The Chelsea fixtures Liam Delap looks set to miss after injury update, including three crunch clashes

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Even though Chelsea are unbeaten in the opening weeks of the season, they went into the international break on a real sour note because of Liam Delap’s injury blow.

Liam Delap, who joined the Blues from Ipswich Town for £30m in the summer, has made a really positive early impression at Stamford Bridge. However, the striker’s momentum has come firmly to a halt for now.

It is so unfortunate that Delap suffered a hamstring injury during the Premier League win against Fulham. In response, Chelsea recalled Marc Guiu from his loan at Sunderland to provide an alternative to Joao Pedro for the centre-forward position.

• READ MORE: Manchester United figures had one warning for Liam Delap before Chelsea move, he completely ignored them

Liam Delap injury update

According to The Athletic, Delap won’t return to training again until November because of his hamstring problem.

The report explains that the English forward doesn’t require surgery on the injury, but it is estimated that he will be absent for 10 weeks from the time of the injury. If that’s the case, the fact that Delap was injured on 30 August means that he won’t be back until 8 November.

Gary Lineker massively rated the Delap signing from Chelsea this summer, but it will be a little while before he’s back playing for them again.

It leaves Pedro and Guiu as the most obvious options to lead the line for the next couple of months. Alternatively, versatile youngster Tyrique George has played as a striker on several occasions under Enzo Maresca’s management.

It’s been reported that Maresca’s back-up plan is to use Cole Palmer, Pedro Neto or Estevao Willian in the centre-forward role if needed.

The fixtures Liam Delap looks set to miss

If Delap is sidelined until mid-November, he will end up missing a large chunk of the season.

We’ve listed below the 13 matches that the striker could now miss, including some gigantic clashes against Bayern Munich, Manchester United and Liverpool.

After hosting Wolves on 8 November, there’s another international break. Chelsea then return to action on 22 November with a league trip to Turf Moor to face Burnley.

Incidentally, if Chelsea progress past Lincoln City in the third round of the Carabao Cup, the fourth-round ties are scheduled to take place at the end of October, meaning Delap could miss that as well.

We’re intrigued to see how the Blues cope in attack without their summer signing. It feels like there will be plenty of pressure on Guiu to be an effective understudy to Pedro. With so many fixtures ahead, Maresca will be forced to rotate and find solutions within his squad.