It wasn’t too long ago that Chelsea were tipped by many as potential title contenders this season, but a really poor run of results has silenced all the talk.
Liverpool are pulling clear at the top of the Premier League right now as the clear favourites for the title. However, if you rewind only a few weeks, Chelsea were on their tail as a team with real momentum.
Unfortunately, the Blues are currently on a run of two draws and two defeats from their previous four league matches, which has seen them slip down the table and land themselves in a top-four battle.
Chelsea’s aim is qualification for the Champions League, along with winning the Conference League. It’s obvious that there’s still so much work to do despite a positive first half of the season for Enzo Maresca.
John Obi Mikel claims Chelsea would’ve been in the title race with key signing
According to John Obi Mikel, Chelsea would still be in a Premier League title race this season if they had signed a high-profile No.9 in the summer.
He suggests that the Blues would be competing with Liverpool if they had Galatasaray’s Victor Osimhen or Sporting Lisbon’s Viktor Gyokeres in the striker position rather than Nicolas Jackson.
“He’s (Jackson) not scoring enough. If we had Victor Osimhen or Viktor Gyokeres, I think trust me we would have still been competing to win the Premier League,” Mikel said on his podcast.
Osimhen and Gyokeres have both been heavily linked with Chelsea since the start of the season, but Jackson is currently the first-choice striker at the club.
Osimhen now wants to join Manchester United, so it looks like the Blues will miss out on the frontman. Similarly, Gyokeres has his heart set on signing for Man United.
Nicolas Jackson vs Victor Osimhen vs Viktor Gyokeres this season
Mikel has put forward two names he’d prefer starting at Chelsea over Jackson, but how do they compare across the first half of this campaign?
| Player | Appearances | Goals | Assists |
| Nicolas Jackson | 20 | 9 | 3 |
| Victor Osimhen | 16 | 13 | 5 |
| Viktor Gyokeres | 28 | 30 | 6 |
As you can see above, Jackson’s a lot less efficient in front of goal compared to Osimhen and Gyokeres, two extremely clinical finishers. However, it’s worth pointing out that the Chelsea man is three years younger than the pair of 26-year-old attackers. On top of that, Osimhen and Gyokeres are scoring goals for fun in the Turkish and Portuguese leagues, respectively.
While we agree that Chelsea could find an upgrade on Jackson as a natural finisher, any striker coming in would still have a big job on their hands dislodging him from the XI because of his all-round influence.
