“He should take 11 and stop that 9 jersey. I think the number 9 jersey should be retired,” reads the top comment to our post suggesting that Joao Felix could take the number.
Clearly, a lot of Chelsea fans associate the number 9 shirt with failure — so many glorified players, mostly strikers, have flopped wearing it. Or have they? Let’s find out.
Who’s worn the shirt and how did they fare?
Since the start of the century that we’ll use as the starting point, 14 players have worn the no.9 shirt. The list includes centre-back Khalid Boulahrouz, holding midfielder Steve Sidwell, has-beens Radamel Falcao and Gonzalo Higuain on loan, and a bunch of strikers.
In 12 seasons out of 22 since the start of the century, a player with the no.9 shirt has hit double figures:
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink 26 goals (23 in Prem) in 2000-01
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink 29 goals (23 in Prem) in 2001-02
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink 15 goals (11 in Prem) in 2002-03
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink 17 goals (12 in Prem) in 2003-04
Hernan Crespo 13 goals (10 in Prem) in 2005-06
Fernando Torres 11 goals (6 in Prem) in 2011-12
Fernando Torres 22 goals (8 in Prem) in 2012-13
Fernando Torres 11 goals (5 in Prem) in 2012-13
Alvaro Morata 15 goals (11 in Prem) in 2017-18
Tammy Abraham 18 goals (15 in Prem) in 2019-20
Tammy Abraham 12 goals (6 in Prem) in 2020-21
Romelu Lukaku 15 goals (8 in Prem) in 2021-22
Do the stats tell everything?
On paper, that’s a decent return for a supposed curse. However, there is a context.
Fernando Torres was instrumental in Chelsea’s Europa League run in 2012-13 and scored the iconic goal at Camp Nou in the Champions League. However, he produced poor numbers in the Premier League, never hitting double figures. He wasted sitters and never replicated the form which made him famous at Liverpool. He is often credited as the one who cursed the shirt as clearly, Chelsea’s no.9 strikers who came before him had little trouble scoring.
Morata had a great start to his Chelsea career and two brilliant months...and that was it. He scored six goals in the league in his first two months and five for the rest of the campaign. He kept missing sitters which was most evident in the 2-2 draw against Arsenal on 4 January 2018 as he set a Premier League record for wasted chances. At that point, Morata was more interested in re-signing for Atletico as the Spaniard started moaning about how he missed life in Madrid and got the fans to turn on him.
Abraham produced impressive numbers, but always divided fan opinions because he lacked the consistency needed from an elite striker. He also scored the vast majority of his goals against teams far below in the league standings - the likes of Norwich, Sheffield United and Palace - which garnered extra criticism.
And then Lukaku and Aubameyang but really, there isn’t much to say about the two as you know it all.
What about other numbers?
Could it be that all the talk about the no.9 curse is amplified because so many players have worn it and it’s okay that some haven’t delivered? Let’s look at the history of the two other numbers, usually reserved for forwards.
No.10: Christian Pulisic, Willian, Eden Hazard, Juan Mata, Yossi Benayoun, Joe Cole.
No.11: Joao Felix, Timo Werner, Pedro, Alexandre Pato, Juan Cuadrado, Didier Drogba (twice), Oscar, Damien Duff, Boudewij Zenden.
Barring a few misses, these players mostly evoke positive memories for the Chelsea faithful.
So, you don’t have to believe in superstitions but there’s clearly an issue with the no.9 shirt at Chelsea. Last summer, Thomas Tuchel confirmed it in an interview: “It's cursed, it's cursed, people tell me it is cursed!
"It's not the case that we leave it open for tactical reasons, or for some players in the pipeline that come in and naturally take it. There was not a big demand for number nine, when like players sometimes want to change numbers. But, surprisingly, nobody wants to touch it.”
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Whether the no. 9 ‘curse’ is overrated may have to do with your belief in superstitions. History suggests that players who wear it tend to flop but it shouldn’t be linked to supernatural powers at play.
And yet, since a Chelsea head coach openly admitted that “the curse is real”, this shows that whether you believe in curses or not, players themselves are not keen to pick up the number even when it’s vacant.
