Chelsea don't have a No.9. In any sense. For starters, not a single member of the current squad even dared don the "cursed" shirt. "Nobody wants to touch it," as former Blues boss Thomas Tuchel said.
Which was hardly surprising, of course. In general, footballers are a superstitious bunch (Tuchel admitted he is too) and one previously prolific striker after another has struggled to score goals at Stamford Bridge. Chris Sutton, Mateja Kezman, Fernando Torres, Radamel Falcao, Alvaro Morata, Gonzalo Higuain and Romelu Lukaku have all succumbed to the curse of the No.9 shirt at Chelsea.
Of course, the issue now is not that nobody at Chelsea wants to wear the jersey. The problem is that they don't actually have anyone to play the role of a No.9.
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