One of the more favoured words of Sky Sports football commentators is "barnstorming". If, like me, much of your weekend evenings are spent in front of the television set, being transported to various football stadiums across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, chances are you would be very familiar with the word. Watch a couple of Premier League games and you will invariably hear the phrases "he went on a barnstorming run", "that's a barnstorming finish" or something similar involving the word "barnstorming".
Essentially, any emphatic and forceful finish or a powerful, driving run at considerable speed come under the purview of getting described as "barnstorming". Coming up to the end of a couple of months of the new football season, one other thing which fits the word perfectly would be Diego Costa's start to his Chelsea career. Eight goals in his first six games, including a hat-trick, is as "barnstorming" as it gets.
Watching Chelsea last season was an exercise in frustration, if you were a supporter of the club. Much of their play was sublime and enterprising, tearing through two-thirds of the pitch, only to flounder foolishly in the final third. Even to casual observers, it was clearly evident that the players leading the line were letting the team down badly and a genuinely good forward would elevate the team and their threat, exponentially. While meaning no disrespect to Torres, Eto'o and Demba Ba, none of them gave the impression of being that player and it was somewhat amusing to see Jose Mourinho tearing his hair out every time one of them spurned a chance. Costa, on the other hand, almost seems to shout out from the rooftops, of being exactly that player.
Jose Mourinho is a manager par excellence, albeit who comes with a very distinct style of play which then demands a very distinct style of centre forward. Fast, strong, not only of body but of mind, tireless, hard working with an ability not as much as to defend but harass from the front are the qualities that Mourinho likes in his striker. His preferred formation is a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-3-3, either of which necessitates the front man to be aerially strong so as to bring in the midfield runners and inside forwards into play. All of these are qualities that Costa excels in, which is why he seems to be such a shrewd and well thought buy. Chelsea needed a striker desperately and while Costa with his Atletico heroics was an obvious choice, he was not the only choice. The reason Mourinho, went all out for him because the striker, at the absolute peak of his powers fits his system perfectly. Costa's blistering start owes much to the style and setup at Chelsea already crafted by Mourinho over the course of last season and Costa has slid in seamlessly into place.
Football, like life is unpredictable to the core. There are no certainties, form can disappear and reappear at the slightest of first touches, games are turned and decided on split second decisions and the margins of success and failure are intertwined very minutely. Yet, informed decisions can be made based on available evidence and the early evidence suggests that Costa may well be the final piece of the Chelsea jigsaw. By all accounts this is a striker who will not only score bucket full of goals but will mentally terrorize and goad opposition defenders into mistakes like he did to Seamus Coleman and will physically battle it out in a visceral contest with the best of them. His duel with Kompany and Mangala, is a sign of things to come, surely.
Two months in to the season and there is a growing evidence that Costa is going to be Chelsea's most influential player, the figurehead of their attack whose form may dictate their results more than anyone else's, whose playing well would invariably lead to victory and success and whose missing in action may well lead to a meltdown in fortunes. Mourinho has already come out saying that the striker is battling a hamstring injury and has hardly taken any part in the training programs leading up to this weekend's fixture.
There are concerns that he needs a break, which his international call up does not afford. Chelsea's play and subsequent result against an obviously inferior Schalke in the Champions League game last week points to what life on the football field may come to mean without the services of Costa.
Ever since, Roman Abramovich and his Russian roubles combined together put Chelsea Football Club amongst Europe's football elite, the club has, quite infamously, come to be regarded as a "striker's graveyard". Hernan Crespo, Adrian Mutu, Mateja Kezman, Andriy Shevchenko and Torres all have two things in common. All of them were bought by Chelsea for considerable money to satiate Abramovich's appetite for sumptuous football with goals galore and all of them failed, horribly and spectacularly. All except Didier Drogba, who remains the one shining striking success for Chelsea over the last decade. The Ivory Coast forward terrorised Premier League defences, bruised and battered many an opposition defender and scored countless vital goals, all on his way to becoming a club stalwart. Fast, strong, full of bravado with more than a hint of the nasty in him, loved and revered by his supporters and reviled by rival fans, splitting and polarizing opinions, and seemingly ever ready and almost welcoming of blurring the lines of gamesmanship, that was Drogba.
Read the last few lines again and they seem to eerily describe Costa's time at Atletico Madrid, which is why the feeling pervades around Stamford Bridge that even though Drogba is back at Chelsea for a second innings. It is in Costa that they may well see the actual coming back of Drogba. In so much as qualities and deeds, Costa seems to represent the best and worst of Drogba and has every chance of emulating the African superstar, leading his club to titles and glory thereby adding a much needed success story to Chelsea's frustrating history of striking talents.
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