Andre Schurrle – His value to CFC

Prior to his signing, Bayer Leverkusen’s former star Schurrle was deemed a waste of money; we had Kevin De Bruyne lying in wait, we should only go for Germany’s best talents, i.e. Marco Reus. This viewpoint was only compounded by a couple of friendly matches at the end of the 2012-13 season, a mediocre German friendly and Ballack’s testimonial, where Schurrle, understandably, didn’t light things up. The fact that Andre hasn’t set the world ablaze in pre-season, a natural thing, mind you, hasn’t helped dispel the notion that he was a “waste”. However, the fact that Chelsea pressed ahead with this move in this present close season is an indicator of how much the club’s technical director and also Jose Mourinho rate him. To take you back 12 months, Schurrle was a very important transfer target for us, and Bayer had tried to screw 30 million euro out of us for him. It was rumoured that he had a 14 million euro release clause in his contract set for the close season after the 2013-14 season, and the fact that we decided to press ahead of this move a year before the clause triggered is an indicator of the necessity of his signing, and the importance the manager places on him to fit into his plans.

Firstly, he is a valuable player to the squad as he frees us from the fatigue and repetition of the starting XI that we faced last season. During Roberto di Matteo’s short reign, there was a period where Mata, Hazard and Oscar were being trotted out over and over again, and Rafa’s reign didn’t alleviate this (despite the annoying but necessary rotation, Mata and Oscar were still used at an alarming rate (we simply couldn’t survive without Mata)). With Schurrle and KDB both being added to the squad, we are now able to successfully trade off the aforementioned three behind the striker, and the different permutations available mean that we can successfully play a variety of styles.

Andre Schurrle’s game revolves around him using his stamina, speed and strength to run at defences, break them down and subsequently use either foot to bring a teammate into the game or aim to plant a shot in one of the four corners of the net. Going back to his Leverkusen days, his trademark counter attacking runs are easy to see, and this particular skill WILL, not could, WILL work wonders in this squad. Frequently last season we had played blistering football, to be then forced into defending. Our accomplished defending at these times had seen us whisk the ball away for a counter attack, but the problem we had, was that we didn’t have players that could effectively convert those counters into goals. One that sticks in my mind painfully was the chance against Spurs in the home tie. We had cleared the ball out from the defence, where Hazard then produced a flick of sublime quality where the ball fell to…. Juan Mata. Mata, the darling of the team though he may be, is not blessed with any remarkable semblance of pace. This doesn’t detract from his usefulness, but only adds to Schurrle’s value. In future ties where we may well have our backs against the wall, and need to break successfully, it is possible that we’d have Schurrle, Ramires, David Luiz, Hazard, De Bruyne and Lukaku (or potentially Rooney) leading a counter attack against opponents, each of  these players then able to convert any chance that falls to them. It is potentially reminiscent of the 2004-05 season where we demolished teams time and time again with our counter attacking style. Schurrle would be a key part of that, as his stamina and speed combined is a lethal weapon in this set up.

Share your thoughts on Schurrle’s value to the squad for the upcoming seasons, also bearing in mind that at 22, in football terms he is a boy. He has plenty of time to improve on any negative aspects, and I’m sure the £18million spent on him will definitely be offset by the millions he can help us to by winning a lot of trophies.

My twitter account is @cfc_shaun, please feel free to discuss this with me there 🙂

Thanks for reading!