Jorginho could pay penalty to aid flops
THOMAS TUCHEL says he could take Jorginho off penalty-taking duties if it means Chelsea’s strikers can boost their goal tallies and end the curse of the No 9 shirt at Stamford Bridge.
Romelu Lukaku became the latest in a long line of flops when he left Chelsea this summer, returning to Inter Milan on loan after his £97.5million move misfired.
He managed only eight goals in 26 Premier League appearances during his second spell at the club, having failed to score in the 15 games he played as a youngster when signed from Anderlecht for £18m in 2011.
Lukaku was far from alone as a big-name, big-money striker to fail at Chelsea. Since Didier Drogba’s heyday from 2004 to 2012, only
Diego Costa can claim to have been successful in the forward line, scoring 52 goals in 89 league appearances as he helped Chelsea win two Premier League titles.
But as he prepares for a reunion with Pierre Emerick Aubameyang, the former Dortmund striker who looks set to swap Barcelona for the Bridge, Tuchel wants to change things, saying: ‘We should not create our own self-fulfilling prophecy that the next striker will not succeed and that’s on me to create an environment and a team that creates enough chances for a striker to score.
‘Maybe we should take Jorginho’s penalties away. Strikers can
increase their numbers dramatically if you were to take seven to 10 penalties and give them to the striker.
‘But then who would take a penalty away from Jorginho? We want to win in the end and he is a fantastically good penalty-taker.
‘Strikers are a very special breed, very sensitive but also very selfconfident. Any striker would love to be the guy to break that habit of struggling.’