Is Hulk a Good Transfer Prospect for Chelsea?

Last week has seen a rise in the speculation for a possible bid for F.C. Porto forward, Hulk, from Chelsea F.C. Given the fact that he has already declared his availability to move to other leagues and that Porto need to make money with a big sale in the off-season, I think Chelsea are the main contenders for signing the Brazilian star.

Hulk, signed for Porto four seasons ago from a Japanese team and he was unknown to the majority of the Portuguese adepts when he arrived to Portugal. Given his awkward nickname “Hulk” (his real name is Givanildo Vieira de Sousa) he created a lot of fuss in the Portuguese media who immediately started making jokes with the green super-hero.

In my opinion, Hulk is a truly world class player. What impresses me the most on Hulk is his physical presence in the game. He has an explosive shooting power, which has already granted him some outstanding goals from outside the area. He also is a very pacey forward which, together with its physical presence makes him almost unstoppable without recurring to foul.

If you still remember Real Madrid’s Brazilian left-back Roberto Carlos, you can find a lot of similarities between him and Hulk.

On the footballing aspects on and off the pitch there are some red dots to be aware of:

• He dives a lot. For a player with his strength it’s not normal the number of times he goes down on the pitch. Most of them without any kind of reason which have already granted him unnecessary yellow cards.
• He also voices his disagreement to the referees and linesmen when the decisions go against his pretensions. Again, this has granted him more unnecessary yellow cards.
• He was already banned for three months after assaulting stewards in the end of a Benfica – Porto. He’s currently awaiting a criminal trial on this subject.

Regarding is positioning on the field, when he arrived in Portugal for his first season we played mainly on the left wing of Porto’s 4-3-3. This was the position on the field where Hulk impressed me the most. Most often than not we could seeing him riding the entire left wing from his defence section with the ball on his feet only for the latter to end up in the back of the net or at the feet of a team mate for an easy goal.

Then, starting in the second season at the club, Hulk was moved to the right wing side where his cannon of a left foot could be best explored with driving runs through the middle of the pitch and thunderous shots from outside the area. In this position he scored the majority of his goals with Porto.

In the last two seasons, he also played as the lone striker whenever other options were not available – Falcao in the 2010/2011 season and Kléber or Janko in the 2011/2012 season. Although he scored some goals from this position, this is where he had his poorest performances. Hulk is an explosive players and therefore he’s of no use playing in the middle of two centre backs. He needs his space to run with the ball.

Following is a table with some statistics from his four seasons with F.C. Porto in the Portuguese Primeira Liga.

Season	Goals	Games played	Minutes played	Yellow cards	Red cards
2008/2009	8	26	1777	6	0
2009/2010*	5	19	1597	4	1
2010/2011	24	29	2448	7	0
2011/2012	17	28	2189	8	0
Average	12,5	27	1983	6,5	0
*Banned for 3 months

He is not a substitute for Drogba. No one can hold up long balls like Drogba does. He needs to learn not to dive with every tackle he suffers. He should be used on the wings, preferably on the left wing where he can be an awesome substitute for Malouda who has been withdrawn to midfield due to decrease in pace over the last couple of seasons. With these facts in mind, I dare to say that Hulk is a good prospect for Chelsea in terms of physical presence and could be the best transfer the club make this summer.

Bruno Miguel Espalha is the Author of Objective Barcelona : How To Beat The Most Powerful Team In The World which can be found in is website Objective Barcelona and on Amazon.co.uk