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Chelsea started off their 2025/26 campaign with some great results but now they have suffered consecutive defeats in the last few days across multiple competitions.
Therefore, Enzo Maresca and his men are keen to bounce back with a win over Lincoln City in the third round of the Carabao Cup on Tuesday night at LNER stadium.
The Blues have multiple injury problems, and their Italian manager is expected to shuffle his squad as the players looked jaded in their 2-1 defeat against Manchester United in the weekend.
Considering Liam Delap's injury and Joao Pedro featuring in consecutive away games against Bayern Munich and Man United, Maresca is short on attacking options upfront.
While many fans feel this fixture would be ideal for the Italian to field Marc Guiu, unfortunately the former Barcelona man is ineligible to feature for Chelsea in the Carabao Cup.
Why is Marc Guiu ineligible to feature for Chelsea?
Guiu was loaned out to Sunderland earlier in the summer transfer window as he had no space in the side with the likes of Pedro, Delap and Nicolas Jackson all ahead of him in the pecking order.
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Meanwhile, Jackson was also loaned out to Bayern Munich and in between Delap got injured and for a moment, the Senegalese forward was recalled before later, they recalled Guiu from Sunderland and allowed Jackson to complete his loan move.
Now, Guiu played three matches for Sunderland, two of them were in the Premier League and one came in the Carabao Cup against Huddersfield.
He played the entire 90 minutes and even scored a goal for the Black Cats in their 7-6 penalty shootout defeat in the cup competition.
Now, the rules only allow players to feature for one club in the competition meaning, the youngster is ineligible to represent Chelsea in the remainder of the Carabao Cup campaign.
This leaves Maresca in a tight spot as he has to choose between Pedro, academy players or he may opt to field Tyrique George or Pedro Neto upfront in a makeshift role.
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