Chelsea Should Have Signed Krzysztof Piatek, Not Gonzalo Higuain

Chelsea signed Gonzalo Higuain on loan in January, and although the Argentine has done well since coming in, Chelsea should have signed the man that Milan replaced Higuain with instead – Krzysztof Piatek.

Gonzalo Higuain has had a stunning career – there is no doubt about that. With 3 La Liga’s, 2 Serie A’s, countless individual awards, and nearly 300 goals along the way, he is truly one of the most prolific forwards of our era. At 31 years of age however, he has just past his best years, and his numbers have decreased significantly over the last couple of seasons. So for Chelsea to make the move for Higuain in January was a bit strange, although he is better than Morata and Giroud by some distance. He isn’t somebody who can be trusted in the long-term, and many thought that Chelsea would simply wait till the summer to sign another striker that they can build around for years to come.

AC Milan were the ones who lost the services of Higuain to Chelsea, but to be fair, he wasn’t really lighting it up for them at all. Gattuso and his board went in search of a replacement, and found the perfect one – Polish striker Krzysztof Piatek, who was lighting up the scoresheets with Genoa all season long, in his debut season as well. Piatek has come to Milan for a mere £31 million and absolutely bossed it, scoring in every match except his very first, and bagging 2 braces as well. He is simply a goal-machine with a very well rounded game. Piatek can play with his back to goal, between the channels, in-behind, and through the air – truly a complete, modern centre-forward.

So this poses the question, why didn’t Chelsea simply sign Krzysztof Piatek in the first place, rather than a stop-gap player in Higuain? They certainly knew about Piatek, everyone did, and since he was playing at a relatively small club in Genoa, they would have known he was attainable as well. Perhaps Chelsea are waiting till the summer to make a bigger splash than Piatek. The club has been linked with a certain Mauro Icardi, and the Inter striker has even been stripped of the captaincy and shunned from the squad over the past week or so, which could definitely lead to a future transfer. Other than Icardi though, it really doesn’t seem like there are any strikers better than Piatek that would be available for Chelsea, especially with Champions League football next year far from secured.

Chelsea might go on to regret not signing Piatek this window, as it seems AC Milan have found themselves a brilliant striker with a very high ceiling. Chelsea are a club with big pulling power however, and they may very well sign an even better player this summer.