da betsul： In recent years, Chelsea's striker Hoo-doo has been well-documented, with the Blues acquiring a multitude of flops for large sums of money.
da brwin： The biggest of those, of course, was the decision to break their transfer record to sign Romelu Lukaku for £97.5m in 2021, while others include Timo Werner, Gonzalo Higuain and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Truthfully, the club haven't had a monstrous focal point leading their line since Diego Costa departed the club in 2017. The aggressive Spaniard enjoyed a sensational three years at Stamford Bridge, scoring an impressive 59 goals in 120 appearances.
With patience wearing thin on their current crop of forwards, Chelsea could dip into the January transfer market and acquire a striker who has a proven track record of scoring goals for fun.
Are Chelsea linked with a move for Ivan Toney?
Ivan Toney is currently serving a ban from football till January and although the 27-year-old hasn't played all season, that hasn't stopped the likes of Arsenal and Chelsea all thinking highly of Toney and considering a move for him next year.
Brentford would love a bidding war to ensue for their star man and while they may get it, transfer expert Fabrizio Romano reported on the Debrief podcast that a deal could be done for £65m.
While the Bees are salivating over the prospect of receiving more than that for their goal machine, they may not get the payday they quite hoped for with his contract expiring in 2025.
It is clear that this transfer saga is going to rumble on long into the January window and that is why the Blues are looking at other targets, most notably Napoli's Victor Osimhen.
Given Toney is a proven Premier League goalscorer and his teammate Christian Norgaard has compared him to Blues legend Didier Drogba previously, it suggests that Mauricio Pochettino should be putting all his eggs in one basket and making a move for the England international.
How good is Ivan Toney?
Toney is the unrelenting physical presence that the club are crying out for to lead their front line and displays in every facet of his game, aside from ball carrying, that he is an improvement on current Chelsea striker, Nicolas Jackson.
When comparing his stats from the Premier League last season to Jackson's this term, Toney eclipses the Senegalese for aerial duels won per 90 (3.32/1.24), non-penalty goals (0.43/0.31), passes into the final third (1.65/1.24) and fouls drawn (2.26/1.24), as per FBref.
The Englishman is, quite simply, the missing piece to Pochettino's puzzle. He demonstrates that in his ability to beat defenders aerially, make sharp movements in behind and unlike Jackson, show a lethal edge in the box once chances fall to him.
Since completing his £32m switch from Villarreal, the 22-year-old has been chronically wasteful in front of goal and some of the chances that have fallen to him, including the horrible miss against Nottingham Forest, were ones that the 6 foot 1 goal machine would have gobbled up.
Jackson's wastefulness is epitomised by him missing seven big chances, recording an xG of 4.12 with only two goals to show for it while only converting 10% of his opportunities, according to SofaScore.
Toney, on the other hand, outperformed his xG of 18.79, had a goal conversion of 21% and only missed 16 big chances across the entire season in 2022/23.
After all, he did score 20 in the top flight last term, with only Harry Kane (30) and Erling Haaland (36) scoring more goals than the towering Toney, who has been dubbed as "world-class" by former Brentford defender Hermann Hreidarsson for his exceptional performances.
That prior mention of Drogba is also noteworthy, with Norgaard having stated back in 2021: “I heard someone in the changing room comparing Ivan with Didier Drogba. I think he looked a bit like him actually – the way he kept the ball, his first touch and his passes.
“He won every single header and he is a right player.”
To be likened to a legendary figure in Chelsea folklore – who scored 164 goals in 381 appearances and notably won the Champions League – is a real statement, with Toney perhaps the physical, clinical frontman that the west Londoners have been craving since the days of Droga – and Costa – in the modern era.
It is, therefore, imperative that Pochettino does everything in his power to bring the £20k per-week finisher to Stamford Bridge.