The £85m transfer nightmare Chelsea must avoid amid bizarre striker links

It’s hard to know what we should take off Todd Boehly first, his chequebook or his Panini sticker album. There is a naive compulsion to the American’s recruitment strategy, like a labrador in a dog park who would die for the tennis ball it is chasing - right up to the point that the next one is thrown.

And it is hard to shake the suspicion that literally any time the Chelsea owner licks his thumb, flicks the page and reads of a new, exorbitantly-priced footballer, his instinctive impulse is to try and lure them to Stamford Bridge. It’s the Ash Ketchum mentality. Gotta sign ‘em all.

As a consequence, no festering hunk of speculation is too absurd, no sandbag of gossip tips the scales of believability too far towards the preposterous, when it comes to the Blues and their transfer machinations. They’re selling Romelu Lukaku to Tottenham? Sounds about right. They’re opening talks to bring Jeffrey Bruma back to SW6 on a loan with an option-to-buy? Wouldn’t put it past them. They’re preparing a world record bid to secure the exclusive appearance rights for Barry White’s ghost? Hell, they might be.

But even by the hare-brained standards of Chelsea’s summer debauch, these latest mutterings about Darwin Nunez are something else. And no, that isn’t a conveniently legible typo, I literally meant Darwin bloody Nunez.

Much like the faint smell of weed in a public space, or that slight paunch you began to develop in your late twenties, it is difficult to say for certain where these rumours are coming from. A little bit of investigative journalism (googling ‘Darwin Nunez Chelsea’) would suggest that it was sputtered out into the ether by one famously unreliable in-the-know Twitter account, and has since confusedly blazed its away around social media like a game of chinese whispers in a forest fire.

On Friday, Football.London collated a selection of frenzied reactions from baffled Chelsea supporters into a single, fun-sized article; ‘Sorry but that is a BIG BIG YES from me! Would love Nunez under Poch’, read one response; ‘Finally, Drogba’s replacement’, declared another, with what I presume to be only a trace amount of sarcasm. Beyond that, however, the rest is rickety, pixelated supposition.

Despite having splurged close to £1 billion on various required and unrequired acquisitions in recent months, the need for another centre forward in west London is, arguably, justifiable. With Christopher Nkunku injured, Armando Broja still shaking off the lingering effects of a ruptured ACL, and the aforementioned Lukaku ostracised, the only genuine striking options available to Mauricio Pochettino at this precise moment in time are Nicolas Jackson and the positively foetal Mason Burstow. Sounds like the title of a critically-panned young adult fantasy novel.

If Chelsea are to sign another frontman, however - and at this stage, it remains a sizeable ‘if’ - then surely there are better options out there than Nunez, with his glossy mane and lolloping gait like the protagonist in a horse shampoo commercial.

It’s not that the Liverpool striker isn’t a fine player, even if his mannerisms are ungainly and his Premier League return is, shall we say, somewhat dulled. No, the larger issue would be that his current employers paid £85 million for him last year, and would surely baulk at the notion of selling him for anything less than a notable profit in the coming days - especially to one of their traditional rivals. Frugality has never been Boehly’s forte, but there must be a line somewhere.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think Chelsea will pursue a deal for Nunez this summer. Call it a hunch hewn from a lack of tangible evidence. But then again, my gut has been wrong before. As such, this is a transfer think piece unlike most of the ones I tend to write. This is not an analytical delve extolling specific virtues, nor is it a rogues’ gallery of potential candidates aimed at resolving a gnawing quandary in a threadbare squad.

Instead, it is a recognition that now the prospect of Nunez departing Anfield for Stamford Bridge is loosed of its shackles, all it takes is for Boehly to stumble across the wrong headline before the universe - or rather, the Chelsea board - manifest a deal into actuality. And so, this is also a plea to sanity; Todd, if you’re reading this, buddy, don’t do it.