Chelsea welcome Ruben Amorim’s side to Stamford Bridge tomorrow [Friday] evening, searching for three points to help aid our quest in securing Champions League football for next season.

The Blues currently occupy the final spot for Champions League qualification, sat in fifth place ahead of Aston Villa on goal difference and a point better than Nottingham Forest, who we meet on the final day of the season at the City Ground.

With our game played before our competitors, we could end the evening above Manchester City and level with Newcastle in third place with victory over United.

Maresca will be without the services of Jackson for this fixture, following the striker’s red card against Newcastle last time out. He will also miss the trip to Forest next weekend.

Our Italian head coach has stated that he and his coaching staff are ‘working on’ a solution to that issue, but wouldn’t be drawn on who would replace Jackson in a central striking role on Friday.

Meanwhile, Maresca also confirmed that Reece James is fine to be part of the squad despite suffering from illness at the start of the week.

‘Christo [Nkunku] is still out,’ Maresca explained at his pre-match press conference. ‘Reece James is now okay, he was out with illness for two [training] sessions. Yesterday he had a session with us, which is good.

‘We don’t have Nico for this game and we are working on that. These are the options we have, unfortunately we don’t have many options [to play as a striker].

‘Unfortunately, Marc Guiu is still coming back from injury. He has started to train with us recently but is not ready to start. So we are working on different options for Friday night in the absence of Nico.’

With no Jackson for this game, the media asked Maresca whether we could see him deploy a winger as a ‘false nine’ for the game, with Tyrique George, Pedro Neto and Cole Palmer all having played as a central forward at times this season.

While our head coach wouldn’t offer specifics in terms of names for that role, he accepted that it is something he is considering but pointed out that with the way Amorim sets up his teams – with a back three and wing-backs – that he would have to consider what approach is best for this game.

‘It depends a little bit on the game plan,’ added Enzo. ‘When playing against a line of five, I prefer to have a ‘real’ nine because you need to attack behind, you need that threat.

‘Unfortunately, we don’t have that so we need to find a solution. I like a ‘false’ nine when we face a line of four, because you can link a little more. But against five defenders, you need people running in behind. But it is what it is, and we need to find a different solution.’