Since Didier Drogba won the Golden Boot in 2010, finding a consistent and a prolific goal scorer has been a major issue for Chelsea. In 2009/10, Drogba scored 29 goals to help Chelsea to their third Premier League title.
Since then, while the Blues have won the title twice, no one has been able to challenge for the Golden Boot. In fact, apart from Diego Costa (who twice scored 20), no one has even crossed the 20 goal mark. So let’s take a look at who have been Chelsea’s top scorers since their last Golden Boot winner.
2010/11 – Florent Malouda (13 goals)
2011/12 – Frank Lampard, Daniel Sturridge (11 goals)
2012/13 – Frank Lampard (15 goals)
2013/14 – Eden Hazard (14 goals)
2014/15 – Diego Costa (20 goals)
2015/16 – Diego Costa (12 goals)
2016/17 – Diego Costa (20 goals)
2017/18 – Eden Hazard (12 goals)
2018/19 – Eden Hazard (16 goals)
2019/20 – Tammy Abraham (15 goals)
2020/21 – Jorginho (7 goals)
2021/22 – Mason Mount (11 goals)
Those numbers make for pretty dismal reading. Only twice has the 20 goal mark been reached, while 15 has been touched on only three other occasions. What’s worrying is that majority of the top scorers have been midfielders/wingers, and in 2020/21, it was a defensive midfielder who was the penalty taker!
It’s not like Chelsea didn’t have strikers either. After Drogba, they had Fernando Torres, Samuel Eto’o, Radamel Falcao, Alvaro Morata, Gonzalo Higuain and most recently, Romelu Lukaku. With strikers of that quality and price tag, a lot more was expected. Instead, each one of them failed to deliver. And so, the Blues yet again find themselves looking for a striker in the summer window.