It was an issue before, but once Fernando Torres donned the no.9 shirt for Chelsea, the number took on a cursed reputation. Any player who wore the traditional striker’s number was doomed to fail. It didn’t matter how experienced that player was or how many goals they had scored previously. Once it was nine in Chelsea Blue, their career would tank.
Of course, some of that is revisionism. While few would argue that Torres career went well at Chelsea, he did manage to come out decently overall. Players like Diego Costa, wearing a number other than nine, also solidified the legacy of the no.9 curse.
Romelu Lukaku is now set to take Chelsea’s no.9 and some fear of the curse again. They shouldn’t, because Tammy Abraham already ended it.
There will always be a bit of confusion about what is “good enough” for a striker at a club like Chelsea. While everyone in the world wants a Kylian Mbappe or Erling Haaland at or approaching one goal contribution per game, those guys are aliens for a reason. Usually, a goal contribution every other game is plenty. In his first season back, Abraham scored 18 goals and had six assists in 47 appearances and 2960 minutes. In his second season, he has 12 goals and six assists in just 32 appearances and 1533 minutes. That’s barely 17 matches worth of minutes in the second season.
The idea of the curse likely lingers for a few reasons. The first is, even though Chelsea has struggled with scoring in the last few seasons, there is still a stigma against scoring in groups or only against “lesser” opponents. Abraham wasn’t lighting it up against the Manchester City’s of the league and he was scoring in braces and hattricks. That same cloud followed Romelu Lukaku in his career before Inter. But the simple fact of the matter is that goals are goals and Chelsea has struggled to score mostly against the teams they should be scoring against, not the teams that are higher in the table.
The curse is also still a thing in the eyes of some because of how Abraham’s form seemed to come in waves. In 2019/2020, he started most of the first half of the season before Olivier Giroud displaced him. In 2020/2021, he started most games for Frank Lampard but virtually none for Thomas Tuchel. In both seasons, Abraham finished as either the top scorer or close to it. There very much should be questions asked of both Lampard and Tuchel about whether or not Abraham would have hit the 20 goal mark if he played a full season for either.
Abraham leaving for Roma is much like Lukaku leaving for Everton. Both were strikers that had already proven themselves in the Premier League. There were simply too many “buts” about them and the Blues had a chance at another, more experienced striker. Perhaps in a few years, Chelsea will exercise that buyback clause on Abraham and some other young striker doing decently but not quite good enough will depart.
Abraham broke the number no.9 curse. That’s not really deniable. Even still, there may be enough in the curse that it took him away from the club. Lukaku will now don the nine, a bit lighter than it was before.