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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Sport
Marc Mayo

Chelsea told the one signing needed to complete £500m transfer spree as Michael Owen calls for ‘perfect fit’

Chelsea’s £500million spending spree will be complete with the addition of a “top” striker, according to Michael Owen.

The former striker believes the new manager installed for the upcoming summer transfer window will be well set to elevate the Blues up the Premier League table despite Graham Potter’s struggles.

“I'd suggest the most amazing chance,” he told AceOdds. “How can anybody be doing any worse than 11th in the league?

“The players have had that initial bedding in period. The results haven't been great, they're languishing. I'd suggest that most managers would fancy their chances of improving upon what they do this season.”

Owen does not think Romelu Lukaku returning from a spell at Inter Milan will solve Chelsea’s goal issues.

Joao Felix is currently at Stamford Bridge on loan while Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has failed to regularly hit the net, meaning the ex-England star would like to see a new striker signing funded by player sales.

“The most incredible thing is that you can spend £500-something million or whatever they've spent in recent times and the most important position on the pitch they've not even touched,” Owen continued.

“That they can get all these great players and spend a fortune and the one position really that you to be investing the most money in and making sure is an absolute perfect fit is a centre forward.

“I think they've scored 29 goals in 29 games this season. It's unbelievably poor. I know Lukaku will be coming back at the end of the season, it'll be interesting to see what happens there, but my suggestion would be that they're going to have to go into the transfer market one more time.

“They're going to have to trim their squad as well. Their squad is too big, you can't have any manager coming into that dressing room and keeping everybody happy. There's too many big hitters in there, too many great players. I know that sounds stupid but I think you can have too many great players in one dressing room.

“So I think that the squad needs to be trimmed and I think that they then need to invest some of the money that they're going to get from other players going out the door into a top centre forward.”

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