HIG, HIG, HOORAY!
Higuain double puts a smile back on Sarri’s face... but the month ahead is his real test
JOSE MOURINHO once lost Gonzalo Higuain to injury at Real Madrid and surveyed the alternatives. It would be, he said, like ‘hunting without a dog’. Higuain had a ruthlessness and aggression in attack that Mourinho knew they would miss with lesser players.
That was eight years ago when Higuain was in his prime. On a crisp winter’ s afternoon at Stamford Bridge against limited opposition yesterday, the Argentinian opened his scoring account in English football.
At times in the match, the 31-yearold had looked a little laboured. His touch seemed rusty and his conditioning is not perhaps what is required for a centre-forward in the ever-more energetic modern game. But though the dog may have lost a little zest, his hair thinned a little and be carrying a few war wounds, he has not lost his scent for wounded prey.
No one should doubt Higuain’s class. His consistent goal-scoring at the best clubs in the world — 122 in 264 games for Real Madrid — is evidence enough of his credentials. The question is whether the man with one goal in 12 games at AC Milan this season is the right man to save Sarri-ball, Maurizio’s Sarri unique brand of football at Chelsea.
He did it for him at Napoli but not since 1996, when Roman Abramovich was just 30 and more worried about perestroika than Chelsea strikers, had the club suffered a defeat as bad as the one they did at Bournemouth last week, where Higuain had played his first Premier League game.
So it had been an inauspicious start. But Huddersfield, under new management but now with one point in 12 Premier League games, were the perfect guests for a reboot of the system. As such, it will take some time before it can be said for sure Higuain is Sarri’s saviour.
But in the context of this contest, he was decisive. The muscle memory of a world-class striker does not fade so quickly. That much was evident in the 16th minute when N’Golo Kante played a super slide pass into the box and into his path. A lesser player might have run offside. Higuain timed his run off Terence Kongolo perfectly and then, from a tight angle, finished clinically from close range at the near post.
By the time he struck his second, in the 69th minute, the contest was no more but, still, there was plenty to admire. Eden Hazard wriggled his way past players, touched the ball to Kante who, with the lightest touch, played it on to the Argentine. Twenty-five yards out from goal, there was no hesitation: Higuain sized up the chance, struck with power and lifted the ball over Jonas Lossl and under t he crossbar. Both were moments of pure instinct and demonstrated a ruthlessness which Chelsea have lacked this season.
‘When he arrived, he wasn’t at the top of his physical condition,’ said Sarri of his star signing. ‘Now he is improving. I’m really very happy because, apart from the goals, my feeling is he’s really suitable to play very close to Eden. I think that, on the pitch, they are really very suitable to play close to each other. For us, this is very useful for Higuain because he will be able to score a lot of goals, but also for Eden.’
Quite so. But then it was Sarri who was insistent that Hazard could thrive as a false nine when plenty have been adamant for some time that he might be better coming in from the left.
As much as you could draw conclusions, this game showed that Sarri’s team have not thrown in the towel on Sarri-ball just yet.
Yet a domestic run of leagues and cup fixtures that sees them play Manchester City twice, Manchester United and Tottenham will tell us more. ‘It will be very difficult but also for our opponents I think,’ said Sarri. ‘We know very well we have to fight if we want to stay in the top four in the table and then we have to try to win something. It will be really very difficult. Here in England, everything i s really difficult.’
At least Sarri felt that his team had implemented his philosophy for the first 25 minutes but insisted they needed to apply it for at least 75 minutes. ‘We need to improve the mentality, we have to arrive at every match with the same level of determination and motivation: we don’t need to lose a match to have the right motivation,’ he said.
‘Today the answer is really very good but we have to be careful. We need the same mentality in every match. Today they were really very motivated but we lost 4-0 in the last match [against Bournemouth]. So they had to react. Now we have to understand t hat t he l evel of motivation must be the same in
every match.’ It was not really the 16 th-minute goal that killed Huddersfield. It was the dubious 45th-minute penalty that finished them off.
They had started well, vibrant and energetic. Manager Jan Siewart does appear to have given them a fresh lease of life, albeit too little, too late.
They were extremely adept at playing the ball over the Chelsea back line, Aaron Mooy particularly, with Adama Diakhaby and, until he went off injured, Isaac Mbenza, showing real pace to t rouble Chelsea’s full-backs.
Yet however dangerous they were in getting into that position, they could not then register clean shots on target, either being blocked before they shot or failing to find their man.
Perhaps their best chance came after just six minutes when Mooy’s header was just over the bar from Chris Lowe’s cross. Still, they were in the game. Then, as half- time approached, Cesar Azpilicueta broke into the box. Elias Kachunga chased him down and, foolishly, stuck out a leg, over which Azpilicueta gratefully tumbled.
The foul was marginal but correctly given. However, the offence was initially committed outside the box and so should have been a free-kick. Hazard stepped up to convert, low and hard.
Thereafter, it seemed an impossible task for Huddersfield and so it proved, especially after the moment in the 55th minute, when Andreas Christensen clipped Kachunga in the box and referee Paul Tierney declined to take action.
Ross Barkley threaded through a lovely ball for Hazard in the 66th minute and the Belgian wriggled his way past Lossl to turn in the third from close range. Then, after Higuain scored the fourth, David Luiz met Willian’s corner with a powerful header and Kachunga deflected it past Lossl. The game had been lost well before. As it seems, has Huddersfield’s season.
For Chelsea and Sarri there is a month in which their entwined destinies may well be defined.