We often think of Didier Drogba as a Premier League great, but throughout two spells at Chelsea spanning nine campaigns, its arguably the competition the iconic striker was the least effective in.
That may seem an odd statement to make about a four-time title winner and member of the Premier League’s illustrious 100-club, but throughout his nine Premier League seasons Drogba only actually breached the 20-goal mark twice, only finished up as Chelsea’s Premier League top scorer twice and even failed to reach double figures on four occasions. Perhaps most tellingly, during Chelsea’s four title-winning campaigns with the Ivorian up top, he only actually contributed a combined 55 goals – averaging out at just 14 apiece – and 29 of those were scored during the 2009/10 season alone.
Of course, Drobga has always been about much more than simply scoring goals. His power, aggression, aerial menace and subsequent ability to bring midfielders into the game by holding up the ball ushered in a new tactical era of lone front-men and five-man engine rooms in the Premier League.
In that regard, Drogba remains the archetypal complete centre-forward; as effective with his back to goal as when trying to find the net. In addition to 164 goals, he ended his Chelsea career with a staggering 88 assists – hitting double-figures for set-ups in three different Premier League seasons.
Yet, throughout his 381 appearances for Chelsea, it was often Drogba’s goals that proved the most decisive. 33% of his strikes were game-winning goals, defined as the goal that puts the scoreline in the direction it eventually finishes in, 27% of his goals came against the Premier League’s current top seven and 26% of his goals came in either the last fifteen minutes, stoppage time or extra time – the period when most games are decided in the ever-unpredictable world of English football.
The caveat, though, is that only 33 of Drogba’s 54 game-winning goals actually came in the Premier League – that’s one per 7.8 appearances in the English top flight, compared to one per six appearances in other competitions. He also failed to score during a whopping 172 Premier League outings, equating to nearly 70% of the 248 games he failed to score in across all competitions, which highlights what rose-tinted hindsight has made us forget about a striker held in such high esteem by the Premier League audience because of the sheer number of iconic moments he was involved in.
But that, in a nutshell, epitomises Drogba; rather than being a beacon of consistency like John Terry and Frank Lampard, he was always the man for the big occasion. The smaller occasions, on the other hand, he wasn’t quite so fussed about – in fact, his performances against some of the lesser teams in England encroached upon pure laziness. From 15 appearances against Fulham, for example, Drogba only ever scored four goals; ten outings against Birmingham, likewise, produced just one. Perhaps most damningly, he scored only once against Sunderland from nine attempts – six of which he started.
There can be no question, however, that Drobga turned up when Chelsea needed him most. 45 goals against the Premier League’s top seven is a staggering return for any striker, especially when combined with 24 goals in the final three rounds of cup competitions.
What’s more, all of those 24 goals came in 24 separate games, suggesting every one of them carried real significance rather than Drogba simply racking up braces and hat-tricks as Chelsea dominated. In fact, during the 2011/12 season alone, the African found the net in two semi-finals and two finals – most famously scoring the equalising goal that took the Champions League final against Bayern Munich to extra time and subsequently, the winning penalty.
That remains the defining moment of Drogba’s career, not only reaching the pinnacle of club football but doing so in a manner that encapsulated what kind of footballer he is – a natural-born winner, who embraces rather than shies away from big moments. The problem with a 38-game Premier League season, of course, is that it’s not always clear when the big moments are. It’s often only when we look back that their importance truly begins to stand out.
That’s not so say, however, that Drogba’s Premier League career didn’t produce iconic moments too; routine demolitions of Arsenal, the flick-on that set-up Frank Lampard against Bolton to win Chelsea’s first Premier League title, the full-blooded tackle against Crystal Palace as Jose Mourinho eked out a victory to earn the Blues’ fourth title and two Golden Boot-winning campaigns, not to mention some simply incredible goals – including his famous shot on the swivel against Liverpool.
But Drogba’s Premier League career, more than moments and goals, is about themes, eras and how he changed thinking in the English top flight. We’ve already touched upon how the emergence of the lone front-man transformed the Premier League but in addition to that, the £24million move from Marseille to Stamford Bridge, which actually took place 13 years ago today, kickstarted a philosophy of audacious spending that continues to this day – and also helped usher in the era of Chelsea being serial title winners under Roman Abramovich.
Likewise, Drogba embraced Mourinho’s unprecedented sense of cynicism, becoming notorious for drawing fouls, theatrical simulation, flailing elbows and seeing out games by shielding the ball next to the corner flag. Whether those are positive or negative additions to the Premier League remains a subject of great debate, but large transfer fees, pragmatic tactics and lone front-men, for better or worse, are all commonplace in the English top flight these days.
And yet, the feeling persists that barring a few sensational seasons, we never quite saw the best of Drogba in the top flight – that was always reserved for European nights and the latter stages of the cup competitions when the pressure was on and every game became all-or-nothing. A Premier League great, who was rarely at his greatest in the Premier League.
