Since Roman Abramovich’s takeover in 2003, Chelsea have consistently signed elite strikers, players who’ve led clubs and countries to silverware and are renowned for their clinical finishing.
Yet, once they pull on the blue jersey with the number nine on their back, something seems to change.
Their shots lack power, goals dry up, and easy chances go begging. Strikers who once terrorised defences across Europe suddenly look out of sync, a shadow of their former selves.
This recurring pattern raises questions: Is the Chelsea number nine jersey cursed? If so, who cursed it, and what caused it?
Are curses even real in football? Or is this narrative simply a product of a series of underwhelming signings?
During Roman Abramovich‘s ownership, Chelsea became renowned for their willingness to spend heavily on top talent across all positions, building a squad brimming with stars.
At one point, the team fielded a lineup featuring captains of multiple nations: Michael Ballack (Germany), Branislav Ivanovic (Serbia), John Terry (England), Petr Cech (Czech Republic), John Obi Mikel (Nigeria), and Didier Drogba (Côte d’Ivoire).
This showcased Abramovich’s fearless approach to securing the players he desired.
One particularly intriguing aspect of Roman Abramovich’s tenure as Chelsea owner was his consistent struggle to find a reliable forward, despite his substantial investment in the transfer market.
This difficulty in securing a dependable No. 9 has curiously persisted even after he handed over ownership in 2022 to Todd Boehly and the Clearlake Consortium.
At Chelsea, the number nine shirt appears to carry a strange burden. For years, strikers who don the jersey have struggled to live up to expectations, often underperforming or failing to settle at the club.
Even former Chelsea head coach and current boss of England‘s Men national team Thomas Tuchel once admitted that “nobody wants Chelsea’s nine shirt”, he said;
“There was not a big demand for number 9 Players sometimes want to change numbers but, surprisingly, nobody wants to touch it.
“Everybody who is longer than me in the club tells me: ‘Ah, you know, like he had the nine and he did not score and he had the nine and did also not score.’ So we now we have a moment where nobody wants to touch the number nine.”
Number Nine Jinx: Chelsea’s Striker Struggle Unveiled
Mateja Kezman
Serbian striker Mateja Kezman was one of the earliest players signed in 2004 during the early era of Jose Mourinho.
Kezman, who arrived at Chelsea with a reputation of being a prolific goal-scorer, with three Eredivisie Golden boots, having netted 105 goals in 122 appearances for PSV Eindhoven, was expected to bolster the Blues’ attacking options with his clinical finishing and predatory instincts in the box.
In the Premier League, Mateja Kezman struggled to replicate his prolific form from PSV Eindhoven, enduring a disappointing 2004/05 season at Chelsea.
He managed only four league goals, with his first strikes for the Blues not arriving until late December and his next goal not until March of the following year.
After scoring just seven goals in 41 appearances across all competitions, Kezman departed for Atlético Madrid a year later.
Franco Di Santo
Argentine forward Franco Di Santo joined Chelsea in 2008 from Chilean side Audax Italiano as a young and relatively inexperienced player.
He began his stint with the club in the reserve team before earning promotion to the senior squad.
However, his time with the first team was underwhelming, he made 16 appearances without scoring a single goal.
In 2009, he was loaned out to Blackburn Rovers in search of more opportunities, and not long after, he made a permanent switch to Wigan Athletic.
Fernando Torres
Fernando Torres was once one of the most feared strikers in Europe.
During his time at Liverpool, the Spanish centre-forward was clinical in front of goal, consistently troubling opposition defences.
Between 2007 and 2011, he scored an impressive 81 goals in 142 appearances for the Reds, before making a then-British record £50 million move to Chelsea in 2011.
By that point, Torres had already won the World Cup with Spain and would go on to be the top scorer at Euro 2012 and the 2013 Confederations Cup.
However, his Chelsea career got off to a difficult start. He went 903 minutes without scoring, and a notable open-goal miss against Manchester United in September 2011 fueled talk of a “curse.”
Despite struggling for consistency, Torres produced one of the most iconic moments in Chelsea’s history, his goal against Barcelona in the 2012 Champions League semi-final, which helped send the Blues to the final, where they secured their first-ever Champions League title.
Though his spell at Stamford Bridge is often viewed as underwhelming overall, Torres still collected major silverware with Chelsea, winning the Champions League, Europa League, and FA Cup during his three-year stint at the club.
Radamel Falcao
After enduring the 2014/15 season with limited impact from their strikers, Chelsea turned to Radamel Falcao, a 29-year-old Colombian international, signing him on loan from Manchester United.
Once regarded as one of the most lethal forwards in Europe, Falcao had scored 70 goals in 91 games for Atlético Madrid, including a memorable hat-trick against Chelsea in the 2012 UEFA Super Cup.
At his peak, he was among the world’s elite strikers. However, a serious ACL injury to his left knee marked the beginning of a sharp decline.
His stint at Manchester United in 2014 yielded just four goals in 26 appearances, and by the time he arrived at Stamford Bridge, many hoped he could rediscover his form and break the so-called striker curse.
Instead, Falcao’s time at Chelsea only deepened the narrative. He managed just one goal in 15 appearances, and his impact was minimal.
By the summer of 2016, he was released to AS Monaco, leaving behind another disappointing chapter in Chelsea’s search for a consistent No. 9.
Alvaro Morata
After signing from Real Madrid for a club record fee of £60m in 2017, Morata took the number nine shirt.
His fast start saw him get to 10 goals before boxing day, an impressive beginning to his time at the club which would have made some fans believe the curse is broken.
However, some were still not convinced and soon his hot form slowed down.
He ended his first season with 17 goal Involvements in the league and the following season; he changed his number to 29 to pay tribute to his newborn twins who were born on July 29th – and maybe with the curse also at the back of his mind.
That season, he also didn’t impress as his goals dried up, and he was ultimately sent on loan to Atletico Madrid.
Gonzalo Higuain
The 2014 World Cup finalist was another high-profile loan move (similar to the Radamel Falcao loan) to join the West London club with hopes of a spark between player and manager who had worked with themselves before.
Gonzalo Higuain, who broke a 66-year Serie A record for most goals in a season – a record previously held by Gunnar Nordahl, by scoring 36 goals in the 2015/16 season – joined Chelsea from Juventus in January 2019 and was reunited with former Napoli boss Maurizio Sarri.
During their time together, they won the Europa League, but the loan was a disappointment as he scored just five goals during his six-month stay at the club.
Romelu Lukaku
The Belgium Men’s Highest goalscorer, with 88 goals in his second spell for Chelsea, was the next victim of the number nine curse.
Lukaku joined Chelsea from Anderlecht in 2011, and his first spell at the club didn’t go as planned as a lack of first-team opportunities led him to a West Bromwich Albion loan, where he showed signs of being a prolific striker with 17 goals.
The following season, he was sent out on another loan to Everton, where he scored 15 goals before the Merseyside club decided to make it a permanent transfer.
He went on to score 53 goals in 110 appearances for the Toffees.
After several seasons playing for Manchester United and Inter Milan, he returned for a second spell at Chelsea where he took up the number nine shirt.
In 26 games for the Blues, he managed to score eight goals as injuries, loss of form, and ill-advised media interviews were seen as the reason for the Belgian’s torrid time in London.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
The 2017/18 Premier League Golden Boot winner with 22 goals joined Chelsea from Barcelona for a reported £10m fee.
The Gabonese played most of his football with Arsenal, spending four seasons and scoring 92 goals in all competitions.
But after a fallout with Head Coach Mikel Arteta, he was sidelined and eventually sold to Barcelona, where he scored 13 goals in 23 appearances during his 6-month stay at the club.
Aubameyang, who had played under Thomas Tuchel at Borussia Dortmund was signed to reunite with his former boss, but the German was sacked before the two could make any meaningful impact together.
He worked under Graham Potter, where he played 15 games and scored three goals for the Blues before being shipped out to Marseille.
Chelsea’s Number Nine Shirt Curse: When Non-Strikers Donned the Shirt
Khalid Boulahrouz
Amid Chelsea’s ongoing struggles to find a consistent performer in the number nine shirt, the club made the unusual decision to assign the iconic number to Dutch defender Khalid Boulahrouz.
Signed in 2006, Boulahrouz wore the number during his lone season at Stamford Bridge, making 23 appearances across all competitions.
His performances failed to leave a lasting impact, and he was loaned to Sevilla the following year before eventually moving on.
Steve Sidwell
In another unconventional use of the number nine shirt, English midfielder Steve Sidwell inherited the jersey upon joining Chelsea in 2007 on a free transfer from Reading.
Despite showing promise in the Premier League, Sidwell struggled to break into José Mourinho’s starting lineup.
Throughout the 2007/08 season, he made 25 appearances but failed to make a significant impression.
He departed for Aston Villa the following summer in search of more regular playing time.
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Strikers Who Shone in Chelsea’s Number Nine Shirt
There have been few strikers capable of performing exceptionally well while wearing the number nine shirt, and who have also brought trophies to the club. Notable among these include;
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink.
During the Roman Abramovich era at Chelsea, the club has experienced ups and downs with various strikers.
However, some have managed to break the so-called “number nine curse,” and one prime example is the Dutch striker, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink.
He joined Chelsea from Atletico Madrid in 2000 for £15 million.
Over the four seasons he spent at the club while donning the number nine shirt, he scored 87 goals in 177 appearances, with 70 of those goals coming in 136 Premier League games.
Hasselbaink became the club’s top scorer in three of his four seasons.
His standout campaign was the 2000/01 season, during which he won the Premier League Golden Boot by scoring 23 goals.
He also played a crucial role in helping Chelsea finish second in the 2003/04 Premier League and reach the semifinals of the UEFA Champions League.
Hernan Crespo
The Argentine striker spent three years at Chelsea after joining from Inter Milan in a deal with £16.8m, wearing the number nine shirt in the 2005/06 season.
In his first year at the club, he scored 12 goals in 31 appearances, which includes 10 in 19 Premier League games.
The second season, he was sent on loan to AC Milan, and when he came back, he scored 13 goals in 42 appearances, with 10 coming in 30 Premier League games, helping the team to the Premier League title.
Crespo’s time was marked by quality but limited starts due to tactical fit and adaptation challenges. His efficiency and clutch performances made his stint successful.
Tammy Abraham
Tammy Abraham, a Chelsea academy graduate who joined the club at an under-eight level, progressed through the youth ranks and showed prolific goal-scoring ability.
His impressive goal-scoring record of 74 goals in 98 matches across Chelsea’s youth teams from 2014 to 2016 caught the eyes of former boss Guus Hiddink, who gave him his first senior team debut in May 2016, appearing as a substitute in 1-1 draws against Liverpool and Leicester City.
In 2019, an imposed FIFA transfer ban that prevented the club from registering new players for two transfer windows forced the hands of then-head coach Frank Lampard to rely on youth from the academy.
This gave opportunities to players like Tammy Abraham, Mason Mount, Fikayo Tomori, Callum Hudson Odoi, Billy Gilmour and current captain Reece James.
Abraham, who made his first Senior England debut in November 2018, played a key role in helping Chelsea secure a top-four finish that season where he scored 15 goals and provided three assists in 34 premier league games, including a hat-trick in a 5-2 over Wolves.
Overall, the Englishman would go on to lift the 2020/21 Champions League and Super Cup with the blues, scoring 26 goals in 89 appearances before leaving for AS Roma in 2021 in a £34m deal.
Will The Curse Affect The New No. 9, Liam Delap?
Liam Delap has a strong chance of thriving at Chelsea due to his young age, high work rate, familiarity with the Premier League, connections with known teammates (Cole Palmer & Romeo Lavia) and experience with Enzo Maresca’s system.
Previous strikers brought into the club have either had serious injuries that derailed their progress or they were old and washed, compared to the few positives (Tammy Abraham) who was young and energetic.
The “curse” is likely a mix of high expectations, tactical mismatches and coincidence rather than a supernatural jinx or voodoo.
Coming from an Ipswich team that created 46 chances in the Premier League to a team ranked second in chances created with 93, one would expect him to surpass his 12 goals tally of last season.
However, that might not be the case as his success would depend on form, confidence and how well the team performs.
Main Photo
Credit: IMAGO / PA Images
Recording Date: 31.12.2020