I guess Chelsea fans should be happy that this signing happened in the first place. Chelsea have solved their striker issue by signing RB Leipzig striker Christopher Nkunku for $60-70M, though he won’t be able to help Chelsea fight for a Champions League spot this season as he has been signed for 2023.
This must be a bittersweet signing for Blues fans.
Chirstopher Nkunku is one of the very best strikers in the world as he posted 17 goals in 23 games across all competitions for RB Leipzig this season, while he also has helped the German club overcome a slow start to the season by lifting them to 3rd place in the Bundesliga and 28 points for the campaign (6 points behind league leaders Bayern Munich).
So, this move only made sense for Todd Boehly and Chelsea as they were desperate to finally buy a striker that could match the goal tallies that Diego Costa was able to bring for the club back when they won the Premier Legue in 2017. Yes, it’s been just about five years since Chelsea, one of the richest and most successful clubs in English history, last had a competent striker who could put up 15-20 league goals a season.
Though, to Chelsea’s credit, it’s not like they haven’t tried to bring in elite strikers. The Chelsea Striker Curse must be one of the most well-known curses in all of English football as the North London side has consistently and hilariously bought world-record fee strikers year after year, but almost all of them turned out to be busts.
Aside from Didier Drogba and Diego Costa, the list of Chelsea strikers that turned into flops includes Andriy Shevchenko, Hernan Crespo, Fernando Torres, Radamel Falcao, Alvaro Morata, Gonzalo Higuain, Tammy Abraham, Timo Werner, and, most recently, Romelu Lukaku. You can clearly see that those strikers were some of the best players in the world at the time of Chelsea buying them, but for some strange reason or another, they ended up being massive busts.
Plus, with Chelsea really struggling to break into the Top-4 of the Premier League as they currently sit in 8th place on 21 points, putting them eight points behind 4th place Tottenham Hotspur, it makes sense why they took another crack at the well with another superstar striker transfer.
Yet, with that in mind, why did Boehly agree to hold off on the transfer until the Summer of 2023?
Yes, it’s good to build up depth for the following season, but Chelsea needs help now. And desperately!
With the way things are going in the Premier League, Chelsea is not going to finish going finish within the Top-6, let alone the Top-4 and the all-important Champions League spots this season. Of course, Boehly can just buy another striker with his seemingly endless pockets in the January market, but that is the textbook definition of being inefficient.
And, with Boehly constantly being ridiculed by the Chelsea faithful for being out of touch and aloof with the beautiful game, this latest transfer window is not going to help his case.
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