Enzo Maresca names youth player who could line up as striker following injuries | OneFootball

Nicolas Jackson started today’s game for Chelsea, but really toiled and looked to have hurt himself in the first half. He twice went down holding the back of his left leg at different times, then only saw 5 minutes of action in the second half before being taken off.

His replacement, young Marc Guiu, rushed around all game and then slipped in the box in stoppage time, appearing to tweak his groin.

This left fans on panic stations – what if we have just lost our only two strikers, literally an hour before the transfer deadline? We’ve all been clinging on waiting for Enzo Maresca’s post match press conference.

Luckily it’s here, and the news is good.

Maresca gives positive update on two injured players

Marc Guiu looks to have injured himself against West Ham.

“Nico and Marc, to be honest they both said to me that they’re okay so hopefully neither of them are injured,” Maresca said in the press conference afterwards.

He denied he was involved in any late window plans for more signings:

“To be honest, I was just focused on the game and I’m still thinking about the game. The sporting directors are here, the chairman and we sit and we see all the things that happen. But everything that happened was planned from me, from the club, altogether.”

So how exactly would Chelsea respond if they lost both strikers, at least for this Saturday’s FA cup game against Brighton? Maresca already had some ideas about that:

“We have Tyrique who is a very good profile and probably we can find some different solutions. In the last half-an-hour we played with Marc Cucurella higher, with Christopher Nkunku inside. We’ll try to find different solutions.”

It wouldn’t be ideal – and it would be a brutal blow for Guiu who did well today and more than earned a start at the weekend – but as Maresca says, we’ve got enough attacking quality to cope.

Although, we always love to see Tyrique George getting minutes…