Through the long and ill‑starred months of the Andre Villas-Boas regime, we kept reading that help was at hand: Chelsea were to continue their revolution by acquiring Hulk from Porto. And I wonder if, like me, you always wrote it off as yet more anti-Andre propaganda.
Hulk is hardly the complete centre forward that Didier Drogba became. Indeed the 25-year-old Brazil international is nowhere near as impressive as Drogba was when he shot to fame with Marseille in the 2003-04 season, leading them to the UEFA Cup Final and prompting Chelsea to pay what now looks a very astute £24million.
Like Drogba, Hulk is a late developer, having played in Japan before arriving in Portugal, where last season his 39 goals helped Villas-Boas’s Porto to a domestic and European treble.
However, the comparison between two strong men loses force when you measure Hulk’s hit-and-miss technique against Drogba’s deft touch.
There are surely better ways of spending £35m.
But no one ever said it was going to be easy for Chelsea to replace Drogba, Frank Lampard and, in the longer term, John Terry, Petr Cech and Ashley Cole.
Look at the trouble the club had — and are still having — in finding the new Claude Makelele.
And who has been as convincing a partner for Terry as Ricardo Carvalho?
When Jose Mourinho, using mainly players signed on Claudio Ranieri’s watch, almost immediately built a great side, he set a standard.
Some who followed have done better than others but, with Drogba and Lampard reaching the age at which common sense dictates their futures must be addressed, Villas-Boas had the hardest job of all.
Whoever succeeds to it must make his own decisions. Or have the Andriy Shevchenko and Fernando Torres fiascos taught Chelsea nothing?
