Maurizio Sarri says the reason Chelsea had to go all in for Juventus striker Gonzalo Higuain this month was because Alvaro Morata had asked to leave the club in December.
According to the Chelsea head coach, Morata told him of an opportunity back in his homeland Spain, where he could revive his career and Sarri saw the opportunity to jump in for his former striker in Italy. Higuain and Sarri worked together at Napoli in Italy, where he the Argentina international scored a remarkable 36 goals in Serie A, a record-equalling tally.
Since then the former Real Madrid star moved to Juventus and then last season, joined AC Milan on loan for the season, but has now signed for Chelsea for the remainder of the campaign, in a deal that could be extended for another year.
Morata’s struggles at Chelsea has seen him score only five goals in the Premier League this season and he saw the chance to return to the La Liga as perfectly timed to relaunch a dying career.
“I think that Morata is a very good player. I think that Morata has the characteristics for playing in my team But Morata, one month ago, said he wanted to play in another team. So it was really very difficult for him to give us the 100 per cent for his mental situation.
The situation changed in the last month. So we needed to change. I don’t know [about the transfer market]. As you know very well, I don’t want to follow the market day by day. I don’t know the actual situation. Morata told me 10 days ago that there was an opportunity in Spain, but I don’t know where. We have some problems in scoring. Higuain usually is able to score 25 or 30 goals every season. But, as I told you before, in the market in January it’s very difficult to secure a very important striker. Gonzalo was in a situation that we could try to buy him, and so we decided to try for Higuain.”
Maurizio Sarri, Metro
