Chelsea went into this transfer window thinking that signing an extra attacker would be a nice luxury. Now, ahead of their third match of the season away at Leeds on Sunday, it feels more of a necessity.
Raheem Sterling was to be the club’s marquee forward signing, arriving for £47.5million from Manchester City where he was Pep Guardiola’s second top scorer across his time in charge at the Etihad.
There remains faith in Sterling but Chelsea feel they need more, and possibly a focal point to their attack.
It comes after they struggled to create and score during a tricky pre-season and they have just one goal from open play in their first two Premier League matches.
Their performance against Tottenham last Sunday was a positive one — but there were issues. For although they showed off many of the principles that Thomas Tuchel regards as important, his side hit just three of their 16 shots on target after dominating the ball with 63 per cent possession.
Furthermore, several of their attackers ideally want to exit Stamford Bridge before the transfer window shuts.
Manchester United have enquired about a loan for Christian Pulisic and also want to sign Hakim Ziyech. Both players feel they have struggled or been left out too often under Tuchel and would be open to leaving.
Chelsea have already sanctioned a loan exit for Callum Hudson-Odoi, blocking the sale of their 21-year-old academy graduate to reassess his future next summer.
It follows the departures this summer of £150m worth of talent in Romelu Lukaku and Timo Werner, who have re-joined their former clubs.
With so many players potentially leaving, unhappy and underperforming all at the same time, Chelsea have reacted and are prepared to hit record spending to make their squad more competitive to compete with high-scoring Manchester City and Liverpool.
The two main title contenders have scored 105 goals and 97 goals respectively in the League since the beginning of last season, relative to Chelsea’s 79 goals.
In 2022, they also lag behind Antonio Conte’s resurgent Tottenham for goals scored.
Having already spent £170m this summer, the Blues have had two bids up to £45m rejected for Everton winger Anthony Gordon. In addition, they are now accelerating talks to secure Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang after a day of negotiations over fees yesterday.
The former Arsenal captain has a close relationship with his ex-manager Tuchel after the pair excelled at Borussia Dortmund, where the striker scored 79 goals in 95 games under the German.
Aubameyang, in particular, could be the key to getting more goals.
When asked about the 33-year-old last week, Tuchel refused to rule his side either in or out of signing the player before adding in a reference to their Dortmund spell: “I would be interested in the 79 goals, actually!”
The head coach also made a barbed comment about his players losing to Arsenal 4-0 in pre-season: “Listen, it’s the same players, so why should anything change? We will see hopefully development but at the moment, we have the same issues because we have the same players.”
Tuchel blames the individuals in the attack for the lack of goals and they blame him for not being expansive enough with his system, which focuses a lot of their energy on pressing and relies on the wing-backs as creators.
Whoever is to blame, the simple truth is Chelsea do not score enough to ever compete with City or Liverpool in the League.
It is a problem that both a change of system and players could solve.
