Chelsea target £94m ace who’s “the best 9 in the world”

Their potential Premier League title charge may have taken a hit yesterday afternoon, but this season has been brilliant for Chelsea so far.

Enzo Maresca has turned the Blues into a lean, mean-winning machine, and as things stand, they look primed to qualify for next year’s Champions League.

The West Londoners may not be the most defensively solid side in the league, but they’re lethal in attack, with Nicolas Jackson one of their most improved players.

However, as talented as the Senegalese striker is, he could soon become a victim to the club’s ambition, as the latest start touted for a move to Stamford Bridge could be his upgrade.

Chelsea transfer news

According to recent reports from Argentina via Calciomercato, Chelsea are interested in Inter Milan’s Lautaro Martinez.

Interestingly, the report has revealed that the Blues would be willing to offer ‘a lot of money and three players’ because the Argentine has just agreed to a new deal.

According to the story, the players the West Londoners would be willing to send the other way are Benoit Badiashile, Carney Chukwuemeka and Mykhailo Mudryk, even though the latter is currently suspended.

The report does not mention a potential fee, but stories from earlier this year claimed that the Nerazzurri would have wanted around £94m for his services prior to signing his new deal.

So, with the three players included in the deal, we’d expect the fee to be lower than that.

Overall, even with three players included, signing Martinez could be incredibly costly and complicated, but given his immense ability, it’s a deal worth pursuing, even if it could be bad news for Jackson.

How Martinez compares to Jackson

Now then, if Chelsea can get their man and, in the process, spend tens of millions of pounds and swap three of their own players, it would undoubtedly be with the intention of making Martinez the club’s starting number nine going forward.

However, that would put him in direct competition with Jackson, who has looked good this season, so which one comes out on top when we compare them?

Well, the bad news for the former Villarreal gem is that when it comes to the only metric that truly matters for a centre-forward, pure output, he comes out a very distant second.

For example, since the start of last season, the Inter superstar, whom renowned football podcaster Angelo Valdes described as “the best 9 in the world,” has scored a whopping 33 goals and provided 11 assists for good measure in just 65 games.

That means the World Cup winner has averaged a goal involvement every 1.47 games since last year, which is a remarkable rate of return, and played a large part in Inter’s Scudetto triumph.

In contrast, the Blues’ promising forward has found the back of the net 26 times and provided nine assists in 62 appearances.

Now, to his credit, that equates to an impressive average of a goal involvement every 1.77 games, but that’s still less than the Argentine’s.

Ultimately, while Jackson could develop into a brilliant striker in a few years, Chelsea look like they could be fighting for titles in the coming campaigns and, in turn, will need a ready-made leading man.

Therefore, while it could be an incredibly complicated transfer to get done, they must do all they can to bring Martinez to Stamford Bridge next year.