At AC Milan Andriy Shevchenko became a club legend, loved by the fans and repeated by his colleagues. Like Torres, the Ukrainian's list of achievements is incredible. He is the third-highest goal scorer in Champions League history, the third top goal scorer in all European competitions and the winner of the Ballon d'Or in 2004. His reputation as a striker that could do it all and score plenty of goals meant that Chelsea were willing to pay £30.8M, once again breaking the transfer fee for a forward. Shevchenko would become another striker to fall victim to the curse of Stamford Bridge. Like many others, he was unable to adapt to life in the Premier League and as a result scored just 14 goals in 51 games in his first season at the club. Not bad, but not good compared to the standard he set in Italy. It's always difficult to know why a player struggles when they have proven to have something special, but the mystery over who actually signed Shevchenko may point to the reason behind his unsuccessful time in England. It was well known that club owner Roman Abramovich was a big admirer of the Ukrainian centre forward and although Jose Mourinho was the manager at the time, it was thought the Russian pulled out all of the stops to capture his signature. The appointment of yet another new manager in Luiz Felipe Scolari paved the way for Shevchenko to leave on loan. He returned to the club where he made his name but failed to ever reproduce the blistering form that made him one of the best strikers ever to have played the game
I’m a 23-year-old journalist having previously produced content for A Stamford Bridge Too Far, The Sun Newspaper and VincoSport. I currently write for Formula One Fancast and What Culture producing weekly blogs and features. I am a co-founder, writer and editor of Tibs News and am a big follower of football, Formula One and combat sports such as MMA, boxing and wrestling.
