Enzo Maresca mentions he has been impressed by Christopher Nkunku during Chelsea’s pre-season training sessions and plans for him to play in various positions throughout the new Premier League season.
Chelsea invested £52 million to sign Nkunku from RB Leipzig last June, but the 26-year-old faced a significant injury during last summer’s pre-season, necessitating knee surgery.
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Nkunku eventually made his debut in December, but additional injuries to his hip and hamstring limited him to only 14 appearances across all competitions.
After evaluating Nkunku in the initial two weeks of Chelsea’s pre-season, Maresca believes the French forward can play in multiple attacking roles and wants his squad members to ‘adapt’ to new positions.
When questioned about Nkunku’s specific role for the upcoming season, Maresca stated at his first pre-season press conference in Santa Clara on Tuesday: ‘He can play everywhere, he can play everywhere.
‘He’s one of the players that in these two weeks [of pre-season] is doing very, very well.
‘He is already taking the way we want to play, that is important.
‘As I said, these kinds of players for me, they can play winger, they can play attacking midfielder, they can play No.9, they can play in different positions.
‘What we are going to try is to have players that can play in different positions, that’s the way I see football, and also that’s the way I like to work every day to try to improve players and help them not only play in one position, [but] so that they can play in different positions.
‘Also because sometimes many players say I can play as a winger and it’s just there [in one position] for them, but I don’t think if you move them five, 10 metres inside, that there are big changes.
‘It’s just a matter of convincing them to adapt but when they are a good player they can play in different positions.’
