Immediately after Chelsea’s 2-1 victory against Crystal Palace on Saturday, much of the focus was, quite rightly, on the visitors’ second goal. Conor Gallagher’s 90th-minute winner was as spectacular as it was dramatic and, given it came against the club where he enjoyed a successful loan spell last season, rich in narrative.
However for Chelsea, their first goal of the afternoon was arguably more noteworthy, not only because it got them back into the game following Odsonne Édouard’s seventh-minute opener for Palace but because it came from a centre forward, and specifically a No 9. Mateja Kezman, Hernán Crespo, Fernando Torres, Álvaro Morata, Gonzalo Higuaín: just some of the elite-level goalscorers who have looked anything but while wearing Chelsea’s No 9 shirt during the past couple of decades and, after Romelu Lukaku became the latest to flop in that particular item of clothing, Thomas Tuchel admitted there was a belief within the dressing room that it was cursed.
