This is what Man Utd's 'interest' in Chelsea's £52m Christopher Nkunku tell us about the club's future

14 months have passed since Christopher Nkunku signed for Chelsea. 13 months since he sustained a serious knee injury which required surgery and severely curtailed his debut season. Five months since Enzo Maresca took over and started moving the Frenchman down the pecking order. And no time at all since the rumours started to swirl that he may be leaving Stamford Bridge sooner rather than later.

Very little has gone to plan since he made the £52m move from RB Leipzig, where he was responsible for 70 goals and 56 assists in 172 appearances, a record almost any striker in Europe would be proud of. He was meant to be a versatile forward who would elevate a fluid forward line, acting as both creator and finisher. Instead, he rarely sees the pitch outside of the Conference League.

The idea that he might leave – as reported initially in French outlet L’Equipe (paywalled) before it was picked up on by a number of outlets in the British media – makes a fair amount of sense. Nkunku appears to be an elite square peg in a round hole and the tent seems to be staying upright just fine without him.

Would Chelsea be right to move on already? Not based on the raw numbers, but they only ever tell part of the story. Nkunku has already scored 10 goals this season with one assist, and while it’s not necessarily the hardest job to pad the stats against Armenian outfit Noah and their ilk, the underlying data suggests that he’s playing at a very high level when he’s actually on the pitch in the Premier League, too. He’s scoring at a rate of better than one every other match and creating chances at a healthy clip.

Maresca, however, clearly has a very clear plan drawn up for how his team should function and Nkunku’s role in that plan is peripheral at best. He plays when players like Cole Palmer need a rest, and that’s about it. For the player, it’s pretty plain that a transfer would probably be a smart move. Based on how he played in the Bundesliga, he's to good to ride the bench – and based on the relative success Maresca has enjoyed so far this season, there’s little cause to question his strategy either.

The question of where he might go is, perhaps, more challenging to answer – not that the media don’t have a suggestion ready to go. According to a number of outlets who have built on the original L’Equipe story such as The Daily Express, Manchester United have made an initial enquiry.

It’s an intriguing link, not least because it would imply that Ineos intend to take much more control of transfers going forward than they did when Erik ten Hag was around. The Dutchman had the final say on deals during his tenure, but this would represent the club making moves before incoming manager Rúben Amorim had even got his work permit sorted.

But it would also be an interesting move from a purely tactical point of view. Right now, it’s hard to look at United’s squad and see where Nkunku would really fit – the 4-2-3-1 formation used under Ten Hag and interim head coach Ruud van Nistelrooy generally calls for a ‘true’ number nine, while the number ten role is fairly convincingly held down by Bruno Fernandes.

Amorim, however, has historically set his teams up to play in a 3-4-3 formation with two narrow supporting forwards – a role which could suit Nkunku quite well. Although capable of playing on the wing, when Nkunku plays wide he invariably looks to come inside and get closer to the central striker, something which wouldn’t have fit in quite so well with Ten Hag’s system. With Amorim, however, it could easily work, with Nkunku filling the role played by Pedro Gonçalves and Marcus Edwards at Sporting, in behind the number nine.

Of course, there’s competition for such spots, and addressing the front line probably wouldn’t be the most urgent priority when it comes to making moves to adapt the current squad to Amorim’s needs. Marcus Rashford, Alejandro Garnacho and Amad Diallo are already there. Bruno Fernandes is likely to be played in that role too, given that he doesn’t seem suited to life in the central double pivot. Joshua Zirkzee, who has struggled as a centre forward so far, played a similar position for Bologna.

Some of those players could end up being discarded by Amorim, or playing in the middle of the front three, or even deployed as wing-backs, a clear problem position as it stands. Amorim has used wingers such as Geny Catamo in that slot before, and it’s not so hard to imagine him planning to use players like Garnacho there, at least as a stopgap.

Still, it’s a fairly crowded field up front for United, so the main reason to sign Nkunku is because he’s seen as an upgrade on the players currently available – and based on his exceptional statistical output and historical excellence in Germany, that may not be a bad way to view him.

Of course, there’s always a chance that this link is purely speculative, another questionable transfer story thrown out into the world by a rumour mill which produces plenty of them. But if it’s true, it could provide an insight into Amorim’s plans for Manchester United, or into the way transfer will be handled going forward. And as for Nkunku himself, when he finds the right role at the right club, there is every chance that he will shine.