Official: Christopher Nkunku to join Chelsea on 6 Year Contract

[Mark Kelly]

5 hours ago, ROTG said:

I would be interested to know who sold Nkunku the club, as it seems Poch has never spoken to him.

I wonder if the word project was mentioned to him?

Well, seeing as he used the word "project" when he was unveiled at Chelsea I expect it was , we signed him so long ago and before Potter had completely ruined our season that he probably looked at our previous history and expected to be in the Champions League when he arrived.

[Ham]

If we didn't have bad luck we'd have no luck at all. 

[Bert19]

16 minutes ago, Ham said:

If we didn't have bad luck we'd have no luck at all. 

It's about time we refused to play on one of those dire American pitches though.  A miracle that no one else got hurt on that surface last week - if it looked that bad on screen, there's no way it wasn't worse in person. Makes you wonder why the Club is willing to take the risk?  Especially as we've seen this happen before.  RLC's achilles....

Guessing this means that a new CF is now guaranteed.  Will it also mean a temporary switch to 4-3-3, or do we have another player that could play the #10 in the 4-2-3-1 formation? 

Edited August 7, 2023 by Bert19

[paulw66]

I have done a few Google searches and not much is coming up apart from that report. I wouldn't get too despondent just yet

[Thiago97]

FFS! Nightmare start to things if this turns out accurate. 

[Sleeping Dave]

🤬🤬🤬

[Ham]

Oh but wait.....

 

 

[Michael Tucker]

33 minutes ago, Ham said:

Oh but wait.....

Let's hope.

[Ham]

48 minutes ago, Michael Tucker said:

Let's hope.

And to evidence the reliability of the Twitterati;

 

 

[paulw66]

If it is months, I wonder if this might force our hand. Another loan for Felix? 

[Thiago97]

This is a massive body blow. He is going to be a massive player for us and now we are in a situation where we don't have him up and running until the New Year probably, possibly longer accounting time to get used to PL football up against match fit opponents.

It very likely forces our hand to definitely need to enter the market for another forward now.

[paulw66]

1 hour ago, Thiago97 said:

This is a massive body blow. He is going to be a massive player for us and now we are in a situation where we don't have him up and running until the New Year probably, possibly longer accounting time to get used to PL football up against match fit opponents.

It very likely forces our hand to definitely need to enter the market for another forward now.

the conversations with Juve probably intensify now.

[Bison]

40 minutes ago, paulw66 said:

the conversations with Juve probably intensify now.

Not sure why an injury to a LW/AM would increase our need for Vlahovic?

If the injury is going to be 2-3 months then I would suggest standing still. We can't spend another 40-60m on an Nkunku replacement if he's due to be back before the end of the calendar year.

I do love the links to Olise though and would be happy with that signing.

[paulw66]

39 minutes ago, Bison said:

Not sure why an injury to a LW/AM would increase our need for Vlahovic?

 

Well, Nkunku was probably also penciled in (at this stage) to be 2nd choice no.9

39 minutes ago, Bison said:

 

I do love the links to Olise though and would be happy with that signing.

yes, although also injured right now.

[Mark Kelly]

Hazard on a free anyone? 

[ROTG]

12 minutes ago, Mark Kelly said:

Hazard on a free anyone? 

Probably take him until December to get fit, 

Also i doubt Poch would want him back at the club, as it might reignite poch's nightmares of that fateful night in May 2016 😀

[Ham]

 

[Mark Kelly]

Out for an extended period?  Thanks for nothing OCWS

[xceleryx]

Fucking hell, we can't have anything nice can we.

Absolutely gutted for Nkunku because he was looking good and is a fabulous player, so to not have him for virtually the first half of the season is going to be a blow and a half. 

I wonder what we'll do now? Don't particularly trust Chukwuemeka enough at this point, which leaves Gallagher as the only real alternative but an entirely different type of attacking midfielder. This also hurts us in terms of options upfront as I imagine Poch would've used Nkunku as a #9 at times as well. So now we're down our primary AM and secondary ST.