Álvaro Morata: ‘I want to change things, not for the haters, but for Chelsea’

The striker Antonio Conte once called the kind of man you’d like to ‘marry your daughter’ is determined to add a reputation for ruthlessness in front of goal to his nice-guy image

Last September Chelsea’s then manager, Antonio Conte, used a pre-match press conference to lavish praise on Álvaro Morata. The Italian described the Spaniard as a “complete player” after a run of four goals in six appearances for the club, before going on to say something that was meant warmly but that in its own curious way damned the forward. “You’d be open to have this type of person marry your daughter. A good guy, a polite person.”

Few men want to be described as polite daughter-marrying material and certainly not someone trying to establish themselves in the cut-throat environment of the Premier League. The compliment was particularly unwelcome for Morata given that he had been tasked with replacing Diego Costa, that most alpha-male of centre-forwards: ruthless, rugged and absolutely not the type of man a father would want to see with his little girl.

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