Chelsea transfer news: Thomas Tuchel requests January striker signing

Thomas Tuchel has reported told Chelsea to sign a striker in the January transfer window in order to take some pressure off Romelu Lukaku.

While Lukaku's run of seven games without a goal in all competitions is nothing to be unduly concerned about - Chelsea thrashed Norwich 7-0 last weekend without their currently injured record signing, after all - the Blues lack depth when it comes to out-and-out number nines.

Tuchel has deployed Kai Havertz as a false nine plenty of times, but it goes without saying that the German is not a like-for-like swap for Lukaku.

The same goes for Havertz's compatriot Timo Werner, who hasn't enjoyed the greatest of times since his big money-move from RB Leipzig in July last year - finding the net only 14 times in 57 appearances.

According to the Transfer Window Podcast (via the Express), Tuchel has requested that Chelsea go into the market for centre-forward back-up in the new year.

However, the club are not believed to have drawn up a shortlist of potential targets at this point.

And would they even be in this situation had they not offloaded both Olivier Giroud and Tammy Abraham during the previous transfer window? The pair of them have been performing rather well in Italy with AC Milan and Roma respectively...

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