Chelsea have yet again failed to sign an all-out nine to compete with Nicolas Jackson despite having all summer to do so.
Chelsea shifted from Osimhen to Duran to Samu Omodorion and back to Osimhen only to land absolutely none of them.
Nicolas Jackson and Marc Guiu are Chelsea’s only two striker options now and there will be a lot of pressure on both to get goals for the team.
This is an issue, one that’s made even worse when you take into account that Nicolas Jackson isn’t really a proper nine and Marc Guiu is only 18 years of age.
No Victor, No Victories?
So, what does us missing out on him mean for us on the pitch? Well, it could mean quite a few things depending on a lot of factors. Yet again, the answer really isn’t simple.
Let’s play it out in 3 different scenarios then :
Scenario 1: We miss out on top four because we lack a goalscorer
Despite our wealth of attacking talent, we draw loads of games and lose quite a few games at home 1-2 or 0-2. We batter some teams in transitional games but in games against low blocks, we suffer.
We control the game but get hit on the counter attack and lose 1-0 or 2-0 as we miss loads of chances and as they take theirs.
Or, most likely as we saw against Crystal Palace, we drop loads of points from draws.
In the end, we narrowly miss out on top four by 3-6 points which could have been avoided if we had a clinical goalscorer to win tight games at home against very low blocks.
It is in the tightest games where you need to be clinical, I think we will rue missing out on Osimhen or at least a clinical nine.
We saw often at the beginning of last season many home losses due to not taking chances and I think this could happen again, especially with our system.
Our problems at defending transitions will also make it worse and could see us lose some games at home quite heavily.
Some good examples of games I am talking about would be:
Chelsea 0-1 Nottingham Forest, 2023
Chelsea 0-2 Aston Villa, 2022
Chelsea 0-2 Brentford, 2023
Chelsea 0-2 Southampton, 2019
Chelsea 1-1 Everton, 2021
A good analogy of games like this where a team come to your home ground to defend and score on the counter attack is simply – If you score a goal, there is no longer a low block.
The issue we’ve had is that we never scored due to lacking a clinical edge and so we conceded eventually. The low block remains and we try and score again, without any cutting edge, and then we concede again.
This is the first of three scenarios that could unfold and in my opinion it is a highly feasible one, especially with what we’ve already seen so far this season – notably the 2-0 loss to Manchester City in which if Jackson equalised with his high-quality chance, we may have got something out of the game.
Scenario 2: We get top four anyway despite still regretting not signing Osimhen
A good outcome. We get top four, everyone is happy but we lose quite a few games in the manner I described in Scenario one. Ultimately, we accept we probably will need a clinical striker to compete for the league.
We are a good team and maybe win the Conference League as well as a domestic cup and get top 4 somewhat confidently.
We rely on our transitional abilities and blow some teams away especially when we defend transitions well.
We don’t win all transitional games due to our poor defending of transitions but we win enough to get enough points for top four.
The quality of Jackson, Felix, Nkunku and Cole Palmer is good enough to break very passive game states at home or away against deep blocks and we manage to win quite a few of those games.
We also succumb to what I was talking about in Scenario one in some games and this stops us from competing but we still manage to win enough games to get top four.
Scenario 3: We struggle and barely make the top six whilst spending the majority of the season around six to tenth.
A bad outcome. We struggle to score in quite a lot of games and get punished for it. Ultimately team confidence drops, the fans go mental and we really struggle.
We lack a natural leader and a natural goalscorer to carry us out of bad moments and ultimately this translates itself into our results.
This is of course, the worst outcome of the three. It could end up even worse, or we could do even better than what Scenario two talks about but these are the three most likely scenarios in my opinion.
We really won’t know what missing out on Osimhen will mean for us for at least another few weeks.
What do we do without Osimhen?
It is unclear whether Chelsea will enter the market in January for another striker or even return for Osimhen himself.
If we did, we could obviously return to strikers like Jhon Duran or obviously return for Osimhen himself who is now joining Gala in Turkey with a January exit clause.
I have not had the pleasure to watch around for Osimhen alternatives so I have done the next best thing, and that is to use a data-based approach to find similar strikers to Victor Osimhen.
The three names that stand out to me:
- Loïs Openda
- Dušan Vlahović
- Elye Wahi
I won’t go into too much depth on each individual but all have very similar traits. They are fairly complete 9s.
Good box movement, are physically capable, and get on the end of a lot of chances. Jhon Duran is also similar profile-wise.
But ultimately, do any of them provide that clinical edge?
Openda, Vlahovic, and Osimhen have all exceeded their Non-Penalty shot performance. A.k.a they are clinical.
Jackson and Wahi are more iffy with them having varying seasons with some being heavily not-clinical and some heavily clinical.
So apart from Osimhen, is there actually an attainable target with minimum risk?
Openda would likely go for a pretty high fee due to his performances, Vlahovic didn’t really progress due to Juventus requesting obscene fees and Wahi comes with insane risk, Even Osimhen comes with a risk.
Let’s say Chelsea gave into his wage demands, we’d be sacrificing our wage structure for someone that has only performed at a high level in Serie A.
Furthermore, we’d be splashing at least £50m on him without the guarantee he will perform to an elite level in an elite league. He isn’t Erling Haaland.
Ultimately, we may just have to stick with Nicolas Jackson and just accept he isn’t a proper nine but trust him to develop to a point where everyone is happy he can be “the man”.
In-house options
As stated above, Nicolas Jackson is already a pretty decent candidate to solve our issues.
He may become clinical – strikers tend to eventually match their output with their expected goals.
Marc Guiu also fits the bill – good box movement, still some way to develop physically but has a good frame to assert physical dominance on defenders after maturing.
He is only 18 however and likely won’t be ready for at least a couple of years.
The last idea? False Nines.
This is where Christopher Nkunku and Joao Felix come in. Forgetting Maresca’s tendencies on how he likes to play his strikers, Nkunku and Felix do work at False 9.
Both possess the ability to drop in between the lines to connect play and both are also competent finishers.
Nkunku specifically is an incredible ball striker and excels in combination play.
Felix, likewise, is very technically gifted and has the ability to drop in to connect play between different parts of the attack.
What Crystal Palace showed us
After writing the majority of the article before the game between Chelsea and Crystal Palace, I thought I would add a little section talking about how Victor Osimhen could have affected the game.
The simple fact of the matter is that we probably would’ve won. After accumulating more than enough chances and having five big chances we practically recreated the game I was speaking about in the scenarios.
Osimhen likely would’ve scored at the end of the match. In the end, the chance presented to Nicolas Jackson was quite hard but that was simply because he lacked the control, pace, and physicality to get away from the defender and get a better angle for himself.
I don’t think Osimhen is as good as made out but he certainly has the ability to score chances like that, thus making fans more annoyed with the summer business after the match.
What we can conclude
Missing out on Osimhen leaves us with a predicament. It leaves our sporting directors in a predicament. It may also leave Maresca in a predicament as well.
Simply put, whatever you think of Osimhen, he is a different profile suited to different games compared to Jackson. He is also a profile Chelsea haven’t had since Lukaku.
Not adding this profile of striker will surely hurt us in the short term, based on recent analysis.
Luckily for Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, they get yet another chance to rectify their mistakes in just a few months time when the January window opens.
