Christopher Nkunku has been a massive disappointment since he arrived at the club from RB Leipzig in 2023. Troy Deeney actually said something I agree with.
And so did ESPN pundit Steve Nicol:
“Christopher Nkunku was absolutely and utterly invisible. In fact, he’s been invisible since he went to Chelsea. At least [Pedro] Neto was running around and looked interested.”
We have to be honest, Nkunku has far from lived up to any expectations when we first signed him. The entire fan base was excited to see him come in, and most believed that £52m was a good price for him, which it was.
So why hasn’t it worked out for Nkunku?
Well, let’s start with the most recent issues and then work back.
Nkunku asked to leave in January. He wanted to play a more important role than just cup games. And as a 27-year-old who is fighting to get back into the national side, you can completely understand that. He has never caused any problems or made any demands, just simply says he wants to leave for the sake of his career. He has continued to work hard in training.
He was then very close to getting his move in January before the club priced him out of it. Chelsea would have sold him, but only for a fee that they believed to be acceptable. The move collapsed.
What this does is then leave you with a player who wanted to leave in January and believed he was leaving. That is never going to be a good formula for success, is it? Nkunku now looks disinterested and is seemingly just not putting the effort in. He is ghosting games and clearly has his eyes on the exit door this summer. Can you really blame him?
Even though I can’t blame him and his head is already out the door, my advice to him still is to get his head down and just work and see the season out. It will be better for him so he can show suitors what he can do. It’s a frustrating situation, but if Nkunku is playing, then he just needs to put the work in and put himself in the shop window.
He would not be playing games if we didn’t have injuries to our attackers right now, he would still be firmly on the bench. So maybe all of that would not matter. But a club cannot carry players, and that is what we are doing with Nkunku.
Is he a bad player? Absolutely not. But some players will only thrive when they are seen as an important player and they are given a key role playing in their best position. Nkunku has NEVER had that at Chelsea. He’s been shoehorned into other positions to fill gaps and really, I feel that has been a bit unfair on him.
He’s never looked good as a striker, and he’s ghosted games when asked to play off the left. His best position is as a 10 but we all know Cole Palmer has that role locked down.
Nkunku shouldn’t get away without critique though because also, as a professional footballer, he often has just been far from good enough and Chelsea can feel disappointed with that. He simply has not delivered and should have been performing much better than he has been regardless of the position he is playing in.
But all in all, I do have sympathy for him due to the things I mentioned above. His signing overall has just not been handled well at all. And now, the sooner he leaves the better for all involved and Chelsea just need to let him go rather than trying to squeeze the extra £5m here and there for him.
