Thomas Tuchel runs risk of Timo Werner repeat amid Todd Boehly’s £200 million Chelsea rebuild – Anita Abayomi

The Bundesliga’s player of the season could be making his way to Chelsea this summer. The highly-rated Christopher Nkunku is on the radar for Thomas Tuchel after quite an impressive season with RB Leipzig. The 24-year-old registered 19 goals and 15 assists in 33 appearances in Germany’s top flight. Being crowned player of the season is the least of honours that he could have achieved after a difficult season for Leipzig.

Nkunku has found some joy playing as a second striker and an attacking midfielder. His versatility in attack is something to be admired by Tuchel as he begins to play for his dream team for next season. With the imminent arrival of Todd Boehly, the Frenchman should be one of the first signings to get over the line.

But with every good signing, there comes a risk. Chelsea has not had the best luck with their past Leipzig purchases. Any guesses on who I am referring to?

Read More: Christopher Nkunku wanted by Chelsea as Todd Boehly hands Thomas Tuchel £200m transfer budget

Timo Werner was once the star boy in the Leipzig jersey. Prior to joining Chelsea, he registered 34 goals and 13 assists in 45 matches. He was a goal-scoring machine. The expectation was for him to achieve similar success with the Blues, but it was not to be. His best tally in a Chelsea shirt has been 12 goals and 15 assists in 52 matches. For a player who was meant to solve the attacking issues, those figures were just not good enough.

So what if Nkunku ends up like Werner? What if it doesn’t work out the way we’d hoped. My answer to this is that we have no other choice. We have a plethora of attacking options, and nothing seems to work at the moment. Though there are some games where the attack clicks seamlessly, there are more days where it doesn’t. The key factor is that Thomas Tuchel will be able to choose a pool of talent that he deems suitable for his type of football. Similar to Pep Guardiola’s regime with Manchester City.

Theirry Henry is normally stingy with his praise, but he was waxing lyrical about Nkunku. He told CBS Sports.,

“Yes, I do love watching him,”

“Goals and assists. He is just having fun this season. But he is adding goals this year,” he continued.

“He’s in the national team now,” added Henry. “His confidence… the world wants him.”

There is a reason why Manchester United, Liverpool and Tottenham are after the Frenchman. We should get ahead of the race whilst we can.