It has been another season of misery for Chelsea this year, as new boss Mauricio Pochettino has overseen a terrible campaign that, at the midway point, sees them tenth in the Premier League, miles off of Champions League qualification and 1-0 down heading into the second leg of their League Cup semi-final.
Aside from Cole Palmer, the summer signings have been massively disappointing, and former Villarreal striker Nicolas Jackson has been perhaps the most underwhelming of all.
The Senegalese forward has been incredibly wasteful in front of goal, which has not helped the side’s creative players like Raheem Sterling, although the latest name touted for a move to Stamford Bridge could supercharge the Englishman’s numbers with his clinical finishing: Napoli’s Victor Osimhen. According to the Daily Mail, Chelsea are on the lookout for a new striker in 2024, and they have a ‘strong interest’ in Napoli’s free-scoring number nine, Osimhen. The bad news for the Blues is that they will have to cough up a lot of money if they want to sign the Nigerian this year, as the English publication has revealed that he has a £103m release clause in his contract. However, the good news is that according to the report, the former LOSC Lille striker is ‘open to joining the Blues’, which is quite an essential thing to know before starting any negotiations. While it will be an expensive deal to thrash out for Todd Boehly and Co, the team’s need for an out-and-out goalscorer makes it one they must complete – and it should supercharge Sterling’s creative numbers.
Chelsea transfer news – Victor Osimhen
Victor Osimhen could supercharge Raheem Sterling
The former Manchester City ace is an incredibly experienced professional, one with a genuinely impressive back-catalogue of performances, but his time at Stamford Bridge has been rather underwhelming – to put it lightly – having scored just 16 goals in 61 games, albeit while also providing ten assists.
He hasn’t been terrible, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he just hasn’t been as effective as Chelsea fans might’ve hoped he’d be, and while some of that will be down to him, the lacklustre players around him are clearly not helping.
For example, Jackson has been outrageously profligate in the league this year, and while his seven goals may look impressive on the surface – three of them did come against a nine-man Tottenham Hotspur side, mind – the fact that he has an expected goals figure of 10.6 proves that he is about as far from a natural finisher as you’ll find in the top-flight.
In comparison, Osimhen has scored his seven league goals from an expected goals figure of just 6.7, meaning that on average, he is scoring more goals than you would expect from the sort of chances he is getting, proving just how lethal he is and making the claim that he’s “even better than Haaland” from Italian agent Andrea D’Amico a little easier to understand.
So, if Sterling were playing alongside the Nigerian “hitman”, as dubbed by football talent scout Jacek Kulig, he could reasonably expect his creative numbers to skyrocket from their current – already fairly reasonable – level, as not only would the Napoli icon finish the great chances he was given, he would also be able to turn the half-chances into goals – thus increasing the Englishman’s number of assists.
At the end of the day, while this would be an incredibly expensive deal to complete and Jackson could eventually come good, the state that Chelsea currently finds themselves necessitates such a transfer, and while the fans would be understandably thrilled with Osimhen’s arrival, Sterling would surely be just as excited.