With seven minutes remaining of Chelsea’s second Premier League game of the season, head coach Mauricio Pochettino sent on academy striker Mason Burstow to try to save his side a point at West Ham. It did not work.
This is not a damning indictment on Burstow himself. The teenager, signed from Charlton Athletic in January last year, has made good progress at under-21 level and scored a late equaliser for the senior side in a pre-season friendly against Borussia Dortmund.
You might wonder, though, if this was Pochettino’s way of sending a message to the hierarchy that he needs more firepower to get better results. It is certainly a rather remarkable position for Chelsea to find themselves in after spending hundreds of millions in the market since the Todd Boehly-Clearlake consortium took over 15 months ago.
Chelsea have not had much fortune. One of their most important attacking signings, Christopher Nkunku, has effectively been ruled out for the rest of the year with a knee injury sustained in that match against Borussia Dortmund.
Carney Chukwuemeka, who impressed in the first half at West Ham in the No 10 role and scored his first goal for the club to make it 1-1, went off before the break after suffering what looked like a serious knee problem of his own.
Chelsea should have had the three points secured by then. Enzo Fernandez had a penalty saved and other chances were wasted. We are not just talking about shots at goal here, but final passes or crosses which were not executed well enough.
Anyone watching will have just thought ‘same old Chelsea’ in many ways. The basic statistics made grim reading: Chelsea outshot their opponents 17-12 and enjoyed 76 per cent of the possession. The scoreline is the most important metric of all though and it showed 3-1 to the home side when referee John Brooks blew the final whistle.
Raheem Sterling summed up the frustration in the Chelsea dressing room afterwards, telling Sky Sports: “Dominating a game at a ground like West Ham’s, you have got to take your chances. This is the Premier League and it will come back to haunt you.”
Chelsea’s failure to capitalise when they are on top in games has been a problem for some time and particularly last season. They set a club-record low of 38 goals from 38 Premier League matches in 2022-23, but a lack of efficiency in front of goal has persisted for longer than that. Diego Costa remains the last Chelsea player to score 20 goals in a Premier League season and that was when they last won the title in 2016-17.
Asked if he had noticed a lack of self-belief in front of goal from his players since starting the job in July, Pochettino said: “No. I don’t believe this. This is a new team with new players. The players are not feeling what happened in the last few years. It is about… to believe, to perform. A player like Nicolas Jackson for sure is going to score because he has amazing quality. I do not believe what happened has happened because of last season.”
There was a second part to the question which raised the idea of turning to the transfer market again to sign another forward. Whether he did not hear, forgot or just chose not to answer, Pochettino did not clarify that situation.
It feels like a broken record to suggest Chelsea have struggled to replace Costa, who left for Atletico Madrid six years ago. As Pochettino rightly highlighted, Jackson provides cause for optimism. The Senegal international has shown a lot of promise and quality since joining from Villarreal for just over €35million (£30m; $38.1m) in July. Yet for a second successive Sunday, he gave opposition defenders a difficult time but ended the fixture without a goal to show for it.
The TV cameras picked out co-sporting directors Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley looking particularly glum in the second half. West Ham played nearly 30 minutes, including stoppage time, with 10 men after Nayef Aguerd was shown a second yellow card, but Chelsea ran out of ideas and incredibly posed less of a threat.
With the transfer window closing on September 1, there is still time for the chequebook to be used again. Chelsea have been looking at signing another attacking player anyway, but not a tried and tested No 9 as such. A move for Crystal Palace’s Michael Olise broke down last week, while Nottingham Forest’s Brennan Johnson was put on the wish list last month.
Those outside of Chelsea will question why Pochettino does not reconsider making Romelu Lukaku part of his plans. The club’s highest earner, on £340,000-a-week, bought from Inter Milan for a then-club record £97.5million in 2021, is currently training at Cobham as attempts are made to find him a move elsewhere.
The options, and time to do just that, are running out. But Pochettino made it clear on the eve of the West Ham game that the Belgium international is not in his or the club’s thinking and the forward also has no interest in playing for Chelsea. Anyone who saw Lukaku play for Chelsea in 2021-22 will not think he is the answer to their problems anyway.
Pochettino has declared that qualifying for the Champions League this season is the minimum. A lack of a prolific centre-forward is a relatively new experience for him, having worked with two of the best very best forwards at previous clubs in Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappe.
The former Tottenham and Paris Saint-Germain coach will get back to work on the training ground this week, but until he finds a solution to Chelsea’s struggles in front of goal, it will continue to hinder his and the club’s ambitions.
Simon Johnson has spent the majority of his career as a sports reporter since 2000 covering Chelsea, firstly for Hayters and then the London Evening Standard. This included going to every game home and away as the west London club secured the Champions League in 2012. He has also reported on the England national team between 2008-19 and been a regular contributor to talkSPORT radio station for over a decade. Follow Simon on Twitter @SJohnsonSport
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