A Shot of Chelsea: The Curious Case of Christopher Nkunku
Your Weekly assessment on Chelsea FC to read with your morning caffeine (Other beverages are available)
Welcome to A Shot of Chelsea! My weekly series diving into the big topics around Stamford Bridge and football each week. Hoping to give you some honest, reasoned and insightful takes to start your week.
Monday 13th January 2025
It is hard to know what to say that is revelatory about an FA Cup third round trouncing of a non—Premier League opponent at Stamford Bridge.
For most of my life supporting Chelsea, the club have been drawn at home to a team they are vastly superior too, and a heavily rotated lineup usually wins at some ease. Morecambe did not break out of their assigned role as this opponent. With a very dull game soon turning into a stroll, featuring some classy finishes from Tosin and Joao Felix.
It is Felix, and Christopher Nkunku whom strike most in these type of games.
So far this season, there are a pair of high-profile attacking signings who have been resigned to understudy roles in the broadway production that is Chelsea Football Club. Like all understudies, there are the odd occasions they take centre stage to some applause, but from August, very little has altered about their roles in Enzo Maresca’s pecking order.
There are nuances within the reason Morecambe, Noah and Barrow have been their stage over Arsenal, Spurs nor Liverpool.
A justification for Nkunku’s situation is that there is a simply not a role for him at Chelsea. Given Maresca opts to use two natural wingers, Palmer in a freer “10” role and likes a more traditional centre forward. Nkunku isn’t a winger, he isn’t a traditional frontman, nor a creative playmaker like Palmer.
However, this comes back to a classic System V Talent argument. Should you sacrifice statistically impactful players in service of your system?
Well yes, if that system is actually working and producing end product. The problem arises when a system becomes a barrier to progress, not for progress itself.
Nkunku remains a curious case. A player bought before the arrivals of Sporting Directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart and blighted by injury last season, Maresca has opted for Nicolas Jackson and Cole Palmer – Chelsea’s rockstar – in a role the Frenchman could have occupied.
One wonders if he was signed after the winter of 2023, Nkunku would not be considering his options, and we would not be reading early speculation of a return to Paris.
Nkunku has understandably grown frustrated with being deemed a rotational figure. When he signed for the club in 2022, he was one of Europe’s highly coveted attackers. Banging in goals for fun at RB Leipzig and clearly intended to make a move to the Premier League with the aim of significant progression.
Boasting 13 goals this term, but only 2 of them coming within the Premier League. Nkunku did not sign to alleviate the “loan management” on others, or win “Conference League Employee of the Year.”
Only three Premier League starts by January is a wild detour from the pre-season expectations that Nkunku would, once fit, establish a role alongside Palmer as one of Chelsea’s most invaluable players.
It is truly hard to believe Nkunku will remain a Chelsea player for much longer if he continues to score goals but cannot achieve promotion to centre stage. And even if his performances have at times left some room for improvement, it is hard to argue he has been given a serious run as a serious player for Chelsea. Should he depart without that chance, will it be seen as a missed opportunity?
Felix is a different situation, if only that the fear of losing him is almost non-existent. More conversation has sprung up regarding the need for his permanent signing last summer.
Felix sits pretty comfortably into the understudy role. Able to impress and dazzle against much weaker opposition, executing flicks, tricks and some tidy goals that are shared across social media in slow-motion.
This masks the broader issue with Felix, which is his issue in converting his talent into productivity at more serious moments. As was case in his 2023 loan, the forward’s lack of end product vindicated the criticism that had followed his career post-Benfica.
It is also begs the question over why the club needed to spend £35m on a player they probably did not need over a profile they probably did.
Whilst his talent has been showcased well in the Conference League, you wonder how better Chelsea would be if they had secured a traditional striker last summer, one who could have seriously competed with Nicolas Jackson.
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