“Commitment” and “goalscoring acumen” of top striker challenged by fans and pundits | OneFootball

Joao Pedro bagged two goals last night and was rightly praised for a second match winning showing in a row, after his exploits against Crystal Palace at the weekend.

The Evening Standard pointed out that this was an important moment for the Brazilian as he fought back against the critics, whose discontent has grown through a disappointing debut season so far for the £60m signing.

Joao Pedro finding his gear as the top striker Chelsea wanted

Joao Pedro hammers in his finish for Chelsea’s third goal last night.

Trust us, we’ve been among those critics.

“Some have questioned his commitment to chasing loose balls or running the hard yards, others his goalscoring acumen given that the thinking behind his arrival from Brighton was that he would become Chelsea’s most reliable goalscorer,” Dom Smith wrote in his piece.

We can relate to both of those – and there were plenty of games where he was immensely frustrating because of just that. But one thing we didn’t ever doubt that JP’s quality, both in striking the ball and in the nice little touches of link up play between the line.

He seemed to struggle in Enzo Maresca’s system which simply doesn’t serve a number 9 well. Liam Delap had the same issues. Rosenior’s ideas already seem to work better, and this is hopefully the breakthrough we were looking for.

In other news…

It’s been a long battle for Chelsea as they try to get Cole Palmer back to fitness, but it seems like we might now be getting somewhere, finally. A top source is dismissing the idea he could leave the club, just as the attacker starts to look himself again.

Chelsea turned round a losing score and came back to win against Napoli last night, no mean feat and just the third time that’s happened all season.