Chelsea: Callum Wilson is not the quick fix to homegrown and striker needs

Chelsea will have an up-close look at transfer target Callum Wilson when Bournemouth come to Stamford Bridge for the Carabao Cup. Whatever they see, he may not offer much more than hope of breaking the trend.

Chelsea have had nearly every variation of striker in the last decade. High-octane Russian? Check. Pretty boy Spaniard? Check, twice in fact. Charismatic Belgian? Done it. Suave Frenchman? Oui, monsieur. Anger-riddled Spaniard? Had that, too. Falcao, Pato, partridge in a pear tree? Yep, yep and tis the season.

Just about the only option the Blues have yet to try is an English striker. Perhaps the novelty of it all is what has Callum Wilson leading many of the transfer rumours.

Novelty aside, Wilson checks an important box for the Blues: he is homegrown. Chelsea could lose five homegrown players in the next month: Gary Cahill, Victor Moses, Danny Drinkwater, Andreas Christensen and Cesc Fabregas. Fabregas is the most likely of the group to stay for the second half of the season, but not beyond that. Not that Maurizio Sarri seems particularly concerned about having depth in his squad, but the club are already at their capacity for non-homegrown players. If anyone at Stamford Bridge wants to replace one of these outbound players, Sarri will either need to select a youth player or the club will have to buy a homegrown. Perhaps this eventuality is why George McEachran travelled with the team to face MOL Vidi.

The homegrown aspect may be Callum Wilson’s main value to the club. He has been a consistent goal-scorer for Bournemouth, usually among the top two scorers on the team overall, even when missing extended spans through injury.

However his only season with double-digit goals was Bournemouth’s final season in the Championship, when he scored 20 and assisted seven in the second tier. He has already having his best season in the Premier League, having scored eight goals (equalling his best season in the top flight) and assisting five.

This just adds to the uncertainty around his prospects for success at Chelsea, on top of the enormous new pressures he would face. Chelsea’s failure-to-launch strikers have years of domestic trophies and Champions League play to their names at clubs like Real Madrid, Juventus, Liverpool, AC Milan and Monaco.

If Chelsea were looking for a depth player, or if Wilson were a young prospect the club could patiently develop into the starting No. 9, this could be a more satisfactory move. But the club need a starting striker who can step into the role and immediately deliver goals around England and on the continent. He will need to succeed where Alvaro Morata could not, and with a regularity – 70+ minutes twice a week – that Olivier Giroud does not.

That’s a tall order for a player who has helped a club go from the Championship to the upper-middle class of the Premier League, all from the homey confines of Vitality Stadium under the steady and patient hand of Eddie Howe. Wilson has only ever known one club and one manager, on a team that are still revelling in every success. That’s not much preparation for the turbulence and pressures of Chelsea FC.

In many ways, we’re speaking for Chelsea when we say to Callum Wilson: “It’s not you. It’s us.”

Perhaps it’s to Wilson’s favour that he wouldn’t come to the club with the lofty expectations of a Shevchenko, Torres or Morata. By not starting on a high pedestal, he cannot get too hurt in the fall.

But it could still pan out into a Demba Ba / Michy Batshuayi situation, one where you can’t help wondering if things wouldn’t have gone better if Chelsea left him where he was.

Chelsea have been battling their striker issues for over a decade now. Under Maurizio Sarri – with no help from shifting rules and a possible transfer ban – they have dug themselves an even deeper hole with their homegrown situation.

Callum Wilson would be a long-term project purchased for a short-term need. That is a recipe for a classic Chelsea flop. Unless the plan is to develop Wilson over the appropriate span until he and Tammy Abraham are ready to lead an all-English line, this transfer is not to anyone’s best interest.