[Romano] 🔵 Maresca when asked why Nkunku doesn’t start: “I’ll be honest with Chris Nkunku and all of them. I’ve told them since day one that we cannot play with 7/8 attacking players, otherwise there is no defensive balance. Nkunku & Jackson can compete and they’re ready”.

Very obvious now that what holds Nkunku back from starting is his defensive abilities

Him playing at striker isn’t because that’s necessarily where he’s best at, but he is defensively weak.

This is also why Noni is undroppable. Man is our hardest working attacker off the ball.

It’s a long season, anything could happen. Jackson’s form could drop off a cliff or he could get injured, same with Madueke, and there are already plenty of opportunities for rotation. He’ll play a lot.

This is a great situation to be in for the team because all of the attackers know there’s a great player waiting to play behind them now and the gaffer’s message has been pretty clear that if you’re not working on defense too then he’ll play somebody that will. There’s also no reason for any one of them to be conserving energy during a game because with 5 subs all of the forwards can be subbed off every game if needed.

A good manager finds a way. You can’t have one of the best attackers in the world on the bench because you won’t adjust your tactics to facilitate playing him.

You don’t see Vini and Mbappe taking turns to warm the bench because they share the same best position.

Nkunku starting alongside Palmer and Jackson will definitely mean that one of the wingers will be dropped (most likely Madueke, since Gusto can also provide the width on the right in attack).

Great to see that he can almost replace one of Jackson, Palmer and Sancho without much drop in quality.