Chelsea new player Drapp: A "high return lottery" from Manchester City

Sports Weekly All-Media Reporter Yan Yu

The summer window of 2025 seems destined to become the "strike season" of the Premier League. There is rumor that Arsenal is going to "get a big one". Manchester United has bought out Cunha with £62.5 million, and Chelsea, which has many soldiers and wide players, is not idle at all. It has just officially announced the new aid Drapp a few days ago.

30 million pounds. If you only look at the numbers, the new Blues center from the relegated team Ipswich should not be a big deal, but his popularity is indeed very high - at least 6 or 7 well-known clubs have expressed strong interest in him and are not low in credibility. Such players must be not ordinary people, and if we want to describe the current Drapp in one sentence, it may be a "high return lottery."

First let's talk about the truth, why is Drapp so popular? Manchester United have looked for him very early, and Everton, Nottingham Forest and Newcastle United have had the idea of ​​bringing Drapp home. Overseas, there are also the legendary next players AC Milan and Juventus. So many clubs are flocking to him, and the most important one is actually "young and cheap". Ipswich was demoted, and Drapp's 30 million pound buyout clause became "activated". How could he let go of such a cheap price? Besides, Drapper is only 22 years old. Not only is he low in trial and error costs, but it is also easy to stop losses - if he doesn't practice, he can just sell it to a small and medium-sized Premier League team. The young "household registration book" will definitely not worry about sales.

It is obvious that Drapp has not yet reached the level of choosing any new club that he will definitely be firmly in the main center position (maybe Manchester United is an exception?), otherwise Manchester City will not let it "go further and further". Last summer, Blue Moon sold Delapp to Ipswich for 20 million pounds. The contract was said to contain a buyback clause, but when the forward line needed to be strengthened in the middle of the season, Manchester City did not choose to buy back. At the end of the season, many players would compete for Delapp, but they still chose to let go.

Of course, "Manchester City doesn't want" does not mean that Drapp is weak, and the latter hopes to get the playing time Blue Moon can't give it. When it comes to Chelsea, Drapp can attack the main position in a "familiar environment" - here are his Manchester City youth teammates Palmer and Lavia, and coach Maresca is also the mentor who once led Drapp to win the Premier League Youth League. Not only that, Shields, the former Blue Moon youth training recruitment manager who brought Drapp from Derby County youth training camp to Manchester City in 2019, suggested to Stoke City that Cousins, who was loaned to Drapp, and so on, are currently working at Chelsea. The above items are important reasons why Drapp chose the Blues. Of course, being able to participate in the Champions League is also a very critical factor. Multi-line combat always means more opportunities, and Chelsea does need to have more options in the center position. Perhaps Nkunku, who left the team, has been proven that he cannot play in the foresight, and young player Jiwu is always injured again. Jackson alone is definitely not possible - even if the Senegalese center keeps healthy, it is not possible, because his shooting is sometimes reliable and sometimes outrageous, not to mention that he will leave the team to participate in the African Cup midway next season.

Judging from the Premier League data for the 2024-25 season, Drapp is still better than Jackson in many aspects. For example, he scored 12 goals, while Chelsea only had 10 goals at the No. 15. This direct comparison may be a bit unfair. After all, Drapp played 37 games and would have greater firepower in weak teams, while Jackson only played 30 rounds due to injury issues. But in terms of goal efficiency and grasp of opportunities, Drapp is better: the Englishman's goal conversion rate is 17.7%, while Jackson is only 13.2%. Let’s look at the difference between the actual number of goals and the expected number of goals. Drapp is +2.7 and Jackson is -2.3.

In addition, although Drapp, who is 1.86 meters tall, seems to be closer to the "traditional center", his ability to dribble the ball forward is extraordinary. According to Opta statistics, in the past season of the Premier League, Drapp has had 26 attacks dribbling more than 5 meters and ended with a shot. This data is only lower than 37 winger Maduaike. If you look at the ball breaking through, Drapp averages once per game, and as a center, the data is definitely not low. However, in terms of confrontation, the son of this former famous Premier League hand-dumping expert still needs to be improved. He has many one-on-one matches, with the most 413 times in the season, with a success rate of only 38%.

As a coquettish center who runs and works hard when off the ball, Jackson was once rated by Maresca as "You only feel that he is particularly important when some players are not there." And in this regard, Drapp is not bad at all. He has put pressure on opponents in this season's Premier League 976 times, ranking fifth in the entire league. In the third division, he put pressure on 411 times, only lower than Tottenham's Solank (559) and Newcastle's Isaac (447). In addition, when Ipswich took the ball, Drapp also had a total of 594 runs without the ball, which was not much less than Jackson's 657 runs.

It should be added that Drapp's running without the ball is quite different from Jackson, with more straight-sliding behind the defense line, but this may be related to Ipswich's opponents usually pushing more. At Chelsea, Drapp must have to change some ways of playing football. After all, his former club likes to go straight, while the Blues under Maresca are pass-by believers - Drapp should be no stranger to this, but re-adapting may also take a process. For example, at Ipswich Drapp, it is almost a compulsory course for weak centers, but the Blues' need is that the center needs to touch more in the penalty area. In this regard, Jackson's average data every 90 minutes (6.2) is much higher than Drapp (3.7).