Chelsea\u2019s No. 9 has long carried a reputation at Stamford Bridge, and the latest chapter now belongs to Jo\u00e3o Pedro. After a pre-season reshuffle, the jersey has been handed to the striker who scored 23 goals in 2025-26, with the club backing a player who arrives with far more recent success than many who wore it before him.<\/p>\n
The background to the decision is familiar. Liam Delap, who once said he was not concerned by the shirt\u2019s record, endured a difficult season and has been stripped of his number and sent to train away from Xabi Alonso\u2019s main squad. Chelsea, mindful of the shirt\u2019s history, have gone for a different approach this time rather than making another costly gamble.<\/p>\n
That history has been chequered for years. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink enjoyed success after arriving as Chelsea\u2019s big-money striker in 2000, but Mateja Ke\u017eman, Hern\u00e1n Crespo, Fernando Torres, Radamel Falcao, \u00c1lvaro Morata, Gonzalo Higua\u00edn, Romelu Lukaku and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang all failed to fully deliver in the shirt. Others, including Khalid Boulahrouz, Steve Sidwell and Franco Di Santo, added to the oddness of the list.<\/p>\n
Jo\u00e3o Pedro, however, fits a different profile. He is not being asked to prove himself in the same way as many of those before him. Last season he went well beyond expectations, finishing with 23 goals and nine assists in 53 games while wearing No. 20. He is now Chelsea\u2019s clear starting striker and has already shown the form that persuaded the club to hand him the shirt.<\/p>\n
Chelsea have tried many times to end the myth around No. 9. This time, they have placed it on the shoulders of a player who has already earned the role. Whether that is enough to finally settle the issue remains to be seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jo\u00e3o Pedro takes Chelsea\u2019s No. 9, with the club hoping his form can end a long-running curse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18627,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190],"tags":[59,182],"class_list":["post-18628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","tag-featured","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}