Jabbing a finger into his own chest as he ran towards the travelling Chelsea supporters at the Vitality Stadium, Christopher Nkunku’s energy in celebrating his winning goal over Bournemouth was as much angry defiance as pure jubilation.
“The reason I used Christo in that moment was I thought we were creating chances but we lacked quality inside the box,” Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca said after the match, explaining his decision to introduce Nkunku from the bench in place of Nicolas Jackson in the 79th minute. “So the idea to use him as a No 9 was because, any ball inside the box, we know he’s a quality player and could decide the game.”
Nkunku revealed that Maresca had told him to “enjoy” his 11 minutes on the pitch. He certainly relished receiving Jadon Sancho’s clever pass on the swivel, bouncing between two Bournemouth defenders and poking the ball just inside Mark Travers’ far post, but the frustration that poured out of him immediately after the goal was equally understandable.
Having featured more than anyone else in Maresca’s squad during pre-season, Nkunku appeared primed to announce himself in the Premier League in the manner that was denied him by a succession of injuries in 2023-24. Instead, he has found himself the most unexpected victim of an attacking rotation at Chelsea that became markedly more crowded in August with the arrivals of Pedro Neto, Joao Felix and Sancho.
As he had been against Crystal Palace a week earlier, Nkunku was Maresca’s third attacker off the bench against Bournemouth. A growing number of Chelsea fans are wondering if he should instead be the team’s first-choice striker — particularly since the words of his head coach could also be viewed as an implicit criticism of Jackson, who drew one reasonable save from Travers but rarely looked a threat at the Vitality Stadium.
The lobby for deploying Nkunku as a No 9 is as much about Jackson, who continues to be a strangely polarising figure in the grand Chelsea picture.
Scoring 14 non-penalty goals in his debut Premier League campaign helped secure a new contract that extends his stay at Stamford Bridge until June 2033 — the joint-longest commitment in the squad along with the improved deal given to Cole Palmer earlier this season — and yet the Senegal international remains a popular target of mockery for rival fans as well as derision from vocal sections of the Chelsea support.
Jackson has not yet proven himself capable of being a finisher on par with Nkunku’s highest levels of efficiency at RB Leipzig (the Frenchman scored 32 non-penalty goals, 5.4 more than expected, in his two final Bundesliga campaigns). Jackson significantly underperformed relative to his non-penalty xG (npxG) in the Premier League in 2023-24, scoring around 4.6 goals fewer than expected, according to Opta.
This stands out relative to the top 10 scorers of non-penalty goals in the Premier League last season, though it is interesting to note that Erling Haaland also underperformed his npxG:
Jackson’s return of two non-penalty goals in the first four Premier League matches of 2024-25 also constitutes an underperformance relative to his npxG of 2.5. But to focus solely on finishing efficiency (which can fluctuate wildly from season to season) is to relegate the single most reliable indicator of a player that has the capability to be a prolific goalscorer: the ability to generate expected goals (xG) in the first place.
Haaland was the only player in the Premier League to generate more non-penalty expected goals than Jackson in 2023-24. Even adjusting for minutes played, the Senegal international’s 0.6 npxG per 90 minutes ranked behind only the Manchester City phenomenon and Newcastle star Alexander Isak, whom Chelsea enquired about signing in the summer:
Jackson may not be converting his scoring chances with elite efficiency just yet, but he is getting himself into scoring positions with elite regularity. It is little wonder why Chelsea are so bullish on a 23-year-old who has only played as a No 9 for 18 months, particularly since composure and finishing technique are easier to learn and hone on the training pitch than the subtle nuances of movement, timing and instincts.
None of which is to discount the possibility that Nkunku might be the better No 9 option for Chelsea right now. There is an increasingly substantial body of evidence over the past four years to indicate that he is an above-average finisher, and it is hard to imagine Jackson being able to manufacture the narrow shooting window in a crowded Bournemouth penalty area as deftly as he did.
Jackson’s other skills are the bulwark of his case to remain a Chelsea starter: his selfless pressing, his intelligent movement, his improving hold-up play and his often sublime link-up with attacking teammates. He more often than not makes those around him better but similar can be said of Nkunku, who can do most of the same things to at least an equivalent level.
The best argument against regularly starting Nkunku as a No 9 is that he has even less experience leading an attack as a lone striker than Jackson; his two best scoring seasons at RB Leipzig were achieved orbiting Andre Silva, a more traditional focal point frontman.
Many of Chelsea’s best pre-season moments under Mauricio Pochettino in the summer of 2023 came from Nkunku and Jackson combining in the final third. Maresca would do well to get them both into the same team, but at whose expense? Nkunku is not a winger, and he is unlikely to be deployed as the left-sided No 8 as long as Palmer also operates centrally — not least because Moises Caicedo needs someone standing within 30 yards of him in midfield.
Maresca’s primary duty is to pick a balanced, coherent team, regardless of who is in it. Chelsea’s summer transfer activity has left him with far more attacking weapons than Pochettino had, but also many more difficult decisions.
“At the end of the game I just said to the players — Christo, Cole, Jadon, Joao, Noni (Madueke), Misha (Mykhailo Mudryk), Pedro — they are not all going to play all the games,” Maresca said after the Bournemouth win. “All they need to do is exactly what they did tonight.”
A run of games as a No 9 at Jackson’s expense could be in Nkunku’s future at Chelsea. Or there could simply be more cameo appearances, and enjoyment tinged with anger.
