Enzo Maresca has admitted he would love to field all of Chelsea’s attacking talents at once but isn’t sure he could find the right defensive balance.
Christopher Nkunku helped himself to a hat-trick as Chelsea thrashed League Two side Barrow in the EFL Cup on Tuesday night.
In Premier League play, meanwhile, Nicolas Jackson is the Blues’ top scorer with four goals, while Noni Madueke has three and Cole Palmer has two, followed by Nkunku and Joao Felix with one each.
Chelsea are blessed with a wealth of attacking options, with the likes of Pedro Neto, Mykhailo Mudryk and Jadon Sancho also able to slot into Maresca’s XI.
Maresca ponders Chelsea balance
Chelsea’s attacking displays this season have promoted debate among supporters about how Maresca could fit more of their forwards onto the pitch at the same time.
Despite this being something Maresca would love to do, he isn’t sure how such an approach would work defensively, even suggesting he would have to get his boots on to help out at the back.
“Both Nicolas and Christo are doing fantastic, not only because they are scoring but in the way they work off the ball and sacrifice for the team. That is very important for both of them,” Maresca said after Tuesday’s win at Stamford Bridge (via Chelsea’s official website).
He continued: “It’s a nice problem when you have two strikers who continue to score. Unfortunately, Marc Guiu is not scoring at this moment but hopefully, soon he can score goals as well.
“When you can decide which one to start with, it’s nice. And because they are in a good moment we can use them both.
“It could be they play together. The problem is our defensive balance because we can think of playing with Nicolas, Christo, Joao [Felix], Cole [Palmer] and Noni [Madueke] – that’s fantastic – but then who is defending? Me?
“I would like to put all of them in because I really like football and I really like to keep the ball. The problem is when you lose the ball and need to defend, and not all of them can defend at the same level.”
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