Chelsea perform major transfer U-turn after realising severity of injury to £30m star

Chelsea have told Bayern Munich that they are pulling the plug on Nicolas Jackson's loan move. The Senegal striker, who had been set to join the Bundesliga champions on a season-long deal and had flown to Germany on Saturday morning, has been asked to return.

Chelsea had agreed a deal with Bayern for Jackson to move to Bavaria for the remainder of the 2025-26 season. Bayern also had an option to make the deal permanent for £69million - with growing suggestions in Germany that this will be Harry Kane's final season at the German giants.

But, as first reported by The Athletic, the Blues' U-turn comes after new £30m forward Liam Delap suffered a hamstring injury during Saturday's Premier League win over Fulham. Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca revealed post-match that the England Under-21 international is set to be out of action for up to eight weeks.

Speaking to TV post-match, Maresca said: "Liam Delap is expected to be out for six to eight weeks because of this type of injury."

He followed up in his post-match press conference: "Liam's injury doesn't look good in terms of, he was full speed, hamstring, so that required, like always, weeks.

"And then in terms of another striker, to be honest, we just finished the game from the changing room and came here for the press conference, so now after, when we finish, we're going to sit and we'll see if we take any decision. That's all."

Asked whether he had enough No.9 options, the Chelsea boss added: "When you have two strikers, it's enough. When one of them is injured for different weeks, probably it's not enough. Today we played more than one hour with Tyrique [George], and he did brilliant. The last game he played as a No.9 was Man United at home last year. Again, we try to use a different solution. If you remember last year, we used Pedro [Neto] in some games as a No.9.

"It's because we are always looking for a solution, but for sure when you have two proper No.9s, it's enough."

When asked if a Jackson U-turn was possible, Maresca said: "I just finished the game, came here and have no idea. We’re going to sit now and we’ll see. Honestly, I have no idea."

That decision was swiftly made by club chiefs however, with the striker that had been dumped this summer now called back into the fray. Jackson, who has scored 24 Premier League goals since joining from Villarreal two years ago, had been looking forward to leaving, amid worries over his game time in a World Cup year.

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