False No. 9? Trust the kids? 4-4-2? How Chelsea can score goals after Nicolas Jackson and Marc Guiu injuries

When the January transfer window shut, Chelsea confirmed they would ride out the rest of the season without any forward reinforcements.

After Nicolas Jackson fired in six goals in nine appearances before November, the Senegalese netted just three in 14 as Enzo Maresca's side have struggled to keep up the pace at the top of the table.

Then, over the space of a week, their worst nightmares were realised. First, young Spanish back-up Marc Guiu went down with a muscle complaint, and now it has been confirmed that Nicolas Jackson will be out until at least April with a hamstring injury.

That leaves them with effectively no more strikers until at least after the international break, with Christopher Nkunku considered much more of a No. 10.

While the question regarding whether they should have signed a striker or not can rumble on for the next few weeks, manager Enzo Maresca has got to come up with a solution.

In case he wants a helping hand, we’ve come up with a number of solutions that Maresca might want to consider until at least one of his strikers is back fit and firing.

In the first game after the Jackson injury, when they played Brighton & Hove Albion in the FA Cup - coincidentally this Friday’s opponents in the Premier League - Maresca went for Nkunku. It didn’t go exactly according to plan when you consider that in a full 90 minutes of football, Nkunku failed to register a single shot and the Frenchman had just one touch in the Brighton penalty area.

It is believed that Nkunku has a preference to play a bit deeper and operate as No. 10; it’s just unfortunate for him that this position happens to be where Chelsea’s most productive creative force operates. Maresca could consider swapping him and using Cole Palmer as a false No. 9 - we’ll get to that - but it doesn’t seem likely at all.

This feels like what might end up being the most logical option. Top scorer Palmer is Chelsea’s most consistent source of goals, and although he operates better when he has space, the Englishman might be Chelsea’s best option further forward. Noni Madueke’s goals have come in fits and spurts and Pedro Neto and Jadon Sancho have scored just four goals combined in the Premier League this season. Maresca might end up preferring someone like Neto because of his pace and work-rate to try and mimic what is being lost with Jackson sidelined.

The question of who plays behind Palmer is interesting. Nkunku seems an ideal candidate as someone who has played most of his career in the No. 10 role and could still offer a goalscoring threat from that position, but Maresca might consider using Enzo Fernandez or even Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall as an alternative.

For most of this season, Maresca has used a 4-2-3-1 system, but with the team having won just three of their last ten matches in all competitions and no strikers available, he might prefer to play two players higher up.

Of course, some managers might argue that this is effectively the same group of players and formations are not something they focus on, but the idea of giving central defenders two players to worry about at once is something that could make Chelsea a little less predictable.

Maresca could look to another former Chelsea manager for inspiration here. At Real Madrid this season, Carlo Ancelotti has experimented with trying to fit his four fabulous attackers into one team without the entire structure falling apart. His recent solution to the problem has been to play a 4-4-2 with Jude Bellingham on the left, Rodrygo on the right and then Vinicius Junior and Kylian Mbappe up front.

Similar to the idea of playing Palmer with someone else, Vinicius and Mbappe are both drifting a lot but they still try to occupy the opposing centre-backs as much as possible. That could be something for Maresca to consider, because Moises Caicedo has shown he can more than cover the centre of midfield by himself.

The ultimate wildcard is for Maresca to entrust the striking responsibilities to one of the players in the youth teams. This is obviously a huge gamble, throwing a young kid into this kind of injury crisis could end up damaging their development and obviously if these young players were ready they would already be training with the first team.

But sometimes needs must and striker Shim Mheuka, still just 17, is one of the most highly thought of players within the youth set-up right now. He seems the most likely to step up to the first team with 20-year-old Ronnie Stutter another option. Deivid Washington was rumoured to return to Santos on loan, but that move doesn’t seem to have gone through as he is not listed anywhere in Santos’ squad and is still on Chelsea’s website.

Regardless of what Maresca does, there is no doubting the severity of this situation. Chelsea play five games between now and the start of the March international break, including trips to Aston Villa, Arsenal and Brighton. In the couple of weeks after the players return from international duty, they host Tottenham Hotspur and Ipswich Town whilst travelling to Brentford and Fulham. This is a testing period and could end up defining the club’s season.

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