spectacular look ordinary.”
I initially expected this comparison to overwhelmingly favour Torres but I ended up pleasantly surprised:
| Appearances | Goals Scored | Assists | Avg. Goals | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spanish National Team (Torres) | 110 | 38 | 11 | 0.35 |
| Spanish National Team (Morata) | 71 | 34 | 7 | 0.48 |
| LaLiga (Torres) | 281 | 103 | 12 | 0.37 |
| LaLiga (Morata) | 176 | 70 | 14 | 0.40 |
| UEFA Champions League (Torres) | 79 | 20 | 10 | 0.25 |
| UEFA Champions League (Morata) | 82 | 28 | 12 | 0.34 |
| Premier League (Torres) | 212 | 85 | 39 | 0.40 |
| Premier League (Morata) | 47 | 16 | 6 | 0.34 |
Statistically, Morata more than holds his own in terms of goalscoring ability. Granted, these are somewhat cherry-picked figures, but I came away surprised at how, dare I say, underrated Morata is by many, myself included. (If you wish, you can view each player’s detailed statistics: Fernando Torres, Álvaro Morata)
Despite his respectable goalscoring record, Morata’s place on the list is a bit of a paradox. Unlike the other players like we’ve looked at, he hasn’t been involved in multiple big-money transfers. Rather, he has been involved in several (comparatively) lower-value transfers, including loan moves1, augmented by one big-money transfer, which we shall now consider.
Morata to Chelsea (€66m): 2017 to 2020
Before Romelu Lukaku went to Chelsea (for the second time), there were Timo Werner in 2020/21 and Gonzalo Higuaín in 2018/19.
And before all three of these ill-fated transfers came the transfer of Álvaro Morata to Chelsea.
Coming off the back of their title-winning 2016/17 season, Chelsea were set to lose the services of Diego Costa, the man whose 20 goals had fired the team to the title. (Funny story behind his departure.)
To make up for this loss in firepower, Chelsea turned to a player who was deemed surplus-to-requirements at Real Madrid despite having the second-best goalscoring ratio in LaLiga, behind only Lionel Messi albeit with far fewer goals.
And, so, Álvaro Morata was signed.
It is one of football’s truisms (and contradictions) that, despite their success on the pitch, Chelsea have lacked an imperious number 9 (centre-forward; striker) since the great Didier Drogba left the club for the first time in 2012. (That being said, Costa did come really close.)
Would Morata pick up the baton from Costa and run with it, giving Chelsea the number 9 they so desired? Or would he fall to the wayside like so many other strikers?
You can probably guess the answer to that question. However, I ask that you humour me as we look at the numbers behind his stay at Chelsea.
| Season | League Position | League Points (Max 114) |
|---|---|---|
| 2015/16 (without) | 10 | 50 |
| 2016/17 (without) | 1 | 93 |
| 2017/18 (with) | 5 | 70 |
| 2018/19 (with) | 3 | 72 |
| 2019/20 (with) | 4 | 66 |
| 2020/21 (without) | 4 | 67 |
| 2021/22 (without) | 3 | 74 |
| Avg. 70.29 |
Different season, same struggle.
Much like I did with Lukaku’s graph evaluating his time at Chelsea, I needed to tweak the graph slightly from other graphs used. Such was the team’s poor league performance in 2015/16.
To their credit, though, they immediately bounced back from their tenth-place finish with a league title win in 2016/17. However, based on their performance in subsequent seasons (including a twelfth-place finish in 2022/23), that league win is looking more and more like an outlier. And given their struggles this season (Chelsea are 7th with 3 games to play of the 2023/24 season), it seems like it might be their only league success for a while.
But I digress. Let’s get back to Morata.
During his three seasons at the club, Chelsea averaged 69.33 points, with their highest league position being a third-place finish in 2018/19. From a points perspective, their worst performance came in 2019/20.
League positions and points only tell half the story, so let’s look at Morata’s individual contributions to the cause.
| Season | Club League Goals | Goals | Assists2 | % Contribution3 | Match Winners4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015/16 (without) | 59 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% | 0 |
| 2016/17 (without) | 85 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% | 0 |
| 2017/18 (with) | 62 | 11 | 6 | 27.42% | 5 |
| 2018/19 (with) | 63 | 5 | 0 | 7.94% | 2 |
| 2019/20 (with) | 69 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% | 0 |
| 2020/21 (without) | 58 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% | 0 |
| 2021/22 (without) | 76 | 0 | 0 | 0.00% | 0 |
As you probably guessed, Morata did not end up being the number 9 that Chelsea needed. The top two seasons in terms of goals scored came before and after his time at the club, with 85 goals scored in the title-winning 2016/17 season and 76 goals scored in 2021/22. In fact, in the four seasons before and after Morata, the team scored an average of 69.5 goals as compared to 64.67 goals scored between 2017/18 and 2019/20.
That being said, his debut season actually went pretty well. While he obviously didn’t score as many goals as would have been hoped for, his tally of 11 goals and 6 assists resulted in a goal contribution rate of 27.42%.
Again, not the sort of return that might have been hoped for, but a decent platform upon which to build. Sadly, that building was left unfinished.
You might have noticed that the 2019/20 season saw zero goals and assists from Morata. That ties in to the disappointing 2018/19 season, which saw Morata loaned to Atlético Madrid halfway through the season for a period of 18 months.
Something that struck me, though, is just how important his goals were, however limited they were in number.
Out of the 11 goals he scored in 2017/18, about half of them, 5, were match-winning goals. And out of the 5 goals he scored in 2018/19, about half of them, 2, were match winners. Without the points earned by Morata’s goals, Chelsea would have ended the seasons:
So what of his transfer to Chelsea as a whole? Was it a success?
Despite the rather unimpressive numbers posted, it was a relative success. While at the club, he lifted two trophies:
- 1 x FA Cup (2017/18)
- 1 x UEFA Europa League (2018/19)
(It must be noted, however, that Morata left halfway through the campaign, so he didn’t “lift” the trophy in the strictest sense of the word, he just got a winner’s medal by virtue of having featured and scored for Chelsea.)
While he didn’t set the world alight during his time at the club, Morata clearly played a role. And he can take comfort in the fact that he wasn’t the first striker to struggle at Chelsea. And as a few subsequent transfers showed, he wouldn’t be the last.
Would he have done better if he had felt “appreciated or loved” at Chelsea? We’ll never know.
And that brings us to the end of the list of five players. I hope that you’ve enjoyed the ride as much as I have.
I’ll be wrapping up my thoughts on this whole series next. Hope to see you then.
Stay healthy.
Footnotes
A loan is a temporary transfer of a player to a club other than the club to which the player is currently contracted. The player remains under contract at Club A but spends a period of time playing for Club B. Such a transfer may involve a fee, or it may be free. ↩
For a basic understanding of what constitutes an assist, see this [Wikipedia page][assists-criteria]. ↩
”% Contribution” is the total number of goals and assists contributed by a player expressed as a percentage of the total goals scored by the team. ↩
To best understand the idea behind a match-winning goal, consider the following examples:
- In a match that ends 1-0, the match winner is, obviously, the only goal.
- In a match that ends 2-0, the match winner is the first goal.
- In a match that ends 4-2, the match winner is the third goal scored by the winning team.
In cases where points earned by a player are calculated, only the match winners are considered. Points earned in a draw are NOT factored in. ↩