With the current state of the club, signing Osimhen should be a no-brainer for Chelsea
Napoli’s Nigerian striker Victor Osimhen has been in the news recently, more for the lack of transfer activity surrounding him despite earlier promise of a move away from Italy.
Premier League giants Chelsea were rumoured to be the most likely destination for the Super Eagles forward, but the Blues’ interest has cooled down in recent weeks, with a move looking unlikely.
Despite worries about Osimhen’s injury record and price tag, the Napoli striker could still be the final piece to Chelsea’s expensively built project and there are three reasons why Chelsea should reconsider their stance on the Nigerian striker:
Chelsea’s centre-forward problem
Chelsea might have scored the fifth most goals in the Premier League last season, but most of those came from attacking midfielder Cole Palmer, who finished as the Premier League’s second-highest top scorer with 22 goals, with nine of them coming from the spot.
Of the top 10 goal scorers in the Premier League last season, only Bournemouth’s Dominic Solanke scored a higher percentage of his team’s goals (35%) than Palmer (29%), and the lack of a prolific number nine for Chelsea, really came to the fore on several occasions when the Blues were desperate for a goal and the England international was unable to work his magic.
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Chelsea’s main centre-forward for the season Nicolas Jackson did score 14 league goals for the Blues, an impressive number considering his reputation before his move to the Blues, but more than 20% of all his Premier League goals came in one match against Tottenham.
Jackson’s 14 league goals were also one fewer than Osimhen managed in the Serie A with Napoli despite his injury struggles and the Partenopei suffering a disastrous season.
Osimhen’s clinical touch
One of the reasons why Nicolas Jackson was unable to consistently find the back of the net for Chelsea was his profligacy in front of goal.
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The Senegalese striker was third in the Premie League for most big chances missed with 24. While this would not always be a problem since the best strikers tend to miss big chances, they also tend to put them away unlike Jackson, who’s big chance conversion rate was better than only Liverpool’s Darwin Nunez in the Premier League.
In total, Jackson failed to convert 24 big chances, despite scoring only 14 goals, as many as Osimhen did in the 2023/24 season when he scored 26 goals to lead Napoli to their first Scudetto in 33 years.
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That ability to at least put away as many goals as big chances that you miss often sets great strikers apart from good ones, and definitely puts Osimhen a level above Jackson.
Osimhen’s mentality
One of the biggest criticisms for Chelsea is that they lack enough senior players who have been there and done that and who can influence the mentality of the current crop of emerging youngsters.
Thanks to their policy of recruiting young talent, Chelsea have been left with an experience gap that showed in the 2023/24 season where Chelsea dropped 15 points from winning positions.
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With old war horse Thiago Silva departed, Raheem Sterling and Kepa Arrizebalaga remain the only players to have won a top-five European league in the current Chelsea squad.
Osimhen’s experience despite his young age has seen him win the Scudetto with Napoli in 2022/23 as a major contributor, while the Super Eagles star was also part of the Nigeria teams that won the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2015 and won bronze and silver medals at the 2019 and 2023 Africa Cup of Nations tournaments.
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The Nigeria international will bring a strong mentality to a group of players severely lacking in that aspect and would still be a relatively young signing at 25 years old.
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