https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/aug/05/
nobody-wants-to-touch-cursed-chelsea-no-9-shirt-admits-thomas-tuchel
Nobody wants to touch 'cursed' Chelsea No 9 shirt, admits Thomas Tuchel
Ed Aarons - Fri 5 Aug 2022 22.30 BST
Thomas Tuchel has admitted “nobody wants to touch” the Chelsea No 9
shirt vacated by Romelu Lukaku because of a “curse” that stretches back
to the days of Fernando Torres.
“It's cursed, it's cursed, people tell me it's cursed,” he said. “It's
not the case that we leave it open for tactical reasons, for some players
in the pipeline that come in and naturally take it.
“There was not a big demand for No 9. Players sometimes want to change
numbers but, surprisingly, nobody wants to touch it. Everybody who is
longer than me in the club tells me: 'Ah, you know, like he had the 9 and
he did not score and he had the 9 and did also not score.' So we now we
have a moment where nobody wants to touch the No 9.”
https://i.imgur.com/EVMvCpF.jpg
The manager was asked whether he would like to sign a striker, after
refusing to comment on Aubameyang, who he managed at Borussia Dortmund.
“Let's see and check it out,” he said. “We come from this curse of No
9; I'm also superstitious, I can understand why players maybe don't touch
it and have other preferences. It's like this, but I think Raheem
[Sterling] will help us a lot and in general it's our responsibility to
create more offensive positions to have maybe a bit more players in the
box.”
Chelsea are expected to step up their pursuit of the Leicester defender
Wesley Fofana after their ￡60m offer was rejected this week but Tuchel
said he had been focusing on Saturday's trip to Everton after what he
described as a “turbulent” summer of transfer dealings working with the
co-owner and stand-in director of football, Todd Boehly.
“You can get lost in all these names and opportunities and suddenly you
end up playing a 2-7-1 or whatever,” he said. “You need to refocus and
have a cold shower and calm down – or I have to – and then you go: 'OK,
let's go back where we needed. What do we need for the squad and what kind
of personality and what kind of talent do we need?' And this is how it
more or less goes.”
Tuchel added: “It was quite turbulent as well in here, I have to say. It
was important with the new season starting: do we still try something? No.
It's Everton now and that process has helped everybody to calm down.
Seeing that we are succeeding in the market also calmed me down and
there's been give and take for everybody. The strength of Chelsea is
calmness from inside and also outside and we need to reach that status
again.”