Chelsea spent £52 million on signing Nkunku from RB Leipzig last June but the 26-year-old suffered a major injury during last summer’s pre-season campaign and required knee surgery.
Nkunku ended up making his debut in December but further injuries to his hip and hamstring restricted him to just 14 appearances in all competitions.
After assessing Nkunku in the first two weeks of Chelsea’s pre-season preparations, Maresca believes the French forward is capable of playing in multiple positions across the attack and is keen for members of his squad to ‘adapt’ to new roles.
When asked what specific role he sees for Nkunku at Chelsea for the upcoming campaign, Maresca said 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 kind 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 try to have players that they can play in different positions, that’s the way I see the 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] that they can play in different positions.
‘Also because sometimes many players say I can play as a winger and it’s for them it’s just there [in one position], 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 and to adapt but when they are a good player they can play in different positions.’
