Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca has confirmed Nicolas Jackson will be sidelined until April with a hamstring injury.
The west London side had hoped Jackson would recover quickly from the problem sustained against West Ham on Feb. 3, but a scan earlier this week delivered a more downbeat assessment.
“Nico will be out until the international break, probably available after,” Maresca said on Thursday. “Marc Guiu will also be out for a while.
“We knew that it was a muscular probably but we didn’t know how important [bad] it was because his feeling, his reaction, was quite good.
“We all thought that was not a big injury but unfortunately he had a scan a few days ago, it is an important one and it will be around six-to-eight weeks.”
Maresca now faces the prospect of choosing between using Cole Palmer as a false nine, wantaway forward Christopher Nkunku, who was unable to secure his preferred move to Bayern Munich, or converting a winger into a forward.
The Italian boss took the opportunity to defend Jackson, who has faced persistent criticism over his profligacy in front of goal after scoring nine goals in 24 appearances this season, but was missed as Chelsea crashed out of the FA Cup at Brighton on Saturday.
“Sometimes we complain about players but then when they don’t play, we realise how important they are for the team,” Maresca said. “So every press conference you ask me about Nico, every press conference I said that he is an important player, he is doing fantastic on the ball and off the ball. Then he didn’t play against Brighton and everyone was thinking ‘it is difficult to play without a nine.’
“But we know exactly how good Nico is on the ball and off the player. Christo is a completely different player on the ball and off the ball. For this reason, we probably have to change something because we don’t have a proper nine in this moment.”
Maresca also confirmed that Filip Jørgensen has now replaced Robert Sánchez as Chelsea’s first-choice goalkeeper. Sanchez was dropped against West Ham after a series of high-profile mistakes — including a costly error in Chelsea’s defeat at Manchester City a week prior — with Jorgensen making only his second Premier League appearance since joining from Villarreal last summer in a £20.7 million ($25.85m) deal.
“The Filip solution was also to give some time to Robert to recover mentally, physically in general but the idea is not game-by-game to change the keeper,” Maresca said. “In this moment, the last Premier League game we won against West Ham was Filip. Unfortunately the FA Cup game was Robert but our keeper in this moment is Filip.
“I spoke with Robert a few days before West Ham when I took the decision to play with Filip and I never spoke again with Robert. With Filip exactly the same. So they know in this moment the situation. This is the situation now but then we’ll see. This situation in this moment is like this.”
Chelsea face Brighton in the league on Friday night and are hopeful of soon being able to recall Romeo Lavia (hamstring) and Benoît Badiashile (muscular).
Maresca confirmed that Wesley Fofana (hamstring) is “two or three weeks” away from a return while Reece James is available after being rested for the FA Cup defeat at Brighton.
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