Having splashed the cash on Willian from Anzhi Makhachkala earlier in the transfer window, Jose Mourinho returned to the Russian club to snap up Samuel Eto’o on a one-year contract. The 32-year-old Cameroon international is the Blues manager’s fifth signing since his return to Stamford Bridge and, in addition to the Brazilian, follows Andre Schurrle, Marko Van Ginkel and Mark Schwarzer to the west London club.
Re-united with Mourinho following their hugely successful time together at Inter, Eto’o admitted that the chance to work with the Blues boss once again was simply too good an opportunity to turn down:
“I am very happy to be here but also anxious because I want to get playing as soon as possible. It wasn’t a hard decision. I saw the qualities Chelsea have, and I was very happy with Jose Mourinho before, so when the opportunity came, I was very happy to take it.”
The History
Signed by Real Madrid as a 16-year-old back in 1997, Eto’o was given little opportunity to prove himself by the La Liga giants and featured just three times for the first-team. Farmed out on loan to second-tier Leganes (30 appearances, four goals) and Espanyol – where he failed to feature at all – the Cameroon star was eventually purchased by Mallorca after a successful loan spell saw him score six times in 13 matches in the latter half of the 1999/2000 campaign.
Finally settled, Eto’o set about racking up the goals for his new club and over the course of the next four season, took the Spanish top-flight by storm. A total of 122 appearances harvested 48 goals and persuaded Barcelona to shell out €24m for his services – a fee that ultimately proved a real bargain. Over the course of five years at the Nou Camp, Eto’o notched an astounding 108 goals and 26 assists from just 145 league appearances and helped the club to three domestic titles, a Spanish cup, two Spanish Super Cups and a couple of Champions League wins.
A move to the San Siro with Inter saw Eto’o find the net with a similar regularity. The forward spent two seasons in Serie A and produced 33 goals and 18 assists from 67 league matches, helping his side to a memorable treble under Mourinho back in 2010/11, which harvested the league, Italian Cup and Champions League trophies. Moving to Russia the summer of 2011, Eto’o continued to produce the goods, scoring 25 goals and earning 13 assists from 53 top-flight appearances before Mourinho came calling last week. On the international stage, the four-times winner of the African Player of the Year award has turned out 112 times for Cameroon and found the net on 55 occasions.
The Prospects
While the statistics suggest Eto’o is still more than capable of being a prolific scorer, Mourinho’s selection policy over the first three league fixtures affords Fantasy managers no confidence whatsoever when it comes to Chelsea forwards. Fernando Torres, Demba Ba and Andre Schurrle have each been afforded a start apiece – an indication it’s going to be a case of “horses for courses” in accordance with each opponent over the season. Indeed, that’s a theory backed up by Mourinho’sadmission earlier in the week that he sees each of his frontmen as offering different characteristics for the lone forward berth:
“Samuel is a very experienced striker as everybody knows and a winner. He’s a guy who in spite of winning everything, he never lost his desire to win. He comes to England with the same objective with which I went to Spain – he wants to be the first one to win the Spanish, the Italian and the English league as a player. He always wanted to play in the Premier League so he comes with big motivation. He is different from (Fernando) Torres; Torres is different from (Demba) Ba and Ba is different from Eto’o, so we have in these three strikers experience and different qualities. Hopefully it goes well.”
Mourinho’s attempts to offload Ba to Arsenal during the transfer window certainly suggest he remains unconvinced over the Senegal striker but his decision to field Schurrle up front against United highlight the frustration Fantasy managers are likely to endure. Romelu Lukaku – packed off on loan to Everton – now looks to have benefitted significantly after failing to feature at all under Mourinho but there are simply no guarantees here. With a World Cup on the horizon, the Blues boss seems to be ensuring all of his attacking options are afforded the game time to impress their national coaches, making investment in the majority of Chelsea assets a decidedly risky tactic.
Coming in at 9.0 in Fantasy Premier League (FPL), 9.0 in the Sky Sports game and 5.0 in the Sun Dream Team, Eto’o is one of the priciest frontline options around right across the Fantasy games. While there is no denying his goal-getting abilities, snapping up the Cameroon star comes with a sizeable caveat – with the likes of Roberto Soldado, Olivier Giroud, Christian Benteke and Daniel Sturridge all similarly priced and under no threat of rotation for their respective sides, it’s understandable why his arrival hasn’t quite had Fantasy managers scrambling to get aboard the bandwagon, with only 10,000 transfers in since his introduction to the FPL game.
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