From (Brazilian) Ronaldo and Alan Shearer to the likes of Gerd Muller, Marco van Basten and Robert Lewandowski, some of the best strikers ever to play the beautiful game lined up in the famed number nine shirt.
It’s the digit that many goalscorers have craved over the years, with Chelsea not shy of a classy number nine of their own over the years – from Peter Osgood and Kerry Dixon to Gianluca Vialli and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink.
But in more modern times, it’s a shirt number that has become something of a poisoned chalice for the Blues, with a revolving door of players – some of them uber talented – unable to make it work with nine on their back.
Hoping to end that trend is Joao Pedro, who wore the number 20 shirt during the 2025/26 campaign and, after notching 20 goals in all competitions, was named Chelsea’s Player of the Season.
The Brazilian has switched to the number nine shirt in 2026/27, which has been freed up by the likely exit of Liam Delap. And Pedro christened the jersey in the best possible way; a first minute goal against Fulham in a season-opening 3-2 win over Fulham.
He laughed off the curse of the number nine: “I know my responsibility in the group is to score goals, but I don’t think shirt numbers decide that pressure,” he said after the Fulham game, so here’s hoping Joao can continue in his fine goalscoring form.
Because, make no mistake, many elite operators have tried to make the shirt their own – and failed – in recent times.
Romelu Lukaku
| From | To | Games | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 2014 | 15 | 0 |
| 2021 | 2024 | 44 | 15 |
The Belgian has been a prolific goalscorer wherever he has played; everywhere, that is, but in his second spell at Stamford Bridge after assuming the number nine shirt.
Chelsea paid around £97 million for the privilege – a then club record, with Lukaku netting on his debut. Would he be able to lift the club’s number nine curse?
He certainly got off to a good start, but a fallout with Thomas Tuchel – the Belgian lambasting his head coach’s tactics – saw the positivity derailed.
Lukaku scored eight Premier League goals during that 2021/22 season, with three of them coming before the end of September. He was shipped back to Inter Milan on loan, where he immediately regained his goalscoring touch.
The hoodoo of the number nine shirt had taken another victim…
Alvaro Morata
| From | To | Games | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 2020 | 72 | 24 |
A classic centre forward, Alvaro Morata has won the European Championship with Spain, the Champions League and La Liga with Real Madrid and Serie A with Juventus.
He had the ability and the pedigree to be a real success at Chelsea, who he joined in 2017 – and where, you guessed it, he assumed the number nine shirt.
Things did not get off to the best possible start when Morata missed a penalty in the Community Shield game against Arsenal, but there were bright moments – the Spaniard scoring on his Premier League debut and notching a hat-trick against Stoke City.
Morata finished his maiden season with ten EPL goals and 15 in all competitions, before scoring a crucial goal against Arsenal in a 3-2 win early in 2018/19.
But a sheer weight of goals didn’t follow, and by the January transfer window it was decided by all parties that it would be best for the striker to head to Atletico Madrid on an 18-month loan deal.
Morata wasn’t an abject disaster at Chelsea, but given his pedigree – and the £60 million price tag – he was another that failed to live up to expectations as the Blues’ number nine.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
| From | To | Games | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 2023 | 21 | 3 |
Having averaged better than a goal every other game at both Arsenal and Barcelona, Chelsea fans had lofty expectations when Pierre Emerick Aubameyang joined the club in 2022.
But his single season at Stamford Bridge was nothing short of catastrophic…
The Gabonese striker scored a solitary Premier League goal and only notched three in all competitions. So off the pace was Aubameyang that he was omitted from Chelsea’s squad for the knockout phase of the Champions League.
Less than a year after heading to London, Aubameyang was sent packing.
Radamel Falcao
| From | To | Games | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 2016 | 12 | 1 |
One of the most prolific goalscorers to emerge from South America, Radamel Falcao was an unstoppable force for the likes of Porto, Atletico Madrid and Monaco.
But the goals well and truly dried up for the Colombian in the Premier League; first after joining Manchester United on a loan deal in which the Red Devils covered his £265,000 a week wages in full.
Despite having scored four goals in 29 appearances, Jose Mourinho believed he could get the best out of Falcao and so Chelsea took up his loan option for the 2015/16 campaign.
But the club’s new number nine continued where he left off in Manchester, and remarkably he could muster just a solitary goal in 12 appearances.
Was this a case of another classy striker cursed by Chelsea’s number nine shirt?