Maresca: Chelsea missed Jackson – but we didn’t miss Felix

Enzo Maresca admitted that Chelsea missed Nicolas Jackson up front in their FA Cup fourth round exit to Brighton – but added the club will not regret letting another attacker in Joao Felix leave.

The Blues were toothless in attack in their defeat at the south coast. Maresca’s side had one shot on target – which came in the the fourth minute – with Jackson missing the game through injury.

His replacement Christopher Nkunku had just 33 touches of the ball – the second-lowest out of all of Chelsea’s starters – and failed to have a shot all game.

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Meanwhile, Felix – who departed for AC Milan on loan on Deadline Day – scored 12 minutes into his debut at his new club last week. Marc Guiu – Chelsea’s other recognised striker – has a long-term injury.

“Yes, sometimes I think you need to play games without players to realise how important they are,” said Maresca about Jackson.

“We said many times about Nico, how important he is on the ball and off the ball. Off the ball, the intensity and pressing is always very, very good.  And on the ball, he is a threat, always.

He later added: “I don’t think we missed Joao. Joao is happy there [in Milan] and we are happy that Joao is happy there.

“The only thing we can say is no-one predicts that on the Deadline Day, we had two striker injuries. This is difficult to think can unfortunately happen. We have Nico who can be back very soon.”

Asked how soon, Maresca replied: “It won’t be long, but we will see if he’s available for the next game.”