The Leeds United manager Neil Warnock is of the opinion that the absence of Didier Drogba is causing potential title loss for Chelsea. The big Ivory Coast international was recently released from his contract, which brought an end to his eight-year stay at the club. During this period, Drogba has become one of the best strikers in the world and he has been almost single-handedly responsible for many successes Chelsea have had over the years. The current Bayern Munich president once remarked that Drogba is the best striker he had seen in ages. Despite this, Chelsea decided not to offer the player a new contract because of his age.
At 34 years of age, Drogba had very little football left in him. As a result, he has now joined the Chinese league by signing for the Chinese club Shanghai Shenhua. In his absence, Fernando Torres has been the main striker at Chelsea. This has been partly because the club has been unable to secure any transfer targets during the summer. The poor form of the Spaniard meant that Roberto di Matteo had to lose his job. The club also failed to win the first three major trophies they had on offer this season. They will be heading into the match against Leeds United looking to progress to the semi-final stage of the League cup.
“He epitomised what Chelsea was all about when they won all those trophies and his goalscoring record was tremendous. I loved him as a player. If I was Torres I’d want to play against us! We don’t have a very good defensive record this season and we have conceded a lot of goals. Obviously there is a bitter rivalry in the past between the fans,” said the Leeds United manager Neil Warnock, who has a history of rivalry with Chelsea manager Benitez.