Chelsea’s striker situation back to square one despite promising summer moves | OneFootball

This is a syndication of the article originally published for the BBC, here.

Chelsea didn’t just drop points against Bournemouth on Saturday, they also lost Liam Delap to what looked painfully like a dislocated shoulder. That will mean a couple of months out injured for the summer signing.

It’s a blow to the Blues, one that’s part of a frustrating striker situation in general. Delap has really struggled since returning from the hamstring injury that disrupted the start of his season, and there was a good chance that the return of Cole Palmer was going to mean Delap was pushed to the sidelines even without the injury.

Chelsea’s two striker plan fails to fire

Marc Guiu in action for Chelsea. (Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)

But the fact that Delap was playing every week despite his bad form is instructive. He wasn’t scoring – or even really getting chances to score – but he’s a number 9 whose presence in the team was allowing Joao Pedro to play deeper, where he is supposed to be more effective.

Delap’s return from his hamstring problem was apparently going to “unlock” the Brazilian. Instead, both have struggled in whatever combination they’ve been used in, gradually eroding the positivity around Chelsea’s striker situation following their positive impacts immediately after their respective arrivals in the summer.

The third option is Marc Guiu – now into his second season at the club, still yet to score a Premier League goal. Speculation continues that manager Enzo Maresca’s favoured systems and formations are simply never going to work in favour of out-and-out strikers.

It will be very interesting to see how Maresca adapts his team to accommodate the return of Palmer and the loss of Delap, and how both Guiu and Joao Pedro fit into that. With two a games a week for the foreseeable future, there is certainly time to experiment.

Meanwhile Nicolas Jackson, not a perfect solution but a proven scorer in the Premier League, sits on Bayern Munich’s bench.

Will Faulks @willfaulks