The other side of this is with our injury luck of late, we cannot be so heavily reliant on one single player. Nkunku is out for at least another two months, half the season will be gone by the time he is back on the pitch for us. We need results well before then, and we will need others to step up.
As well as that, we need more than one talisman in this squad. I don’t want to see another Eden Hazard situation where he basically carried Chelsea for a good two seasons and when he was not on the pitch, we didn’t have the answers.
I just don’t want to get into that culture of relying so heavily on one single player and that’s why I don’t love seeing comments like the ones above from Romano.
But we should also be very careful to not pile the entire pressure of the shoulders of a player who has yet to competitively kick a ball for us.
“Chelsea feel Chrsitopher Nkunku returning from injury will be a crucial step in their season,” Fabrizio Romano said this week.
I know it’s meant to be seen as a positive, but let’s just let Nkunku return from a bad injury, settle into a new team and a new country, and start playing football again, without the massive pressure of him being the answer to all our attacking problems, our saviour, and the man who will take us back to the top again.
By the way, I don’t disagree with any of that. I think he will be crucial as well and has the ability and presence to become hugely important for us.
We’ve completely rebuilt this squad, so we need to split that responsibility and step up as a team, as a coaching team, and as Chelsea together.