FOCUSED. Driven. Fearless. English football, meet Christopher Nkunku.
Chelsea’s brand new £52m striker strolls through a sliding door at the glitzy Waldorf Astoria hotel in Atlanta and takes a seat. The clock says 22:15pm local time.
Nkunku, 25, must be tired. He is mid-way through his first pre-season at the club and has been at the mercy of boss Mauricio Pochettino’s notoriously brutal running sessions.
He laughed: “I came late, and spoke with my teammates and they said: ‘It’s very hard’.”
But Nkunku is not here, in his first interview with the English press, to complain about fatigue on this breathless tour of the United States.
He is here to set out his stall ahead of a debut Premier League season he has been dreaming about for years.
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He is here to reassure Blues fans that he is committed to owner Todd Boehly’s ambitious and expensive vision, regardless of last season’s 12th placed flop.
The French international explained: “The season of Chelsea last year wasn’t good, everybody knows this. I knew this new season would not be the same.
“This year is a new project, new year, new season. I am the new project and I am happy to be here.
"Even if Chelsea were in 15th or 16th place, it doesn’t matter for me.
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“The club is not in a European competition but I want to have a main role in the team. Chelsea proposed this project to me and I am happy with it.”
It is clear the Champions League is a priority for Nkunku. He added: “This is my goal, the goal of the club, the team and the fans. I want the club to be where they need to be.”
In a wide-ranging chat, topics such as Erling Haaland’s fear-factor, Chelsea’s No.9 curse, Paris Saint-Germain’s elite mentality and being a terrible loser are all discussed.
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But first, he speaks of a moment as a teenager that shaped him into the player and man he is today – from his birthplace in the Parisian suburbs to the glamour of West London.
Nkunku explained: “I was around 15-years-old. It was difficult because I had growing pains in my knees.
“I was late in preparing physically as a player compared to the others, but I lived with it. I needed to work more to earn my place. It was good to learn. This is how I grew as a player.”
That steely determination from a young age paid off. Having been turned away by the likes of Lens, Le Havre and Monaco due to his skinny physique, PSG took a punt on him in 2015.
It was there over the course of four years he beefed up both physically and mentally.
Nkunku was already an extremely competitive person, growing up in a football-mad family.
He said: “I don’t like to lose. Even if we play cards, I want to win.”
So, he has walked into Chelsea – a club renowned for their win-at-all-costs attitude and cut-throat nature – comfortable in that pressurised environment, one that he previously shared with the likes of Kylian Mbappe and Neymar in the French capital.
He said: “[PSG and Chelsea are] basically the same in every category. You need to win and be first in the table. This is what we learned at PSG, how to win. Even drawing a game is like a loss.”
He took that mindset with him to Red Bull Leipzig in 2019, hitting the heights he had promised to deliver in his third and fourth seasons. 58 goals in 88 games in all competitions.
It was after the 2021/22 campaign, one that included 11 goals in 12 Champions League outings and 20 goals and 13 assists in 34 Bundesliga games, that Chelsea pounced.
A pre-contract agreement was conjured up in October 2022.
At that time, Graham Potter had replaced Thomas Tuchel as manager, Chelsea were in Europe and competing for the top four and above.
A month later, a training ground injury scuppered his Qatar World Cup dreams with France.
He then had to watch on from Germany as Chelsea went into free-fall. More managerial sackings, transfer spending lunacy and multiple dressing room fall-outs.
It did not faze him. Seemingly, nothing does, even the suggestion that Chelsea’s recent record of signing prolific strikers – especially from the Bundesliga – is poor.
Nkunku, who could take the vacant No.9 jersey, replied: “When you say this, is this about Kai Havertz and Timo Werner?”, the German pair who signed for Chelsea in 2020 for a combined fee of around £120m but have since departed.
Nkunku continued: “Maybe sometimes they have personal problems, you don’t know. Everybody is different.
"I know I can do a lot of great things here, that’s why I sit here. We will see in the future but I am not scared about anything.”
Not even Manchester City’s 52-goal monster Erling Haaland frightens him. Nkunku already has two goals in three pre-season outings, and often celebrates by blowing up a balloon on the pitch in honour of his two-year-old son.
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Nkunku said: “I will compete against anybody. I just focus only on my work and not about the work of Erling or any player.
“I want to build my career. I want to do everything I can do in football and show what I can do. This is just the beginning.”
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