Nigerian striker, Victor Osimhen, has alerted Chelsea fans to the chances of him joining the London club next year just days after signing a fresh contract extension at Napoli.

Osimhen was announced as having extended his deal in Italy last week, putting a temporary end to speculation over his future.

However, with the agreement only adding a further year to his stay at Napoli – now until 2026 – many have raised the prospect of it simply being a ploy to raise more money. Osimhen’s future has been in the air for much of this season after failing to see eye to eye over a new contract initially as well as becoming annoyed by a social media post that mocked him posted by a club account.

According to football.london reports, Chelsea have been after a striker of Osimhen’s calibre for much of the past 18 months as they look to solve a goalscoring problem that has plagued them, arguably since Tammy Abraham was dropped from the team in early 2021. With Nicolas Jackson currently tasked with doing the business for Mauricio Pochettino there have been mixed results.

Therefore Osimhen continues to be monitored ahead of January and Chelsea had expected to track the 25-year-old throughout the winter with an eye to pushing hard for him over the summer, though football.london also understands it wasn’t out of the equation that a bid was made in January.

His new deal, which has doubled his wages, puts an end to that for now. Come next year though and the reported £115million release clause will certainly be of interest to multiple clubs across the world. With this is mind Osimhen’s latest social media activity has caused quite the stir.

Celebrating his birthday on Friday, the Nigerian responded to an ambitious plea from an online Chelsea fan. Posted alongside an image of Osimhen in his youth with a Chelsea shirt on – the 2011/12 home jersey – user @OGBdeyforyou wrote: “Happy birthday Victor Osimhen, pls come and rescue Chelsea soon [tearing up eyes and prayer emoji].”

Surprisingly, Osimhen then responded with a message of his own. Two red heart emojis and a prayer hands emoji later, the Chelsea fanbase was in total meltdown.

Many supporters took this as reason to push the notion of a move even more to Osimhen with others simply recognising the moment. Regardless of how little it seems, given that Osimhen idolised Chelsea legend Didier Drogba and the interest in him there is it has sparked a new transfer theory here to stay.