MORATA'S A BLUE Chelsea agree Alvaro Morata deal for £68m as Antonio Conte finally lands Real Madrid striker

ANTONIO CONTE has finally won his battle for a striker after Chelsea agreed a club-record £68m fee with Real Madrid for Alvaro Morata.

Morata is set to break off from Madrid’s pre-season tour of the US to thrash out personal terms with the Premier League champions.

Striking a deal for Morata ends weeks of frustration for Conte who sees a new frontman as vital for the defence of the title next season.

It also means he has won his battle with rebel Diego Costa who will now be free to negotiate his return to Atletico Madrid.

The agreement for Morata comes just 24 hours after Conte himself agreed a new two year contract which doubled his money to £10m a year.

Welcome to Chelsea Morata!

So it is under £70M, my bad. Congrats to Chelsea, a wonderful player, in a good team, this man is clinical. Hopefully, playing time and the confidence Conte will put in him will be enough to make him progress into one of the best striker in the world. :) Wonder if Batshuayi will get more playing however and have a rotation role. Anyway, cheers! Chelsea got themselve their striker at last. :)

Whoop whoop this news is so good! can't wait to see him play in a blue shirt. All I can say rn is KTBFFH!

This one tho, He has some great skills and ball control, great vision and assists and most of all goals. I'm loving this now. Now our team is much more enjoyable to watch under Conte and with this signing we have so much creativity in the squad.

@AlexBatak Really one of his best play when he played for Juventus. Anyway, if he is as consistent as he was for Real at Chelsea, he should be very good. Still, I expect him to need a few match of adaptation though. ;)

You got yourselves a good striker :> He's still got a lot of potential left to exploit and he's pretty good in the air which can be nice for EPL style of football. He also makes good runs off the ball and has good positioning inside the box. Poacher type of player so don't expect fancy trickery from him. For Madrid, he was always a hard worker when he had to chip in on defensive duties, so I expect no complaints from Chelsea fans saying he is lazy c:

It's actually 58£ mill hahahah

Really happy about this signing. Morata, Auba or Belotti were top of the list of transfers.

Scary how the top EPL clubs have bettered their XI's this year..

Wow! Never thought it would finally happen. Brilliant signing though!... Not too expensive, superb finishing, possibly the best striker we could have got this window, after Aubamayang and Aguero (who are staying at their own clubs anyway)! Cant wait to see him putting away goals in the Prem week in week out! Will be interesting though to see who comes out on top in the league between Lukaku and Morata!...

Conte is the perfect coach for Morata.

I always say next season will be best we ever seen so I am saying again next season some real blood will be spilled in EPL . All top clubs are making big transfers !

One Spanish striker for another, it seems. Wonder if it will be an upgrade, and if so, how much of one?

@Marcus City got Bernardo Silva and Kyle Walker, Liverpool signed Salah and Solanke, Chelsea got Morata and Bakayoko, United has Lukaku and Lindelof, I guess we just need to wait and see what Tottenham do this transfer window. :)

@Sunflash Actually, you should have said Spanish international for another. I'm sure you know Costa isn't exactly Spanish. XD

@Lukaku

Jesus Christ Emo

@Sunflash This mistake never happened, its in your head, it never happened, hahaha...

He only has 40 goals in 6 years, but he has a first touch so I'm sure he'll succeed.

Morata ready to be Chelsea's main man? Spain star compared to Costa and Lukaku

Chelsea will have high hopes for Alvaro Morata but is he likely to be as prolific as Romelu Lukaku and Diego Costa in the Premier League?

Alvaro Morata is set to spearhead Chelsea's title defence after the Premier League champions reached an agreement to bring in the Spain striker from Real Madrid in a reported £70million deal.

But the circumstances surrounding Morata's arrival mean he will inevitably be measured against the deeds of two other master marksmen.

Diego Costa was Chelsea's top scorer en route to glory last season but Conte has decided Morata's combustible international colleague is more trouble than he is worth, freezing him out of his plans this time around.

The Blues were seemingly keen on bringing Romelu Lukaku back to Stamford Bridge but Manchester United beat them to the punch, wrapping up an initial £75m deal.

Missing out on the Belgium star reportedly left Conte furious, but he now has the chance to finally work with Morata – a player he agreed to sign for Juventus in 2014 before leaving to take charge of Italy.

Will it be a match made in heaven or a signing that leaves Chelsea fans wondering what might have been? With the help of Opta data, we will assess how Morata stacks up alongside Costa and Lukaku.

FROM SUPPORTING CAST TO LEADING MAN

Morata has operated with distinction at both Madrid and Juventus, but the biggest question mark surrounding the 24-year-old before his move to Chelsea is how he would cope with being the main striker at a major European club.

At Juventus he had Mario Mandzukic and Paulo Dybala for company, while Karim Benzema was arguably kept above him in the pecking order at the Santiago Bernabeu last season on the grounds of reputation rather than form.

But there is no doubt over the identity of Chelsea's number one striker now and Morata will have to adjust to an increased workload.

Over the past three seasons, Morata made 89 top-flight appearances, the same number as Costa. However, only 41 of those were starts, set against 86 for his older Spain team-mate. Lukaku started 104 of 110 matches for Everton.

Lukaku has more than double the amount of on-field minutes (9,316) than Morata (4,103) over the same period, with Costa clocking 7,550 minutes.

GOALS, GOALS, GOALS

As such, Morata's goalscoring return of 30 in three seasons across Serie A and LaLiga comes in below Lukaku's and Costa's in the Premier League – 53 and 52 respectively.

Morata also had far fewer shots (154), with Lukaku (333) comfortably outstripping Costa on this metric (255).

The younger Spain star shows a greater aptitude when it comes to creating goals for team-mates, however. Despite significantly less playing time, he matches Costa's 16 assists over the period in question – a total only one shy of Lukaku's.

Morata's assists arrive every 256.4 minutes, compared to 471.8 for Costa and 548 – or a shade over one every six 90-minute appearances - for Lukaku.

SHARP SHOOTING ALVARO

Despite, or perhaps because of, his more limited playing opportunities, Morata has developed an impressive ruthless streak in front of goal.

He found the net once every 136.7 minutes over the past three seasons, with Costa on 145.2 minutes and Lukaku 175.7.

Costa and Morata's shot conversation rates are narrowly either side of 20 per cent, with the former coming out fractionally on top, while Lukaku is down on 15.9 per cent.

In LaLiga last season, Morata's goalscoring tools were particularly sharp. His 15 goals from 55 shots gave him the highest conversion rate (27.3 per cent) of any player to score more than 10 goals.

He averaged a goal every 88.7 minutes. That made him more efficient than both Cristiano Ronaldo and Luis Suarez, with only a certain Lionel Messi boasting a better minutes-per-goal return of 76.5.

@AlexBatak Another stat that I believe is true is that Morata best goal by minute was last season for Real Madrid wich would suggest he is getting better and better... that or its easier to score in La Liga. Anyway, I really hope he will be a success at Chelsea. :)

The stats of Morata shouldn't matter at this point. He will play more and do more.

He will hopefully do well, I want the lad to succeed. But holy moly, Chelsea overpaid like crazy. These English transfer fees have been through the roof in the last couple years.

I'd also recommend not reading into his stats too much - he mostly played against scrub teams in La Liga. He hardly featured in the Champions League or against tougher competition in Spain. Benzema and Cristiano were almost always preferred to him.

Thx for the ca$h tho. Time to blow it on Mbappe LMAO. :)

haha you are right ! You know what sucks even more !? Soon Real will come to shop to EPL and they will pay double of what we have paid as always ! :))) Fun times are coming ! Now go and blow all that 60 mil ( possibly more ) on 18 years old who just had a one good season! :))))