Football
Abject Chelsea squad building leaves Enzo Maresca with limited options for attacking headache
You have to go back to January 14 and the depths of winter for the last time Cole Palmer pulled out that trademark shivery celebration to mark a Chelsea goal. It is a month longer since Nicolas Jackson last found the net, albeit a hamstring injury denied him chances for a chunk of that time.
Those droughts – of 16 and 13 matches across competitions, respectively – are comfortably the longest of each player’s Chelsea career. Indeed, when you consider that Enzo Maresca’s two most regular sources of goals have gone more than 2,000 combined minutes without one, it is a small miracle his team’s season has not unravelled more than it has.
One, is that Maresca has nailed his colours to the mast on this issue, admitting last week that he does not think Chelsea can qualify for the Champions League if Jackson and Palmer do not start scoring, and quick. That is not exactly a great show of faith in the likes of Pedro Neto, Jadon Sancho and Noni Madueke but, on balance, is probably true. Either way, having made that claim, he can hardly reverse course within a week.
