Despite spending over a billion euros in the last three transfer windows, Chelsea have not been able to achieve much success. They also went through multiple coaches during that period, which didn’t help much either.
This season seems to be no different either, as Chelsea find themselves 9th on the Premier League table, still 9 points behind the Top 4 and 14 points behind table leaders Liverpool and one of the main reasons for such a situation is the goalscoring form of the Chelsea forwards.
Mauricio Pochettino looks to bring in Benzema, Firmino, or Mitrovic
Chelsea is currently the team with the 4th most losses in 2023 in all competitions and most of the blame lies in the fact that despite spending nearly 175 million euros only on forwards this summer, the Blues have suffered from scoring issues this term, compounded by the fact that Nicolas Jackson has gone away with Senegal on AFCON duty, which has already set issues for many other clubs like Manchester United as well, and summer signing Christopher Nkunku has been suffering injury setbacks frequently.
The Blues have only scored 35 goals this season in 21 matches, which is not that bad but only if it is a mid-table side, which Chelsea might be right now but is not aspiring to be in the near future. Thus, to solve their goal-scoring issues, Chelsea are reportedly lining up sensational transfer moves for Karim Benzema, Aleksandra Mitrovic or Roberto Firmino, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The paper reports that the Blues are now set to make shock loan offers for former Real Madrid and Liverpool stars Benzema and Firmino, who both left Europe for Saudi Arabia in the summer of 2023.
Benzema has 15 goals in 24 appearances for Al-Ittihad this season but lost his place in the squad travelling to Dubai for the training camp since he failed to present himself at the club’s facilities in Jeddah when they resumed training after a prolonged break period, which made the Ittihad manager Marcelo Gallardo unhappy.
Meanwhile, Firmino netted a hat-trick on his debut for Al Ahli but has not scored since losing his starting place and captain’s armband due to his lackluster display in a star-studded side that includes former Manchester City wingers Riyad Mahrez, Allan Saint-Maximin, Edouard Mendy, Franck Kessie, Gabri Veiga, Merih Demiral and Roger Ibanez.
Nicolas Jackson continues to struggle in PL
After joining Chelsea for £32 million from Villarreal in the summer, pundits and fans have questioned if the Senegal international is good enough to lead the line, with the attacker guilty of being wasteful in front of goal. And those questions weren’t that wrong.
According to FBREF, the Casa Sports academy product has provided only 7 goals and 2 assists in 19 Premier League matches for Chelsea, with an xG of 10.6, which clearly shows that the former Villareal man has not been clinical enough in front of the goal.
Although the Blues have struggled all over the pitch under Argentine Boss, Jackson’s lack of form has not helped them either. Despite his struggles, the former Senegal under-20 international has been the club’s top scorer, as he has been Pochettino’s only consistent striking option this term.
Now he is away on AFCON duty with Senegal, where he couldn’t get the start in the Aliou Cissé side during the first match of the tournament but did come on as a substitute in the 58th minute of the match, though he didn’t do anything significant.
It would be interesting to see how the rest of the AFCON campaign goes for Nicolas Jackson, keeping in mind that Chelsea might be thinking about signing Karim Benzema or Roberto Firmino in the ongoing transfer window.
