Captain John Terry and his defensive partner Gary Cahill were consulted by Jose Mourinho when considering whether to bring Radamel Falcao to the club. Falcao’s move to Chelsea surprised many people after his unsuccessful season with the red devils, yet the London club have given him the opportunity to prove to English fans that he is still one of the most deadly strikers in the world.
The Blues centre back pairing played against Falcao in Chelsea’s 1-0 win over Man United so experienced first hand what the Colombian can do. The two defenders must have high opinions of El Tigre for it to be enough to convince Mourinho to sign the player on loan for the season.
Simon Johnson of the Evening Standard is reporting Mourinho to have said,
“I watched our game against Manchester United a few times. I spoke with John and Cahill a lot about him and we think the bright movement is there, the movement to get freedom in the box to score goals is there. Our players had difficulty to control him and we feel the potential is there. Let’s see if he can improve his confidence, his happiness.”
“The fact we have a good community of Portuguese (speaking) people at the club, plus the guys who were with him in Atletico Madrid (Diego Costa, Filipe Luis) – let’s see if this situation can help him.”
Before Falcao’s move to Monaco, he was one of the most sought after strikers on the planet. Question marks still surround the player as to why he moved to the French club in the first place, however the project they were aiming to achieve at the time was understandable.
Now he’s joined the champions and Mourinho is of the belief he can get back to his best and if so, there’s no reason he can’t be the first choice striker, with many fans still believing Diego Costa is untouchable.
“He can be second, first or third (choice). He knows, Diego knows and (Loic) Remy knows that. It is open competition between the three of them. That’s our objective, that’s why we want three strikers ready and important.”
“If we want, we can play with Costa and him together – it is something they did before when they were in Atletico. Can he be the Falcao of Atletico? We believe so. I don’t want to go there (why he struggled at Man Utd). Every team has their style of play and every manager has their way of football. If Mr Van Gaal didn’t play him more it’s because he had his ideas and we have to respect that.”
With Falcao receiving a couple of weeks extra on his holidays after appearing for Colombia at the Copa America, he’s still yet to join up with the squad on pre-season. However Mourinho is expecting the striker to be full fitness and ready for the first game of the season against Swansea on August 8th.
“We are not expecting him to join us Tuesday and then play on Saturday and score a hat-trick. I will give him half an hour (his debut) against Barcelona (kick off 1am English time on July 29th). But he has to be ready for the first League game. Maybe not the Community Shield (against Arsenal August 2). But after two-and-a-half weeks of training, he must be ready.”
With Falcao struggling last season at Manchester United, the Colombian forward has made sacrifices to join the blues and is determined to show the fans of England what he’s really capable of.
Jose said: “He is not happy that in England people think he is not as good as he is and his motivation is there. He did a lot of things to come to us. He lost money to come to us, he didn’t want to listen to other offers. He helped us a lot to do a deal with Monaco. So with all of these things together, we think we can help him and he can help us.”
