Франц довтлогч Кристофер Нкунку Челси болон Миланд өнгөрүүлсэн хүндхэн үеийнхээ дараа хуучин баг РБ Лайпцигтээ эргэн ирлээ.
Кристофер Нкунку өнгөрсөн долоо хоногт РБ Лайпцигт зээлээр эргэн ирсэн бөгөөд одоогийн гол зорилго нь талбай дээр дахин хөлбөмбөг тоглож, түүнийгээ таашаах явдал гэдгийг онцолжээ. Тэрбээр Челсид байхдаа дасгалжуулагчийн тактик болон тоглогчийн үүрэг оролцооны улмаас өөрийгөө бүрэн нээж чадаагүй гэж үзэж байна. Нкункугийн хувьд өмнөх дасгалжуулагч Энцо Марескагийн тогтоосон хатуу системд тоглох нь түүнд хүндрэлтэй байсан бөгөөд бэртэл гэмтлийн улмаас гарааны байр сууриа алдсан нь нөлөөлжээ.
Италийн Миланд өнгөрүүлсэн хугацааныхаа талаар тэрбээр хамгаалалтад хэт анхаарсан тоглолтын хэв маяг довтлогчдод хүндрэл учруулдаг байсан хэмээн шүүмжлэлтэй хандсан байна. Хэдийгээр Челсид байхдаа хоёр улирлын турш зургаан гоол, Миланд нэг улиралд долоон гоол оруулсан ч тэрбээр өөрийн хүссэн байрлалдаа тоглож чадаагүй гэдгээ дурджээ.
РБ Лайпцигийн спортын захирал Марсель Шафер тоглогчийг эргүүлэн авчирсан нь эрсдэлтэй алхам болохыг хүлээн зөвшөөрөхийн зэрэгцээ түүнийг өмнөх амжилтуудтай нь харьцуулахгүй гэдгээ мэдэгдлээ. Кристофер Нкунку РБ Лайпцигийн төлөө Хамбургийн эсрэг хийсэн тоглолтод гоол оруулсан бөгөөд баг нь 5-0-ийн харьцаатай ялалт байгуулжээ. Гэсэн хэдий ч Аваргуудын лигийн хүрээнд Италийн Комо багт 4-1-ийн харьцаатай хожигдсон нь багийн хувьд хүндрэлтэй эхлэл боллоо.
Дэлгэрэнгүйг эх сурвалжаас харах
↓Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
To some, RB Leipzig is a controversial place to play football.
The club have built up a weight of sporting pedigree in the 17 years since their founding, with eight seasons of Champions League football that include a run to the semi-finals in 2020, but fellow Bundesliga sides remain unconvinced they belong.
In Sunday’s match at the Red Bull Arena, the travelling Hamburg fans chose ‘RB: The Enemy of Football’ as the message on their biggest banner.
But for former Chelsea forward Christopher Nkunku, now returning to Leipzig after three years trying to make it outside the German top flight, it is the right place to be.
“There are some of the same old faces. It is what I wanted and what I like.
“At the moment I need to enjoy football again,” says Nkunku, speaking a couple of weeks after securing a move back to the club where he really made his name on a season’s loan from Italian giants Milan. “To just think about football and playing games and also take pleasure on the pitch, do what I want to do.
“We didn’t hesitate for one moment — we pushed for the deal.”
He may have scored with a tidy finish in the 5-0 demolition of Hamburg, but the Nkunku who has returned to Leipzig is very different to the one who left for London in 2023. Then, he was Bundesliga Player of the Season, German PFA Player of the Season and part of a raft of high-profile, long-term signings intended to create a world-beating Chelsea team in the second year of BlueCo’s ownership.
Nkunku endured a largely frustrating spell in west London (Franck Fife/Getty Images)
His six-year deal was part of the owners’ strategy to commit young players for unusually long terms, and he signed alongside the likes of Cole Palmer and Moises Caicedo, who have since cemented themselves as top Premier League players. Meanwhile, Chelsea cleared out senior stars such as Mateo Kovacic, Cesar Azpilicueta and N’Golo Kante, and largely eschewed moves for well-established stars.
He returns to Germany having scored six Premier League goals in two seasons at Chelsea, and seven Serie A goals in one with Milan. Speaking about his spell at San Siro last season, Nkunku is playfully dismissive — surprised it didn’t work out but sounding glad to be away from Italy’s focus on defending.
“I think the team played to not concede goals,” he says. “So maybe if the squad scored the first goal, afterwards it’s complicated to score — the team who scored the first one don’t think about scoring the second goal. So it’s very, very difficult, because you are always thinking about to go to score, to score, but instead you need to stay behind to protect your goal.”
When the topic of the Premier League comes up, he’s a little more cautious. Asked if he was given enough of a chance to succeed at Chelsea, Nkunku says: “I don’t want to complain, and I don’t complain. I could do things better also.
“Chelsea was more like, ‘You need to stay in your position’. If you play as a winger, you needed to stay on the (touchline) and just do one-v-one. This is something I can do, but not all the game because I need to switch position and drift.”
Nkunku marks scoring for Leipzig against Hamburg on Sunday with his trademark celebration (Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)
Nkunku is speaking the day after he and Leipzig have been beaten 4-1 away by Como of Italy in the opening round of this season’s Champions League. Before that game, he explained to the media that his time at Chelsea was hampered “by some things (that) happened with the coach and different ways to see football. And afterwards, didn’t like my role”.
The Frenchman played under first Mauricio Pochettino and then Enzo Maresca at Stamford Bridge, and as we talk it becomes clear that the manager he felt ‘hampered’ him is the one who has since succeeded the departing Pep Guardiola at Manchester City.
Maresca is known for having absolute clarity about how he expects his players’ roles to be fulfilled, as demonstrated in the past few days with his words about new City signing Iliman Ndiaye: “Most of the time, he was moving in the wrong way, wrong direction, but he needs to learn and, for sure, he’s going to learn.”
It was also a question of timing.
Disappointment radiates from the 28-year-old when he explains that he believes his injuries during the debut year in London meant that the team was set in his absence and he couldn’t change the manager’s mind about picking him.
“He has one system where maybe I could play only one position. But he preferred to play another player or he put me in another position. So I need to respect that. I said, ‘Maybe I can play other positions’ but he’s the boss, so he decided.”
Who’s on my head? – Rob Green or Gianfranco Zola
Tifo Football
The man responsible for bringing Nkunku back to Leipzig is their CEO of Sport Marcel Schafer. He’s quick to pay homage to the 18-time France international’s many personal qualities but he recognises the risk involved in re-signing a player who was such a star for the club first time round.
“If you bring a player back with such a great history, in Germany you had so many examples where you bring him back and he’s not successful,” Schafer says, “because the expectation is normally so high: he was a player of the year in the Bundesliga, he destroyed all the defenders, so the expectation in the Bundesliga is, ‘OK, we have this player back’.
“But I don’t compare the year when he was here. I just see, ‘OK, that is what we are missing at the moment’. I don’t expect that he needs to be player of the year again — I wish he would do — but it’s not my expectation.”
