MNF Extra: The Morata Problem  (Sky Sports)

Alvaro Morata endured another difficult night as he was sent off in Chelsea's FA Cup tie against Norwich. With the help of Jamie Carragher, we explore the reasons for his dip in form after such a strong start and why Chelsea supporters should keep faith in the forward.

If there were doubts over the £75m fee that Chelsea paid for Alvaro Morata, there was also excitement. "I had seen enough over the years to know he was a good striker, albeit just below the absolute top level of strikers in world football," Jamie Carragher tells MNF Extra.

"But there is a dearth of great ones in the game right now. That is why Morata cost so much and that is why Chelsea got him. I felt this was a move that would put him in that top bracket if he did as well as I expected and he certainly started very well."

Morata scored six goals in his first six Premier League appearances following his move from Real Madrid. Having scored his 40 career goals in Serie A and La Liga at a rate of one every 127 minutes, this further encouraged the idea that he just needed more time on the pitch.

But Morata went off injured during the first half of Chelsea's home defeat to Manchester City in the very next game and his record since then is less impressive. The Spaniard has scored only four goals in his last 14 Premier League appearances for Antonio Conte's side.

He has been criticised for missing chances. Most notably, there were three one-on-one opportunities spurned in the 2-2 draw with Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium earlier this month. It was not the first time that Morata's profligacy cost Chelsea points in a big game.

According to Opta, the Chelsea striker has the worst big chance conversion rate of the eight players to reach double figures for goals in the Premier League this season. Alarmingly, he has scored only one of six such opportunities in games against the top six teams.

"I have read that he is a deep thinker about the game who gets frustrated, so perhaps that is why he is snatching at chances," says Carragher. "He has struggled in front of goal when he has had a bit too much time to think. That is something that he has got to work on."

Conte himself has also expressed his concerns about Chelsea's record in front of goal, understandably so given that no team has a better defensive record. "We are not showing great quality in our finishing," he said recently. "This is the truth." But is it the whole truth?

As well as being accused of missing too many chances, there are also concerns that Morata does not get enough of them. Against Leicester last time out, he did not have a single shot. It is not clear that Chelsea's setup is designed to get the best out of their record signing.

Morata has scored six headed goals this season - more than any other player in the Premier League - but four of them came courtesy of Cesar Azpilicueta. Chelsea do cross the ball but with Eden Hazard just off Morata, Conte is now opting for a system without genuine width.

"The goals he has got this season show how good he is in the air and Azpilicueta has been a revelation," says Carragher. "That is an added bonus that Morata maybe would not normally be getting from a centre-back stepping out. He has certainly gained from that.

"But when you are playing three at the back you are not playing with wingers who you'd think would naturally cross the ball. In Marcos Alonso and Victor Moses they still have players who get to the byline but not as much as a traditional wide-man would."

But perhaps the biggest problem for Morata is not his finishing or the service. It is the fear that extrapolating his scoring rate over a full season overlooked the strain that those added minutes on the pitch would bring. The real concern now is that Morata has hit the wall.

"I think it is a massive factor," says Carragher. "Normally he is probably sunning himself somewhere in the winter break and that's a problem. It's not just physical but the mental side too. He may be mentally tired with this being his first year in the Premier League.

"When you look at his career record, he has not played a great deal of football really. At both Real Madrid and Juventus, he very rarely completed the full 90 minutes in games so he is going to have to get stronger the longer he is in the Premier League."

It is not just that Morata has already played more minutes in the current campaign than he has in any other season of his top-flight career. It is that he is having to keep going for longer too. He has played 75 minutes or more in 15 of Chelsea's Premier League games.

He had never previously stayed on the pitch that long for more than 10 league games in a season and there are signs that managing that workload is becoming trickier. The Premier League tracking data suggests that Morata's physical output has dipped.

During those first six games of the season, he was clocked as Chelsea's fastest player in three of them but that has only happened twice in the 14 games since. He averaged 59 sprints per 90 minutes in those early games but only 52 sprints per 90 minutes since then.

The indications are that he is feeling the effects of playing so often. "He is someone who relies on his sharpness," says Carragher. "He is not Diego Costa or Didier Drogba. He does not have that physical frame that can put up with those knocks every three days."

So what is the solution? Could Morata rediscover his best form when used in rotation? Would holding him back for Chelsea's bigger games pay off? "The problem that Chelsea have is that Conte has no faith whatsoever in Michy Batshuayi," says Carragher.

"If he had a good back-up striker then Morata could have been taken out of the firing line and come back fresher for the next game. But Chelsea are so reliant on him that when he is not there, they don't actually play with a striker, they go to the false nine with Hazard."

Morata just needs support. "I still think he is a very good player," adds Carragher. "There is no doubt about his quality or his class. He made a great start and with the quality of the players around him, he will come through this. Chelsea should not lose faith too early."