"It's Cursed, it's cursed, people tell me it is cursed!" Thomas Tuchel told a press conference when asked about Chelsea's Number 9 shirt.

"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.

"Everybody who is longer than me in the club tells me 'ah, you know, like he had the nine and he did not score and he had the nine and did also not score'. So now we have a moment where nobody wants to touch the number nine."

The likes of Fernando Torres, Radamel Falcao, Alvaro Morata, Gonzalo Higuain and Romelu Lukaku wore the number 9 shirt at Chelsea and underperformed.

Perhaps the only profilic striker in recent times who had a number 9 shirt was Tammy Abraham, but he was sold to make way for Lukaku.