Analyzing Alvaro Morata: Strengths and Weaknesses
9 years. 189M Euros worth of transfer fees. Alvaro Morata certainly has done the round in Europe’s biggest clubs, including Real Madrid, Chelsea, Atletico Madrid and Juventus. That figure is looking to rise to 229M Euros, with Barca looking likely to sign the Spaniard for 40M from Juventus, provided Juventus are able to find a able replacement in that time. With such large amounts of money coming in the fray and with such big clubs interested, Morata has surprisingly never scored more than 15 goals in any of the 14 season’s he has played until now!! So, naturally the question arises, why do big clubs want to sign Morata? Or most importantly, is he even worth it?
That’s something I’ll answer in this article.
Introduction
Born in 23 October,1992, Alvaro Borja Morata Martin began his career at Atletico Madrid, who sold him to Getafe. Bought by Real Madrid, he rose through the ranks and made his first team debut, under Jose Mourinho, in late 2010. Winning the UCL, under Ancelotti, in 2013–14, he moved on to Juventus for 20M Euros in 2014, where he won the Serie A and the Coppa Italia in two of the seasons he played. Bought back by Real Madrid in 2016 by exercising the buyback clause , he won yet another UCL in the 2016–17 season, this time under Zinedine Zidane, before then moving to Chelsea for 60M Euros. In January 2019, he was loaned to Atletico Madrid who then bought him permanently on July 2020 for about 58M Euros. Morata moved back to Juventus on loan in 2020.
At the international level, Morata has notably won the 2013 EUFA U-21 Euros. Making his senior debut in 2014 under Vincente del Bosque, he has represented his country in the 2016 and 2020 Euros.
Style of Play
The key to understanding Morata’s excellence is to understand his style of play. Now, Morata isn’t your typical front-of-goal striker that’ll fetch you goals. In fact, he is far from it. Scoring only 15 goals at the most in a season, Morata is more of a linkup man, something similar to another Spaniard, Fernando Morientes. The 189cm tall Spaniard is brilliant with his holdup play, one touch passing and may I add, exceptionally good with his headers. At Chelsea, under Sarri, even if he didn’t find much success due to Sarri’s system not involving much crosses, Sarri was reluctant to let him leave due to his brilliant one touch play which would come on handy for the setup Sarri was building.
In this dashboard I made myself, we can see that Morata takes a lot, A LOT, of headers, even more than left-footed shots. His npxG has seen a sharp increase since his time in Turin, indicating that he’s becoming more proactive in the penalty box. The shots cluster also tell us that he likes to takes his shots from the left, and drifts to the left halfspace, something I confirmed with his season heatmap from Sofascore.com
Now, let’s get into the analysis.
Analysis
Morata likes to drop deep down between the opposition’s midfield and backline to receive with his back turned on the goal. This helps in creating space for the midfielders to run into. He is very adept at finding acute passing angles for midfielders and defenders to progress the ball forward in buildup play. Not only that, he also tends to drop into the halfspaces to create overloads with the fullbacks and midfielders, and with his incredible passing range, switches the play to the isolated winger/fullback. For me, Morata is one of the most tactically intelligent players in this generation, a master in attacking and creating space for his teammates. Such a forward, can not and should not be judged on the basis of goals scored or assists made. His influence is far more.
Morata’s foremost strengths are of course his ability to play short, one touch passing to link up with players. A reason why Sarri was reluctant to let him leave. He is one of the best strikers available who have almost mastered the false 9 position, coming very useful in buildup.
Another example of his quick one-touch passing followed by a run. Morata comes deep to receive the ball between the opponent’s defensive and midfield line like he does, passes to Olmo, makes a quick run and scores. Beautiful.
This aspect of Morata’s play can be seen again and again. He loves to drop between the lines, receive the ball and create passing angles and spaces for the midfielders and wingers, even scoring a few of them himself. This type of movement is very hard to track, often dismantling the opponent’s defensive structure. Trying to man-mark him would only create space for the wingers or midfielders and not marking him would lead to bigger problems due to his solid passing range due to which he could easily switch to the isolated players. However, Morata has seen some problems against compact low-blocks, which refuse to commit players forward and just sit back. Something we saw in the Euros against Sweden.
Morata’s blindside movement’s to create space are another interesting, yet risky aspect of his play. Morata is often too eager to make runs, mostly timing them perfectly like this. He starts his runs between the two defenders, slows down and with a effective change of pace and quick feet, buries the shot. However, his eagerness means that he is frequently caught offside. Too frequently. Against Barca in the UCL in the 2020/21 season, Morata was caught offside after scoring THREE times, in a match they lost 2–0.
An example for his fidgety run making and movement here. He does well to go around the blindside of the defender, but in the process gets himself in a offside position.
Whatever be the case, Morata’s run making and ability to recognize, create and attack space is of the highest quality. Technical elegance at it’s finest. In the video above, see how he makes the perfect run, calmly controls it, deceives the opponent with his quick feet and scores.
As mentioned before, Morata doesn’t remain confined to the central position, but drifts to the halfspaces, looking for passes, and creating space for the midfielders to run into.
As seen in the above example, against Sweden in the 2020 Euros, Morata drifts to the right halfspace, thus pulling out the defender marking him and creating space. This in turn allowed the winger (Dani Olmo here) to make the run into the box and almost score if not for the last moment save. This is one of the best reasons Morata shouldn’t be judged upon goals or assists. If this goal was scored, Morata would’ve neither recorded a goal nor an assist, but we know he played one of the most important parts in setting up the goal.
Now, let’s look into his heading prowess. It’s no surprise that Morata has one of the best headers of the ball we can find in the current time. As we saw in the shot profile before, Morata takes more headers than left-footed shots. He is truly unbeatable in air, such is his technicality and ball control. His heading was even further put to use in Chelsea, thanks to a partnership with Cesar Azpilicueta.
From the viz above, it is clear that Morata is above average in terms of contributing defensively to his team. When playing a fast-paced, one touch style of football which tends to open up defenses with vertical passing, possession is often lost and the team is open to counter-attacks. To reduce the goals scored through such situations, the forward needs to be working hard and Morata just does that.
However all that being said, Morata has to improve his goalscoring abilities. Playing as a striker, no matter how much you offer to the team, you have to score some goals. And scoring below 15 goals in each of the seasons he played, is not enough and has to improve no matter what.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I feel Morata is genuinely one of the most technically gifted players we’ve seen in recent times. His football intelligence and ability to create, attack, and recognize space is of different quality. As a striker, being good at linkup play and movement makes him the perfect modern striker too. At only 29 years of age, he surely has a lot of ground to cover still and will only improve. All that being said, Morata will have to improve his finishing soon to ensure that he can keep playing at the top level, because with age, it is going to be hard for him to continue his movements and linkup and should be looking to be a little for proactive in front of goal. So, answering the question I asked in the beginning, believe it or not, Morata is certainly worth it. With the striker role changing a lot in the last few years, the market is hot for modern, tactically astute strikers like Morata. And with price inflation and all, Morata is worth it.
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