Liam Delap accepted the number9 shirt after his arrival in Chelsea from the city of Ipswich, but a look through the Premier League history of the club suggests that this may not have been a wise move
Liam Delap has taken up the challenge to lead the border for Chelsea – and to wear the 'cursed' shirt number of the club.
The blues announced the arrival of the England under 21 on Wednesday evening and has a release clause in his contract in the relegated city of Ipswich, where he made it impressed in the past season and scored 12 Premier League goals. Delap's £ 30 million reimbursement is fairly modest, but it has taken over Chelsea's expenditure to strikers up to around £ 550 million in the last 22 years.
What is more is, Delap has decided to become the first Chelsea player to take the club's NR .9 shirt since the departure of Pierre-Eerreyyang Aubameyang two years ago, with the former Arsenal Forward who leaves Stamford Bridge after a wink-and-you-missed-it-spell of only three goals.
Aubameyang's less than impressive stint at Chelsea is symptomatic of the struggles experienced by the No. 9s of the club in the Premier League era.
Prior to Aubameyang, Romelu Lukaku's shirt was after he returned to West London for his second spell in 2021. The Belgium striker would struggle on the blues and only scored eight Premier League goals in 26 games before he decided to grant Inter Milan again.
Among the other gloomy Chelsea no.9s, Gonzalo Higuain could not meet expectations when he made the switch in January 2019. It was the dream sign of Maurizio Sarri – a striker he knew how he could get the best after managing the Argentinian in Napoli as a great success.
But the Higuain who scored 91 goals in 146 games in Naples three years earlier was a shadow of his former self in England. He scored five times in 19 games, before he returned to Juventus.
Higuain had replaced the outgoing Alvaro Morata, which arrived in 2017 for around £ 60 million. A lot was expected from the former Real Madrid star, who managed 15 goals in his first season. Morata even tried to change his shirt number into 29, but it got worse in his second campaign when he only scored five Premier League goals.
This was all after Radamel Falcao tried to take up the reins, despite his disastrous year at Manchester United. He arrived on loan with the idea of ​​permanently making the move from Monaco in 2015. With his fitness and the pace of the game, he saw him limited to only 12 games, so that only one goal was set.
Fernando Torres, Franco di Santo, Mateja Kezman and Chris Sutton are among the other players to struggle with wearing the No.9 shirt at the blues over the years. Tammy Abraham is perhaps the only player who has recently been impressed by that sweater while he scored 18 goals in his first full season in the club before being frozen.
The shirt was also worn by a few surprise names during the Premier League era, including midfielder Steve Sidwell and Centrum-Back Khalid Boulahrouz, players whose place in the history of Chelsea faded in insignificantness compared to Gianluca Viali-Viachals, the shirt of the HasseltanevaCawaCawaCaCaCaCaCainke fell.
Former Chelsea -Baas and current English manager Thomas Tuchel once agreed on his judgment about the shirt and say: “It is cursed, it is cursed, people tell me it is cursed!”
“It is not the case that we leave it open for tactical reasons, or for some players in the pipeline that come in and of course assume.” There was no big demand for number nine, while if players sometimes want to change numbers. But surprisingly, nobody wants to touch it.
“Everyone who is longer than me in the club tells me:” Ah, you know, as if he had the nine and he didn't score and he had the nine and didn't score. “So now we have a moment when nobody wants to touch the number nine.”