Christopher Nkunku is Chelsea’s top scorer this season
Frank Schmidt may have spent 17 years in the Heidenheim dugout, but - as the lump on his head will attest - he still has not quite worked out where its roof is.
Happily for Chelsea, Christopher Nkunku is rather more au fait with the back of the net, in Europe in particular. With his 11th goal of a frustrating season, the French striker continued his perfect record of scoring in all six Conference League games this term, not to mention the Blues’s 100 per cent start to their group stage campaign.
A 2-0 victory over German football’s miracle club makes it four wins from four for Enzo Maresca’s side, who are now close to confirming the top-eight finish that has been a certainty since the competition proper began.
This, though, was easily their sternest test, against a side who were in the fifth tier when Schmidt took charge in 2007, but finished eighth in their first ever Bundesliga season last term. If not for a fine Filip Jorgensen performance in the visiting goal, it might well have been their first slip up, too, the points only made safe by Mykhailo Mudryk’s late clincher.
And so, by proxy, the opener was the most valuable of Nkunku’s five goals in four group stage games so far, underlining his value as a lethal reserve forward the day after his manager, Enzo Maresca, had insisted he will not be for sale when the transfer window opens in January.
Christopher Nkunku has been able to force his way into the Premier League side
Chelsea FC via Getty Images
There had been reports during the international break that the 27-year-old is unsettled, and unsurprisingly if so, given he has not started a Premier League game since the opening day of the season.
Whether this performance was enough to change that ahead of Sunday’s meeting with Aston Villa seems unlikely, given both the players ahead of him and the fact that Nkunku limped off after fluffing a glaring chance for a second 15 minutes from time.
But Maresca’s team selection at Leicester last weekend - when ‘B’ team regulars Joao Felix and Benoit Badiashile both started league matches for the first time this season - will have given the Italian’s second-string fresh hope that their midweek displays might yet bring reward.
This, even prior to the goal, was a good one from Nkunku, who played in what Maresca says is his best position, just off a main striker, linking, as well as finishing the play.
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Marc Guiu, the teenage striker, had been primarily tasked with the latter duty, but showed both his promise and rawness in managing five shots without success inside the opening 20 minutes.
Nkunku has blown an opening of his own, lifting over the bar when trying a crafty chip. His second chance, though, was taken more clinically, after good work from Jadon Sancho, impressive on his return to the side.