The expensive 'idea' of Alvaro Morata

Is the forward a footballing fugazi? Well not quite.

The career of Alvaro Morata is a baffling one.

When you look at the list of clubs he’s played for and the money that has been spent on him across his time as a footballer, it paints the picture of an all-timer or at least a very good striker, but he is just ‘fine’.

So with that in mind, a week or so ago I tweeted in reply to yet another transfer rumour involving the striker - ‘Morata is not a player he is an idea’.

It was meant to be a throwaway joke underpinned slightly by my own opinion, but more and more people began to agree with me (and not to flex but I got around 18k likes on it).

Some people who replied kind of got my point, but because I’m a writer and I need something to talk about before I head to Malaga for a much-needed holiday on Monday, you’re getting a whole article on it.

I think the start of this article has to address the elephant in the room; why is there so much debate around a player that has never scored over 20 goals in a season at club level?

Well, it’s because he is somehow the 4th most expensive player ever based on cumulative transfer fees, as you can see from the chart from Transfermarkt below:

Most of the players that make up the top 15 have one transfer that makes up the majority of their transfer fee, for example, nearly £200m of Neymar’s fees are contributed by his transfer from Barcelona to PSG. This is also the case for Philippe Coutinho, Ousmane Dembele, Antone Griezmann and Eden Hazard.

Both Kylian Mbappe and Joao Felix are on the list thanks to a single transfer, which in some way shows how out of control the transfer market has become over recent years (especially since both were teenagers at the time of their record-breaking moves).

Then we reach the journeymen on the list. Zlatan Ibrahimovic on seven moves speaks for himself and while Romelu Lukaku’s poor form at Manchester United and Chelsea makes it strange that he tops the list, but his form at Everton and Inter Milan go a long way to explain why big fees have been thrown at clubs to sign the Belgian.

And then we get back to Morata.

He has been jokingly labelled a footballing Ponzi scheme, a fugazi and a form of money laundering by a number of fans who don’t understand why clubs keep stumping up significant fees for the player.

Early on in his career, you could have pointed to the fact that the Real Madrid academy graduate was showing good potential, but that doesn’t explain why at the age of 29, Juventus are considering a move to bring Morata back to the club from Atletico Madrid according to reports in Italy.

So why do teams keep taking a pricey punt on a Spanish forward who has scored 180 goals in 498 games?

Well, it might be because he doesn’t actually seem that bad. To put it simply Morata on paper has all the qualities most top clubs are looking for in a striker.

He is decent at holding the ball up, bringing others into play and linking attacks up. He also makes good runs into space and attacks the box well.

He may have also benefitted from the rise of analytics. If you look at Morata’s FBref from the past 365 days (with a pinch of salt) they paint the picture of a reasonably good striker who is just underperforming, yet Atletico are happy to move him on.

So the ‘idea’ that many managers have is that if they sign Morata they can take that skill set and improve him into the main man upfront, or at least a foil option who lifts the other striker to the next level.

But this never really happens.

Morata scores a completely standard amount of goals but doesn’t set the world alight, is always seen as a piece that the club can upgrade on within a few seasons and then is shipped off elsewhere to complete the cycle starts again.

So why does the ‘idea’ of Morata never become the reality? Well, it could be due to managers’ and tactical experts’ favourite catch-all phrase, intangibles.

The expectation is when you cost a lot of money; you need to influence games. If you’re a defender you keep clean sheets, as a midfielder, you cut out attacks or create depending on your role and if you’re a striker you score goals (this is an oversimplification but then again most fans view the game this way).

Some players thrive under this pressure, while others falter.

At Chelsea, this was more apparent than at Madrid, Juventus or Atletico. After a good season at Juventus, Madrid bought Morata back using a buy-back clause so they could cash in on his rising reputation.

He then had a career year as a second-string striker at Madrid, scoring 15 goals and registering five assists in 1331 minutes. The situations that Morata has mainly thrived in are as a sixth man; being used sporadically to influence games and this reduced pressure seemed to suit him well at both the Italian and Spanish sides.

But Chelsea then decided that he was the man to break their number-nine curse under Antonio Conte, sanctioning his transfer to be the club’s main man.

Spoilers, he didn’t.

He cost nearly £60m and over two seasons he racked up 3008 minutes in the Premier League, scoring 16 goals. He was then ‘saved’ by Atletico who spent 16m to loan the player and around a further 31m to buy him a year later.

Speaking about his time at Chelsea, Morata was less than complimentary. He told the media in 2019:

"Here we have regained our happiness. Though many people may not believe it, we spent four or five summers wanting to come to Atletico. I am very happy.

“At Chelsea, there came a time when my team-mates, except for the Spaniards, well... you know, it is not the same when you play and you know that you give a pass to someone who is not going to do as well.”

Some may say this was a player who didn’t feel appreciated or homesick, others would say that ‘he doesn’t have that dawg in him’.

Many Premier League fans will also remember how Morata often found himself in good areas but failed to finish his chances, almost crumbling under the weight of expectation.

And to his credit, Morata has opened up further about his time at Chelsea since the previous interview. In 2021 he spoke about his mental health with El Mundo:

“I’ve never had depression and I hope I never do, but I came close. I don’t believe it [mental health] is given the importance that it should.

“When your head doesn’t work well, you are your worst enemy. During those times, it doesn’t matter what you do, you are always fighting against yourself. Depression is an illness just like breaking your ankle.”

It is good that since then Morata has been able to quell his demons and focus on his career. And by all accounts, it is a good career, even if it is not befitting the transfer fees paid for him.

And he should be applauded for this, for at the end of the day he is not the one buying himself.

Some players are not destined for the spotlight, however, whether you are thrust into it is not your decision. And while Morata thrives as an understudy, he plays the role a little too well, making others believe he can play the star man.

Intangibles and player care are also important; the most talented player in the world will never reach his potential if he is not mentally in the right place and teams must look to improve his going forward and understand their players’ needs.

But back to the lengthy transfer saga of Alvaro Morata, I expect that he will probably add to that already inflated cumulative fee in the future.

Given he is getting older the downwards trend of the individual fees will likely continue, however.

But when we look back on this period in a decade or two, if transfer fees haven’t inflated to a ridiculous level we will look back at how a perfectly fine player like Morata accumulated a bill that seems like it should be reserved for the best in the world.

As I said before Morata is like a sixth man in the NBA, but the thing with sixth men is they are never meant to be given the super-max contracts.

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