Chelsea have long been expected to sign a striker this summer. In fact, even after Nicolas Jackson arrived at the club last summer, we were expecting a bigger and more established striker to join him.
No good opportunities presented themselves, and the Blues went through last year with just Jackson, with even Armando Broja leaving on loan in January. But it can’t go on forever – an alternative is needed to the Senegal striker, even if he did impress beyond most expectations in his debut season.
The last 24 hours have seen rumours about who might be coming in narrowed to three prime options: Dom Solanke, Samu Omorodion and Jhon Duran.
But what a lot of people have pointed out is that none of them really offer an upgrade on Jackson.
On Twitter, one user compared the stats of each of those strikers to Jackson, and found the Chelsea man dominating pretty much across the board.
You can see the comparisons in the images embedded here:
The strategy from Chelsea seems to be to buy a striker to rotate with Jackson rather than replace him. And looking at these targets, who all have similar style to their game to Jackson, you can see the direction they’re going in.
The question is, if you’re not going to make a move for a player who is a serious upgrade, is it worth making the move at all? Wouldn’t we be better off spending the money elsewhere, if the player brought in isn’t going to significantly upgrade the first team? If we’re looking just for a body there are surely cheaper options out there than this trio, each of whom looks likely to command a fee of something in the region of £30-60m.
Last summer the co-sporting directors kept their powder dry and didn’t panic. It worked out well – why change tack now?