Thomas Tuchel has explained why no Chelsea player has taken the number nine shirt, after their squad numbers were released this week.
Chelsea’s last player to wear the number nine shirt was Romelu Lukaku, who recently re-joined Inter Milan on a season-long loan deal.
The Belgian striker struggled at Chelsea last season, after signing for a club-record fee of £97.5m, according to Sky Sports.
The price tag may have given Lukaku added pressure to perform, which inevitably led to him enduring a difficult time at Stamford Bridge.
However, another reason may have been the fact he was wearing the dreaded Chelsea number nine shirt. In previous years, multiple different players have donned the famous shirt, and struggled to perform as a result.
Gonzalo Higuain, Alvaro Morata, Radamel Falcao, and Fernando Torres have all worn the number nine shirt for Chelsea in recent years, and all failed to hit the heights expected of them.
Now, Tuchel has explained why no Chelsea player has been given the shirt this season.
“It’s cursed! People tell me it’s cursed! It’s not the case that we leave it open for tactical reasons or for some players in the pipeline to come in and naturally take it. There was not a big demand for the number nine. Players sometimes want to change numbers but surprisingly nobody wants to touch it,” said Tuchel, as relayed by ESPN.
It appears it isn’t only the fans watching that have noticed the players struggled to perform when wearing this shirt, but the players too.