Chelsea No. 9 shirt: Thomas Tuchel admits his players think jersey is 'cursed'

Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel has admitted that none of his forwards want to wear the club’s No. 9 shirt for fear that it is “cursed”.

The jersey is vacant following Romelu Lukaku’s return to Inter Milan on loan back in June – and looks set to remain so for the 2022/23 season.

Scoring just eight Premier League goals last term, Lukaku was the latest in a long line of players to struggle with the squad number on their back.

Fans have joked about the ill-fated jersey for years, but now it seems all in the Blues’ dressing room genuinely want to avoid it because of its dreadful track record.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, per ESPN, Tuchel said of the No. 9 shirt: “It’s cursed! People tell me it’s cursed! It’s not the case that we leave it open for tactical reasons or for some players in the pipeline to come in and naturally take it.

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“There was not a big demand for the number nine. Players sometimes want to change numbers but surprisingly nobody wants to touch it.

“Like, everybody who is longer than me in the club, tells me ‘you know he had the nine and didn’t score and he had the nine and he also did not score.’ Now we have a moment, nobody wants to touch the number nine.”

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Those of you who aren’t superstitious might be scoffing at the idea of a squad number being cursed. However, for much of the last two decades, playing in the No. 9 shirt for Chelsea has pretty much doomed your season.

We’ve already touched upon Lukaku’s dismal 2021/22 season, but Tammy Abraham also struggled in the jersey before him.

The England international looked to have shaken off the