Chelsea’s No.9 Hunt: Missed Targets and Shrinking Options

For a few weeks, it felt inevitable. Khadija Shaw, fresh from bullying defences and dragging Manchester City to their first Women’s Super League title in a decade, looked destined to walk into Stamford Bridge as Sonia Bompastor’s statement signing.

Contract running down. Chelsea circling. A goalscoring machine on the verge of a league-and-cup double. Then, just as the script seemed written, Shaw ripped it up. She chose to stay in Manchester, announcing her decision on the back of that historic campaign and leaving Chelsea’s carefully laid plans in tatters.

That was blow one. It didn’t get kinder from there.

Three swings, three misses

Attention quickly shifted north, to Sweden, and to the teenager everyone wants to call the future. Felicia Schroder, 19, had just finished a season that barely looked real: 30 goals, nine assists, a title with Hacken in the Damallsvenskan, then top scorer again as she fired them to the inaugural Europa Cup crown in May.

Chelsea went big. Very big. A world-record bid for the teenager. Real Madrid went bigger in persuasion, if not necessarily in numbers. Schroder chose Spain. Another target gone, another carefully prepared pitch ending with someone else’s announcement video.

Then came Salma Paralluelo.

If Shaw was the ready-made WSL destroyer and Schroder the long-term project, Paralluelo was the hybrid: already a Champions League match-winner, still only 22, capable of playing through the middle or tearing teams apart from wide. She scored twice in last month’s Champions League final, and every elite club in Europe took note.

Chelsea made their move. The offer arrived. The answer was no.

According to The Athletic, the proposal didn’t meet Paralluelo’s wage demands, believed to be north of £1 million a year. Arsenal, Lyon, Paris Saint-Germain and cash-rich London City remain in the race. Chelsea, for the third time this summer, are watching a dream forward line walk away.

A blunt attack, and a shrinking window

This isn’t a luxury problem. It’s a structural one.

Chelsea’s attack misfired last season in a way not seen since 2018-19, the last time they failed to win the WSL. Just 44 league goals. By their standards, that’s anaemic. Only three teams – relegated Leicester City, struggling West Ham and newly promoted London City Lionesses – underperformed their expected goals by a wider margin.

Shot conversion? Third-worst in the division, again only better than Leicester and West Ham. For a club that built an era on relentless, ruthless finishing, that is a red flag, not a blip.

There were reasons. Some harsh, some unavoidable. Sam Kerr only returned from a 20‑month injury lay-off at the start of the campaign and naturally needed time. Mayra Ramirez missed the entire season with a hamstring issue. Aggie Beever-Jones and Catarina Macario picked up knocks. Bompastor ended up shuffling the deck, asking Lauren James and Alyssa Thompson to plug gaps at centre-forward when their skill sets scream something else.

All of it pointed to one conclusion: a top-level No.9 had to be the priority. January came and went with little movement. Summer arrived with big ideas. Shaw, Schroder, Paralluelo. Three profiles, three different routes to fixing the same problem. None of them will wear Chelsea blue.

So where do they turn now?

Katoto, Banda, Chawinga: the thin air at the top

At the highest level, the list is brutally short.

Marie-Antoinette Katoto is the obvious name that keeps popping up in conversations around Europe. On paper, she’s everything Chelsea want: a ruthless finisher, 180 goals in 223 games for PSG before a high-profile, acrimonious switch to Lyon last summer. In reality, her first season at OL never truly caught fire. Six league goals, one in the Champions League, and heavy competition from Ada Hegerberg for the No.9 shirt meant limited rhythm, especially in Europe.

There is, however, nothing concrete to suggest Lyon are looking to sell. Katoto signed a four-year deal only last summer. One underwhelming season while adapting to Jonatan Giraldez’s system is unlikely to cause panic in Lyon’s hierarchy.

But if Chelsea want a genuine, elite focal point, she is one of the few whose situation isn’t utterly untouchable. Not unhappy. Not unwanted. Just not yet indispensable in her new surroundings. That’s the kind of crack in the door a club like Chelsea usually tries to wedge open.

Beyond Katoto, the air gets thin.

Barbra Banda at Orlando Pride has just a year left on her contract in the NWSL, and that alone makes her a magnet for interest. She is powerful, prolific and proven. It would, though, take something monumental to drag her out of Florida, especially with Pride building around her.

Temwa Chawinga? Forget it for now. She has just signed a new three-year deal with Kansas City Current after back-to-back seasons as NWSL MVP and Golden Boot winner. She is the definition of a franchise player. Kansas City have no reason to listen to anything short of a ridiculous offer.

The Leuchter question

If Chelsea can’t land a fully established superstar, they may have to move for the next one.

Romee Leuchter fits that bracket better than most. PSG signed her in the summer of 2024, initially to play deputy to Katoto. When Katoto left, Leuchter stepped into the spotlight and never blinked. She finished as top scorer in the French top flight last season: 18 goals in just 17 starts.

She is only 25. She is entering the final year of her contract. She is on every major club’s radar for good reason.

Leuchter is not yet at the same global profile as Katoto, Banda or Chawinga, but her trajectory is steep. For a club like Chelsea, who need a player ready to contribute immediately but with room to grow into a long-term star, she ticks a lot of boxes. The question is whether PSG, having finally handed her centre stage, are prepared to risk losing her now – and whether Chelsea are willing to pay the premium required to test that resolve.

The Schroder blueprint, revisited

Chelsea’s failed move for Schroder hinted at another possible strategy: go younger, earlier, and back their environment to turn a special talent into a world-beater.

The problem is that players like Schroder are outliers. Nineteen-year-olds who score at that rate in a title-winning season, then repeat it on a European stage, do not come along often. When they do, the entire continent lines up.

Michelle Agyemang is one of the very few who sits in a similar conversation. The 20-year-old England international belongs to Arsenal, which already makes any Chelsea move politically and practically fraught. She is recovering from an ACL injury but showed her temperament and quality at Euro 2025, playing a key role as the Lionesses defended their crown on the biggest stage.

Her pathway into Arsenal’s first team is crowded. Alessia Russo and Stina Blackstenius are already there, and the Gunners are expected to add Selina Cerci to that centre-forward group. On paper, that congestion could tempt an ambitious young striker to look elsewhere.

On the ground, prising a prized prospect from a direct rival is another matter entirely. For Chelsea, it’s the sort of move that looks almost impossible. For every top club, though, Agyemang’s situation is one to monitor closely – if not now, then in the windows to come.

There are other young strikers dotted around Europe, of course, but most are far less proven. For a team that wants to win the WSL back immediately, gambling on a raw project who might not deliver from day one carries obvious risk.

What Chelsea still have – and what they don’t

This is not a total rebuild job up front. Not yet.

Ramirez, heavily linked with Real Madrid earlier in the year, remains a Chelsea player. Schroder’s arrival in the Spanish capital could well cool Madrid’s interest in the Colombia international. Her last full season in blue, in 2024-25, was outstanding and gave a glimpse of the chaos she can cause when fully fit. After a year wrecked by a hamstring injury, she returned to play twice for her country in early June, a positive sign that she is edging back towards herself.

Beever-Jones is also expected to stay, even if there is still no formal announcement on a new deal with her contract up this summer. James and Thompson can both cover centrally if needed, as they did at times last season, though that solution always feels like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Chelsea know how quickly that depth can evaporate. One or two injuries, and an attack that looks stacked on paper suddenly feels threadbare, particularly when the goals dry up.

That is the reality Bompastor walks into. A squad still packed with talent, still capable of competing on all fronts, but one glaringly short of a guaranteed, season-defining No.9.

The decision that will define their summer

Chelsea want their WSL crown back. They want to stop Manchester City turning one title into an era. They want to turn near-misses in Europe into something more tangible.

To do that, they need a striker who changes games, changes seasons, changes the mood inside a stadium. Shaw won’t be that player. Schroder won’t be that player. Paralluelo won’t be that player.

Someone else will have to be.

The options are dwindling. The prices are rising. The margin for error is shrinking. Chelsea have made their pitch to the obvious names and been turned away.

The next move, wherever it comes from – Lyon, Paris, Orlando, Kansas City, or somewhere less obvious – won’t just shape their attack. It will tell the rest of the league whether this is a brief stumble, or the moment the balance of power in the WSL really starts to shift.