Chelsea pursuit of Mathys Tel puts Christopher Nkunku future in doubt | OneFootball

Nkunku has diminishing role under Enzo Maresca and interest in Tel opens door to potential swap deal with Bayern Munich

Chelsea’s victory over Bournemouth in September gave Christopher Nkunku the finest moment of his Blues career, but as the Cherries head to Stamford Bridge his future is in high doubt.

It is also, however, one of only two to come in the Premier League, highlighting the diminished role that has had the Frenchman reportedly weighing up his options since early in the campaign.

Now, Bayern Munich are interested in a January move, with Chelsea having made an enquiry over teenager Mathys Tel about a separate deal that could see him head the other way. Nkunku is, unsurprisingly, thought to be keen.

Chelsea have made an enquiry over Bayern Munich teenager Mathys Tel

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For much of the first half of the season, Nkunku appeared one of the more harshly treated members of Chelsea’s ‘B’ side, routinely scoring midweek goals in the Conference League without earning the reward of a weekend start. Yet given the form of Nicolas Jackson, it was hard to crab Enzo Maresca’s choice.

More recently, though, Jackson’s output has dipped, the Senegalese having scored only once in six league games, easily his quietest period of the campaign.

At an opportune moment, Nkunku has failed to apply serious pressure to Jackson’s spot, underwhelming when given a rare start in the 2-0 defeat away at Ipswich and missing a penalty at 0-0 in another against Morecambe on Saturday, albeit he eventually scored as the goals flew in in the second-half. His only league goal since that winner at Bournemouth came in a thrashing of Southampton.

Tellingly, too, Maresca turned to young forward Marc Guiu ahead of Nkunku off the bench in the draw at Crystal Palace earlier this month and while the Blues boss has always been positive in his appraisals of the former RB Leipzig forward, you also sense he is not quite his cup of tea.

Much of that is positional. Though Nkunku is nominally Jackson’s backup on the depth charts, he is not viewed as a natural No9. Indeed, some of his best all-round performances have come at No10 in the Conference League, linking the play behind Guiu. That, though, is Palmer’s shirt in the first-team, with Joao Felix unable to get a look in either in what is his preferred role.

Nkunku started the first league game of the season on the left against Manchester City, but that was before Chelsea had completed their transfer business and Maresca prefers traditional wingers in his system.

Nkunku has failed to apply serious pressure to Nicolas Jackson’s spot in the Chelsea team

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And so, as with most of the players linked with exits from Cobham this month - Axel Disasi, Renato Veiga, Ben Chilwell, Carney Chukwuemeka and Cesare Casadei, to name a few - you can see why, on an individual level, a move would make sense.

Nkunku is, at 27, older than most of Maresca’s squad, in the prime of his career and no doubt keen to make up for lost time after the knee injury that wrecked much of his maiden Chelsea campaign.

In Bayern, he has glamorous suitors and in the Bundesliga, a competition he knows well and has excelled in before, scoring 26 goals and registering 21 assists across his final two league seasons at Leipzig. Breaking into the team may not be much easier than at Chelsea, mind, given the small matter of Harry Kane at centre-forward and Jamal Musiala at No10.

But from Chelsea’s perspective? They did not come into this window intending to sell (or buy) a striker and as recently as Monday’s pre-match press conference Maresca insisted Nkunku had not asked to leave. The club, would, however, entertain a significant offer for a player who always looked likely to move on at the end of the season, if not this month.

His departure, still, would leave a gap to plug through the second half of the campaign, given the goals he has scored and minutes he has played in the lesser competitions.

Chelsea have played 31 matches already this season - they could play another 37 between now and the end of the Club World Cup in July. Surely, they cannot risk thinning their squad too far.

Tel, whom Chelsea held interest in prior to this month, would be an interesting signing but hardly like-for-like. The 19-year-old is extremely highly-rated across Europe, having debuted for Rennes at 16 and then signed for Bayern in a €28.5million move a year later.

But while he can play across the forward line, he was mainly used as a winger last season and has seen his progress stall this term, playing only 208 minutes in the Bundesliga and failing to score in a dozen appearances across competitions.

Still, the French Under-21 international fits with Chelsea’s recruitment focus on the continent’s best young talent. Whether he or Bayern are open to a move this early on remains to be seen.