Andre Villas-Boas declared this week, during his first Chelsea press conference, that he intended to implement an expansive attacking style which will appease Roman Abramovich, who craves the tiki-taka style that Barcelona has made famous worldwide.
Despite a turbulent season, Chelsea had the best defense in the Premier League (equal to Manchester City) with just 33 goals conceded. It would be fair to blame last season's failure to claim a trophy on the lack of goals scored.
One of the reasons, it would appear, that Carlo Ancelotti was sacked would be the staggering regression of the side in terms of goals.
Chelsea claimed the Premier League 2009/10 in swashbuckling fashion scoring a record-breaking 103 goals. Fast forward one year and despite a late charge to defend its crown, Chelsea would have almost laughed had its performances been enough to win the title.
The problem being a 34-goal drop off from the season before. Simply put, this was not good enough for a side that seldom finished a game without having enough chances to win it.
At times, it was baffling as to how the Blues had not won games such as the away fixture to Birmingham, which it lost 1-0. Florent Malouda created 11 chances by himself that day with 14 others, yet Chelsea miraculously failed to score.
It would seem that although there was clearly some wasteful finishing at times the type of chances that the opposition afforded Chelsea throughout the season were all in relatively safe areas, normally outside the area with many bodies blocking a direct sight to the goal.
Each member of the current squad will need to improve their goal scoring output. The top two scorers for Chelsea in 2009/10 were Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard who combined for 51 goals. Last season the highest scoring pair were Malouda and Drogba who managed just 25 between them.
In deciphering who will replicate Villas-Boas' tactics at Chelsea, we can look at how the goal scoring was broken down last season at Porto. The Dragoes scored 128 goals in 54 matches in all competitions.
The central striker, Radamel Falcao, scored 39 goals, the left forward, Hulk, scored 35 goals and Silvestre Varela, who predominantly started as the left forward, scored 12 goals.
From the regular starting three in midfield, Fredy Guarín scored 10 goals, whilst Fernando and João Moutinho mustered just two each. These figures will help to analyze who, in the Chelsea squad that Villas-Boas will inherit, will be capable of resembling the Porto players of last season.
Villas-Boas will attempt to transform Chelsea's attack to a more dynamic style that endeavors to hurt the opposition in the space behind its defense with athleticism and quick movement.
So let's take a look at the candidates capable of scoring the goals to potentially win trophies next season and ultimately predict how many the leading scorer for the Blues will get in Villas-Boas' first season in charge.
