Chelsea have three striker options with 'very good chance' of completing major January transfer
«Chelsea are not far away if they got a centre forward,» said Gary Neville. «The goalkeeper and centre-forward are not good enough,» Jamie Carragher stated. For the sixth season since Diego Costa left the club in 2017, Chelsea are still searching for their answer to scoring goals, or so Sky Sports' pundit-cum-comedy duo think.
It is worth saying quickly thatNeville and Carragher also thought that Romelu Lukaku would be the man to push Chelsea on towards a title in 2021 — they weren't alone in that view — so it's not exactly gospel. Whilst criticising the mass spending of Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital since taking over, here they both are asking for more money to be chucked into the market.
The striker market specifically is an absolute pit for dollars to be wasted. There are so few genuinely value-for-money options that the good ones are then inflated massively and you either pay short and end up lacking — at least on paper — or it's the big bucks and the big risk, presumably the egg that ends up splattered on the club's face is bigger as well.
It is slightly ironic, though, that Neville and Carragher are calling for money to be spent by Chelsea on a striker after Manchester United dumped over £60million into Rasmus Hojlund after he scored nine times for Atalanta last year. For all the flair and electricity of Darwin Nunez he hasn't looked consistently like an £80million player either.
The pair have both started this season well, in their defence, and this is not about digging out other young forwards, it's more to say that just because Neville and Carragher say Chelsea's strikers aren't good enough doesn't mean it's entirely right. Nicolas Jackson, for example, cost just £30million but already looks like he will prove
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