Diego Costa was arguably their best number 9 in recent memories, but we all know he was a prick 😂

I'd argue Abraham (sorta-kinda-but not really) broke the curse. But what happened to him? Oh, wait. Chelsea sold him!

Fernando Torres at chelsea was so sad as a liverpool fan, seeing him not on form was so different

Me as long time Chelsea fan, I always firmly believe that the strikers at Chelsea were never the problem, it's always been the lack of support from their midfielders. Diego Costa had Cesc Fabregas and Didier Drogba had Frank Lampard.

We literally had Tammy and sold him… like wtf. He was young, strong, driven, home grown, PRODUCED RESULTS. I love this club the decisions we make sometimes is dumbfounding

On the final bit- Auba is a deadline day signing, but he's one that we've been trying for since the beginning of August. Not particularly last minute but I get how it looks that way.

That Gary Neville moment is my favorite moment of his whole career

Fun fact: the number 9 curse had been there since Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink left Chelsea in 2004

The Torres one was so weird 😭 He was literally one of the Best Strikers in the League when he was at Liverpool. Expected him to bang in the Goals at Chelsea but it just never happened. Instead he was creating his own Top 20 for worst misses 😭 Let's see how Auba does 👀 I think he'll get the goals for them.

Been watching these videos with my girlfriend to try and get her into football! She’s growing more interested and she really enjoys your videos, please keep it up!

Chelsea: We need a striker! Chelsea: Proceeds to sell strikers Also Chelsea: Lacks creative players or attacking style to help strikers score.

I think you missed out an important reasoning behind this curse. Chelsea are in some ways indebted and cursed by the shadow of Drogba. Drogba was not a typical striker who scores goals, he was a physical player who pushed the ball forward and brings teammates to the attack. This is always how Chelsea have played at their attacking best. Costa worked out well for Chelsea because he played the same way. But you cannot take a goal scoring forward like Torres and expect him to play like Drogba. Chelsea always tries to buy the most expensive forwards but they will never work under Chelsea's defensive minded philosophy.

Aw man great memories of 2011 there Tinashe! I remember the joke at the time was that Mohamed Al Fayed had just spent £10m on a statue of Michael Jackson outside Craven Cottage, but Roman Abramovich wasn't to be out done, so he spent £50m on a statue of Fernando Torres in the 6 yard box! Man, the old ones are the best hahaha!

Some video ideas for you Iconic - The fall of Bolton Wanderers Daniel Sturridge’s Career Preston North End and the first Invincibles

I think you can make an entire video about Alvaro Morata's carrer he played for so many top clubs and has failed to impress at any of them. Was he ever even the top player people thought he was?

I'm Watching From TEMA. Ghana West Africa. 🇬🇭 Best sports channel of all time.👑❤️💯

Man, I still remember the season where the great Sheva flopped, and I thought to myself, maybe they’ll find another quality striker that is better, or at least on par with Drogba’s calibre. Little did I know, I was watching the beginning of a ‘curse’.

It was strange seeing Torres' rapid decline in those years - maybe only Rooney's comes close in my mind in terms of its steepness. But I do have a nice memory of going to watch Chelsea v Norwich at Stamford bridge in (I think) his second season. We had decent seats close to the pitch, and I recall me and my mates just amazed at his technique on the ball and the quickness of his feet. Even in that slightly sad post-peak era of his career, it was a pleasure to watch him play up close

Most of Chelsea forwards were really bad but there’s a main thing that people don’t touch on and that’s the supply. Chelsea have lacked a creative midfielder since Fabregas left and it’s no coincidence that the last couple times we won the premier league was when Fabregas was part of the team putting up a huge amount of assists. We also had players like Hazard, William, Pedro who were all brilliant on the ball and were great passers as well.

love ur vids dude keep up the great work, you should make a video on world cup 2022 predictions for groups and knockouts, i'd love to see that!

Never took note of this curse lol. Great work bruv. Problem could be that they sign strikers based on goals n not the ryt style of play. Conte and Costa are a perfect example

You know when Football Iconic uses "Oof" we are in for one hell of a ride. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Eiður Guðjohnsen still my favorite Chelsea strikers.

Lovely Video As Always, Keep Up The Good Work Man! 😀

Great content my guy!! Top tier stuff this

For every Drogba, there are five Kezmans... for every Costa, there are five Moratas... as a lifelong Chelsea fan, it's tough consistently not having a good frontman... I'm just hoping Aube can re-ignite his form with us (but I am tentative in saying that).

I really like how you present all the different cases and in general the narrative that you use in your videos, it would be really nice if you add a conclusion part at the end of your videos when you try to explore why this is actually happening to have a more complete view of the problem, anyway, nice job man!

Oooh nice a new vid, ive been binging your videos

Can u do a video where u do a deep dive into the midfield 3 of xavi, iniesta, and busquets plz

your videos are amazing and so detailed

Torres had a team playing for him at Liverpool. Steven Gerrard starts the attack & El Nino was the focal point in the team. World class at that stage. Since Abramovich came at Chelsea there are always world class midfielders & wingers who can create & finish goals on their own which limits the strikers service. Torres even once complained that Chelsea midfielders did not pass him often.

I started getting into football in 2011, after I had been playing PES 2010 for a while. I had never been interested in football before but that game was so fun, and the main thing I remember was the intro, with Messi and Fernando Torres. The guy looked so cool. Then when I heard Torres was in Chelsea, and he was having a bad time, I started watching every Chelsea game just hoping that El Niño would score. He never got his form back, but at least he made some important contributions in the UCL and Europa League, and I'm still following Chelsea to this day.

Another quality and well informed video 😎

Yeah that Gary Nevile noise was epic. Glad you highlighted that and the bit when Torres went up and looked at the Barca fans after he scored was also good.

Tbh I don't rate our scouts. I'm happy we are getting proper AI based scouting and building a team to TT's image.

As always you are one of my favourite football youtubers ❤️ always bringing an entertaining information for us all

This guy makes awesome videos. He’s become a must watch whenever he comes across my feed.

I feel like something you missed, which is very important to mention is how the striker role got established at the start of the Abramovic era. TL:DR = Mou established the striker position as winning games/trophies over scoring lots of goals to make the most of Lampard and our wingers. This then set in place the team building we would use for the next 15 years. We brought Drogba in, but we never played him as a stat padding striker, he was always used as a utility striker, providing for others and scoring important goals. This is due to Mou saying you to him 'you can be a king somewhere else and score lots of goals, or you can be a legend here and win trophies' (paraphrased, as I couldn't remember the quote). This in turn meant we always structured our teams around our creative players to score and the striker to be more of a utility player who won't score many goals. This is why Costa done so well, Conte played a very different style of football than we normally played and this allowed Costa to be more of a number 9, but obviously this hampered people like Willian, Hazard, Pedro, etc. This is the issue Tuchel has now, he done well to relate back to Chelsea's history and use Havertz as a utility striker, which won us the champs, but we don't really have the creative players to make the best use of that sort of player.

Your videos are very fun, entertaining, and also very educative. It seems like watching a story about football talent. 😀 And it helps to disconnect a lot at nights. Keep it up Football Iconic. I will see what's struggling with Chelsea strikers as the title says :)

2 main reasons why , We buy strikers that don’t suit our system for example lukaku and Werner flourish in counter attack systems and we play more of a possession based football and second reason is we don’t create a high volume of chances for our strikers so we expect strikers to score with every chance therefore when a player misses a chance it ruins their confidence cuz they don’t get an opportunity to get another chance

Amazing video as always! It would be interesting if you made another video about United, now that they have won three game in a row, including against Liverpool.

And now we have Auba as the 9, let’s only hope…

Your humour is always on point, amazing work🤣👍🏻

I’ve seen a advanced stats split of Timo Werner games, there was a sample size of like 8-9 games where he played centrally in front 3, and spend most of his time between the goal posts, I think his record was like 6-7 goals in those games, problem is, you can’t play 3 CB’s, midfield 3, and front 3 at the same time, considering Chelsea won UCL and denied City, it was the right call, but one has to wonder if they went back 4, midfield 3 and front 3 and really used the glut of forwards properly, how their numbers and record might look like…..

Fernando Torres at LFC 🔥🙌🏽... My god, were those some memorable seasons... That Stevie G/ Fernando connection, coupled with the criminally underated skill of Dirk Kuyt🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽 Glorious to watch...

one thing u missed 15 goals of morata out of which most of them were from bench ...

Another great vid!

No mention on Mutu he started amazing.. Torres scored 22-23 goals in on season. Mostly in europe.. Huguain came from juve after beeing having back injuriy and he did not bad scored beautiful goals

Chelsea’s transfer policy is like throwing everything at the wall and see what sticks.

I feel that of all positions, strikers need to get into a “rhythm”. Due to the constant chopping and changing of squads it makes it difficult for strikers to get into form

It’s funny how much money lukaku cost Chelsea overall. The fact they sold him then tried to buy him but had to go buy morata for 60million because they couldn’t get him then spent all that money on Werner and others to get their striker. Then they finally get lukaku back for 97million just to send him back on loan. Shambles!

I would to see a prequel vid, focusing on strikers of the pre-Abramovich era, the likes of Flo, Jimmy-Floyd, etc.

12:09 I, as a man who frequently tried to play combinations with the trampoline in our back yard, can confirm, that a trampoline in fact has no good first touch. Mine's still worse tho

You know Chelsea would have still qualified if Torres didn't score against Barca right? That goal was simply icing on the cake

Perfect timing my guy! Just Made my food and opend yt

Hey man, lovely video and great channel. Keep up the good work. When are you going to talk about Kevin de bruyne man. He's arguably the greatest midfielder In the premier League. I mean look at that assist for haaland against villa. My Word.

I wished this video was more detailed in terms WHY do strikers struggle at Chelsea? Is it constant change of tactical system due to Chelsea constantly changing its coaches, which almost all use different tactics? Or is it just hard for them to bond with coach and the rest of the team?

You have a fair point throughout, and it fully remains to be seen if Auba will confirm or contrast this hex. Personally, I was expecting Werner to break the proposed curse, and yet he succumbed and was consumed by it, Havertz seems to be going the same way. If I was a betting man, Id say Aubameyang..... will need some gypsy magic support. Maybe some Chelsea pensioners in their red coats and medals can do a march or something to break it, otherwise Pierre-Emerick will also be rickety in front of goal

Great video again.

Newish PL fan and needed this

Yo bro awesome upload as always! I am a chelsea fan and I’ve been saying it for a while now, we could have R9 and he would still flop

The Diego Costa part is so funny 🤣😂😂😂...you are the best man

Falco was injured the whole time and pato was finished before he came

I love this channel 🔥

Great video

I'm a Chelsea fan and I loved watching Torres play. He always worked so hard and never ever gave up. He had a few amazing moments too. I'd also say it's unfair to include Kalou on this list. He was never our striker. And he played more than his part in Chelsea's success

Chelsea stirker curse for me is because of the levels of expectations everyone has for the player when he first signs and also Chelsea lack of planing of the right player to the right system

because they always sign strikers that don't suit the manager... or the other way around. Werner only fit for 2 striker formation, he and Lukaku are the same type of striker : making runs behind defender. The problem is the people behind their scouting and transfers.

No curse, we've just bought bad players many times: Shevchenko (owner's vanity buy), Torres (dunno why he flopped honestly), Sturridge (not good enough), Pato (really stupid purchase), Falcao (he was finished already), Morata (mentally weak), Werner (bad accuracy) and Lukaku (worst of them all). We've had some effective strikers besides Costa and Drogba, for example Anelka, Giroud and to some extent Abraham, despite his limitations. Marina and our previous scouting team did some good deals but also did many terrible ones, hopefully we fix that in our new regime.

Torres was incredible man 😭😭

Video is dope 👏💪💯💯

that's a big oof in the last part. Cheers my guy, you now understand Xavi's feeling about Auba too.

That bamyang Aresnal tattoo actually suits the blue top :D

Auba is going to wear no. 9👀👀

I might take an unpopular opinion from Irish Guy: Chelsea gave up too early on Lukaku last season. My headcanon would be that if Chelsea banned Lukaku to return to Inter, Lukaku himself would improve in chelsea's ground...Idk maybe to pipe out his griefs(?) But this isnt baseless trend.. take a look at Suarez or Kane in 2013 and 2021 respectively. Both are rebelling their club, yet they stay and came back with outrageous performance.

Interesting how this one dropped just days before the other Chelsea curse struck again.

Remember back when i was watching every Chelsea just hope to see Torres score

The most bizar thing was.. Chelsea signed Khalid Boulahrouz back in 2006 as number 9. Surprisingly as defender he didn't score..

Have you made a full video about Pedro? Amazing player, under-under-rated.

Auba is not necessarily a last minute signing though. As Chelsea has been negotiating that deal for a while. We'll see if it works out.

I think this is a testimony to Chelsea's style of football. They were never known for being agressive (that would be ManU and City) They have been consistently, since the arrival of Jose Mourinho, a defensive squad. Playing rough, relying on genius' strokes, counterattacks, and longshots to score, and in a solid defense and great goalkeepers to win matches and titles. And even though I don't like them at all, I can respect them for being loyal to their identity.

@Football Iconic you have to make a video on Zidane's 3x UCL winning Madrid team

The system utilized at Chelsea doesn’t help the strikers. All of them that have played there are poachers and need service. Other than Hazard and Lampard not one payer there can give proper passes that open up defenses for the striker. Drogba was a freak with how strong and powerful he was. Costa was really good and strong as well and was playing with Hazard. Torres relied on his explosiveness just like Pato who both lost a step because of injuries. Combine that with the defensive style they play there and it is a recipe for disaster. Lukaku is a great player. He has done great in England for other teams as well as Italy so his quality shouldn’t be questioned. Both the players and managers need to be flexible and in his case neither were. Honestly Tuchel in my opinion is a fraud. A more scared version of Mourinho. At least Mourinho wasn’t so scared to play with 5 defenders…

Pierre Emerick is similar to Wesley fofana- we’ve been working them for months, deals just happened to be made now. Zakaria though… let’s just say that I’m glad that Boehly has this much money to throw around, because these budget breakers end up just breaking my heart every season

Been a Blues fan for 20years, and here's how I see it. 01. Mutu - Did okay but his off-field problems were wayyy tooo much. 02. Crespo - Did kinda okay but never really settled in England. 03. Drogba - Chelsea's goat striker, of course. 04. Kezman - Ohhh don't even start lmao 05. Shevchenko - Looked so out of place in PL. Could see his qualities in some of the goals he scored at Chelsea but simply a disastrous signing. 06. Anelka - A lowkey signing that turned out to be really really good. 07. Sturridge - He wasn't bad at all but never really got the chance, I guess. 08. Torres - I had a feeling that he was gonna be a flop because since 2010, he hadn't really been the same. Liverpool cashed in on him. 09. Eto'o - Not too bad considering he was a very short-term signing. Did better than most others. 10. Demba Ba - Never really got the chance, I guess. 11. Diego Costa - He had that Drogba DNA. Absolute beast. Chelsea won 2 PLs in his three years stint at the Bridge, so. 12. Remy - Another one who never really fit in. 13. Falcao - Ohh boy I don't know what to say. 14. Pato - Same as above 15. Batshuayi - He actually had a decent G/A contribution with the minutes he had. The problem was that the way he played on the pitch was just painful to watch. 16. Morata - Started out really well and then his misses were, unforgivable I would say? Lucky he was sold for a big fees. 17. Giroud - Now, this one also was a lowkey signing that really helped the club. His experience was a very important factor in their 2021 UCL triumph. 18. Higuain - Man turned up only once, against Huddersfield lol 19. Werner - Sighhh. He wasn't all bad but never found his feet in the Prem, I would say. His impact in UCL was actually really good. 12 G/A in 12 games time. Glad he went back to RBL. 20. Lukaku - Another terrible signing that lots of fans didn't want. We knew how it was gonna turn out with that gigantic price tag on him. The management was horrible too. A complete waste of money. 21. Aubameyang - Well, let's just see.

This must be Drogba’s spirit looming over them

Diego Costa's case was really a sad one, Chelsea didn't get a good striker post that but for him it was even worse

Except for Jose & Carlo no other manager really played a Striker scoring focused tactics

Drogba and Costa were lethal

You cold make a similar video about AC Milan nr9 curse. Spreading from Inzaghi to Giroud.

Abraham definitely could of broke the curse but we sold I hope they activate his buy back clause

hey, can you please do a video of one of the greatest midfielders of all time, arguably (and is) the greatest midfielder of all time, Andres Inietsa??

Please do a video on 🧤 Thibaut Courtois 🧤

Torres might have to be at his best while at Chelsea but he helped the team at vital moments

9:43 because we had Marina Granovskaia back then

1:26 I completely forgot those three played for Chelsea

Chelsea fans also remembers torres 9 goals in 11 matches when we won the european cup in 2013 and scored the opening goal in the final

Shevchenko should’ve never left Milan. Bro was a beast

Demba Ba was amazing

I love the lukaku meme. Who ever did it is top notch memer

No.9 = Goals If you’ve the jersey but don’t score them, you’re perceived as failing the team and that can be a lot of pressure for a player.