Falcao the tiger out to earn his stripes as Monaco's prolific striker enjoys startling renaissance

By the end of his two-year spell in the Premier League, Radamel Falcao had been reduced to something approaching a glorified goalkeeping coach. ‘I was grateful because he insisted on doing drills with match intensity even though he knew he would not play,’ Christophe Lollichon, the former Chelsea goalkeeping coach, told Le Journal Du Dimanche. ‘He helped the goalkeepers progress.’ By last summer, many saw Falcao as a relic of elite football. He played only 228 Premier League minutes for Chelsea — 12 appearances, mostly as a substitute, in all competitions. Chelsea lost 10 of those.