{"id":169550,"date":"2025-09-26T03:58:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T03:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/169550\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T03:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T03:58:09","slug":"william-saliba-says-chelsea-once-had-a-striker-who-was-even-better-than-didier-drogba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/169550\/","title":{"rendered":"William Saliba says Chelsea once had a striker who was even better than Didier Drogba"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Didier Drogba retired as one of the greatest strikers of his generation. However, William Saliba has now argued that Chelsea once had a centre-forward who was even better.<\/p>\n

Of course, Didier Drogba<\/a> is remembered in Chelsea\u2019s history<\/a> as one of their best players. The powerful frontman scored 164 times in 381 Blues appearances, but that doesn\u2019t highlight the number of times he scored in big moments. He won 14 major trophies across two spells at Stamford Bridge, too.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Wayne Rooney admitted he would have loved playing with Drogba<\/a>, but the duo were in competition for so long during some epic battles between Chelsea and Manchester United.<\/p>\n

\"WilliamPhoto by Stuart MacFarlane\/Arsenal FC via Getty ImagesWilliam Saliba says Samuel Eto\u2019o was better than Didier Drogba<\/p>\n

During an interview this week, Arsenal defender William Saliba mentioned Ivory Coast and Chelsea legend Drogba when discussing African greats. However, he actually rates Cameroon icon Samuel Eto\u2019o as the elite footballer from the African continent.<\/p>\n

When asked if Eto\u2019o was underrated, Saliba told Sky Sports Premier League: \u201cYeah, for me he is the biggest African player of all-time, Drogba is a legend, but for me Eto\u2019o is better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eto\u2019o, who was another iconic striker at the start of the 21st century, had an incredible career for both club and country.<\/p>\n

He actually had a brief spell at Stamford Bridge between 2013 and 2014, scoring 12 goals in 35 Chelsea appearances. However, his prime years came earlier, notably at Barcelona, Inter Milan and Mallorca.<\/p>\n

ClubAppearancesGoalsBarcelona199130Mallorca16270Inter Milan10253The goalscoring record of Samuel Eto\u2019o at certain clubs<\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth, we don\u2019t see a lot between Drogba and Eto\u2019o when you compare what the formidable strikers achieved in their careers. It is ultimately down to personal preference in what you want in attack.<\/p>\n

Of course, Drogba shades it for us because of his Chelsea heroics.<\/p>\n

Yaya Toure believes Drogba should have won the Ballon d\u2019Or<\/a> during his phenomenal career. The highest he ever ranked for the individual award was fourth in 2007, while Eto\u2019o finished fifth in 2009.<\/p>\n

\"DidierPhoto by AMA\/Corbis via Getty ImagesChelsea still searching for Didier Drogba successor many years later<\/p>\n

Fans at Stamford Bridge may not see a striker with as much aura and ability as Drogba play for Chelsea again.<\/p>\n

In fairness, Diego Costa was outstanding for the Blues between 2014 and 2017. He\u2019s the closest anybody has come to succeeding Drogba as the bullish centre-forward to lead the line.<\/p>\n

Gary Lineker hopes Liam Delap can emulate Drogba<\/a> in West London, but it will take something truly remarkable for anyone to match him. At the moment, Joao Pedro is the new Chelsea attacker shining brightest this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Didier Drogba retired as one of the greatest strikers of his generation. However, William Saliba has now argued…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,110888,596,110889,85,22705],"class_list":["post-169550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-didier-drogba","tag-football","tag-samuel-etoo","tag-sports","tag-william-saliba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}