The No. 9 shirt has been a coveted prize for football players throughout the years.
In the days of players wearing numbers corresponding to their position, strikers were given the No. 9 to signify their place at the head of a team's attack. While the practice of wearing positionally relevant numbers largely faded from the modern game, the No. 9 shirt remains one of the few to be connected to its old designation.
Thus, strikers proudly wear the jersey shirt knowing they are the face of their team's attack, and often their main goal-scoring threat. With the act of putting the ball in the net an essential and glamorous task, the No. 9 shirt is often an honour to receive.
However, at Stamford Bridge, the number has a complicated recent past. Over the past 20 years, the No. 9 shirt in Chelsea blue has come with more infamy than glory.
Now, with new signing Liam Delap the latest to take up the challenge, the conversation has re-emerged around Chelsea's struggles in securing a prolific No. 9.
The Sporting News details the narrative around Chelsea's "cursed" number and who has struggled while wearing the shirt in the last two decades.
MORE: Liam Delap hopes to break 'curse' of No. 9 shirt at Chelsea
Is the No. 9 shirt at Chelsea cursed?
There has been plenty of talk in the wake of Delap's signing about Chelsea having a curse around their No. 9 shirt.
Since the 2004 summer, 11 players have worn the No. 9 jersey and all have struggled to some degree. Many of them have been outright flops.
It caused former manager Thomas Tuchel to discuss the notion that the number is somehow haunted. "It's cursed, it's cursed," Tuchel said during preseason ahead of the 2022/23 season. "People tell me it's cursed. It's not the case that we leave it open for tactical reasons, for some players in the pipeline that come in and naturally take it.
"There was not a big demand for No 9. Players sometimes want to change numbers but, surprisingly, nobody wants to touch it.
"Everybody who is longer than me in the club tells me: 'Ah, you know, like he had the 9 and he did not score and he had the 9 and did also not score.' So, now we have a moment where nobody wants to touch the No. 9."
While the notion of a "curse" is obviously extreme — we're not seriously suggesting supernatural influence — the evidence is hard to ignore. Chelsea have spent hundreds of millions of pounds in the hopes of finding their talisman up front, to little return.
It's been bad enough that on three occasions in the last 20 years, no player wore the number throughout a full season at the club. In 2016/17, 2023/24, and 2024/25, nobody was brave enough to wear No. 9.
Can Delap break that cold streak? Here's a rundown of what he's up against.
Who has worn No. 9 for Chelsea?
Since the departure of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink ahead of the 2004/05 season, Chelsea players wearing No. 9 have struggled throughout their time at Stamford Bridge. While there are some high-profile individuals who carry much of the weight in this debate about a "curse," there are others who fill out the narrative quite nicely.
Mateja Kezman (2004/05)
The first individual on this list is Jose Mourinho signing Mateja Kezman, who arrived at Stamford Bridge in the summer of 2004 in a move from Dutch side PSV. He spent one season at the club, scoring just seven goals in 41 appearances across all competitions.
After leaving Chelsea, he logged three straight double-digit seasons for both Atletico Madrid and Fenerbahce, making the struggles he experienced in London feel all the more maddening.
Hernan Crespo (2005/06)
Hernán Crespo's time at Chelsea is certainly curious. Signed from Inter Milan for big money in the summer of 2003, Crespo was a hit at first, scoring 10 goals in 19 league games, playing the super-sub role while wearing the No. 21 shirt.
After Kezman's arrival the following summer, Crespo went on loan to AC Milan, where he again scored double figures, and his return to London brought promise. Unfortunately, once he earned the starting job and donned the No. 9 shirt, he was less prolific. He got 13 goals in total, bagging 10 in 30 Premier League matches.
Chelsea won the Premier League title that season, but Crespo lost his starting spot down the stretch, with Didier Drogba and Eidur Gudjohnsen moving ahead of him in the pecking order. A return to Italy beckoned, and he rejoined Inter first on loan and then on a free transfer.
Khalid Boulahrouz (2006/07)
Chelsea's search for a No. 9 talisman continued, and then underwent a bizarre pivot. Hamburg defender Khalid Boulahrouz decided to wear the shirt — an odd choice for a centre-back — and he struggled in his time in London, making just 13 appearances in league play before leaving the following summer for La Liga side Sevilla.
Steve Sidwell (2007/08)
Continuing the trend started by Boulahrouz, midfielder Steve Sidwell assumed the No. 9 shirt. A free transfer from Reading in the summer of 2007 brought with it promise, but he stayed just one season before being shipped off to Aston Villa.
Sidwell finished his career as a memorable Premier League player, but that was largely thanks to his time at Villa and a subsequent move to Fulham. He spent six combined seasons at the two clubs. His 25 Chelsea appearances are largely a footnote.
Franco Di Santo (2008/09 — 2009/10)
The first multi-season player on the list is Franco Di Santo, who joined in 2007 from Chilean side Audax Italiano. Arriving at just 19 years old, he spent his first season in the Chelsea reserves before moving up to the first team the next year, earning the No. 9 shirt.
It went poorly, as the Argentine made just 16 appearances for the club, totalling 278 minutes and failing to score a single goal. After two unproductive seasons as a backup, he was loaned to Blackburn Rovers before a permanent move to Wigan Athletic, where he played three seasons before departing England.
Fernando Torres (2010/11 — 2014/15)
The face of Chelsea's No. 9 curse, Fernando Torres is one of the biggest big-money flops in modern football history and the poster child of risk in expensive transfers.
A legend for Liverpool after four superstar seasons at Anfield, Torres made the move to Chelsea after they shelled out £50 million, which at the time made him the sixth-most expensive player in history and set a British transfer record.
It was, for the most part, a disaster. While Torres scored 45 goals and laid on 30 assists for Chelsea, it took him 172 matches to record those totals, far from the level of expectation Blues fans would have hoped after spending such a huge sum of money. In fact, those contributions paled in comparison to his Liverpool days, where Torres scored nearly double the goals in fewer appearances (81 goals, 19 assists in 142 appearances).
Radamel Falcao (2015/16)
Chelsea's swoop for Radamel Falcao was never meant to be more than a stopgap, but his struggles were even greater than anticipated.
The Colombian forward had blossomed into a superstar at Atletico Madrid and Monaco, but having passed the 30-year-old mark and recovered from a serious knee injury, he had leapt at the chance to put Premier League experience on his career resume. After a muted season on loan at Manchester United, he spent a season at Chelsea where he was even less influential, making 10 appearances and scoring a single goal.
He returned for another three years at Monaco, where he won the Ligue 1 title alongside a teenage Kylian Mbappe in 2016/17. Stints at Galatasaray and Rayo Vallecano preceded a late-career return to his home country, where he still plays at 39.
Alvaro Morata (2017/18)
Another of the most egregious flops on this list, Spain striker Alvaro Morata joined Chelsea from Real Madrid in 2017 for a then-record fee for the club of around £60m.
His first season actually provided a solid return, as he scored 11 goals and assisted six more in 31 Premier League appearances, but his European contributions were much lighter, leaving fans frustrated. Morata changed his shirt number for the 2018/19 season to 29, but it did little to change his fortunes, as his production continued to dip. He left for Atletico Madrid on an 18-month loan in January of 2019, and made the move permanent the following summer.
Gonzalo Higuain (2018/19)
In a move similar to the Falcao swoop, Chelsea snatched up former Real Madrid star Gonzalo Higuain in January of 2019 on loan from Juventus. The Argentine was a lethal forward for Napoli for three years after leaving Madrid in 2013, but his massive €90m transfer to Juventus proved much less positive, as did a brief loan spell at AC Milan.
Chelsea hoped they could revive the star, but after five goals in 18 appearances, he would be sent back to Italy without a permanent move, and the search continued for a prolific and consistent No. 9. It was always a fleeting prayer to hope that an aging Higuain could recapture his Madrid form, and that wouldn't ever come to pass.
Romelu Lukaku (2021/22)
Perhaps one of the most baffling instances of the No. 9 "curse," Romelu Lukaku's struggles at Chelsea are difficult to explain in the midst of an otherwise productive career for the Belgian forward. Having been a high-profile and expensive flop at Manchester United, Lukaku seemed to have recovered his best after two exceptional seasons at Inter.
Chelsea couldn't resist, and bested Man United's £75m swoop for Lukaku three years prior with a £97.5m move of their own. He looked like the final piece in the puzzle for Thomas Tuchel to turn his surprise 2021 Champions League winners into Premier League champions.
It went terribly. After eight goals in 26 Premier League appearances in his only season at the club, the Blues had had enough, sending Lukaku out on loan back to Inter and then to Roma, before he secured a permanent move to Napoli at one-third the price for which they acquired him.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (2022/23)
Few gave Chelsea fans and staff more trouble than Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, a player who has struggled to shake off a reputation for causing dressing-room difficulties throughout his career.
The Gabon international was effective for Borussia Dortmund and Arsenal previously but struggled after a half-season at Barcelona on loan. He only cost Chelsea £10.3m, so it was worth the risk, but all he brought was trouble.
Aubameyang only scored three goals for the club in 21 appearances across all competitions, and his struggles led Graham Potter to leave him out of the club's squad for the Champions League knockout stage. He departed for Marseille after less than a year at the club, where he rediscovered his goal-scoring form, much to the frustrations of Blues fans.