September 27 (Reuters) – Chelsea will be boosted by the return of midfielder Romeo Lavia as they aim for their first home Premier League win of the season against Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday.

Lavia, who recently featured in Chelsea’s only league defeat in five games, a 2-0 home loss to Manchester City, was sidelined after suffering a hamstring injury in training.

The 20-year-old, who arrived from Southampton in August 2023, only managed one substitute appearance last season due to several injury setbacks.

“Romeo Lavia is available for tomorrow, the only one (who will be missing) is Reece (James). He is still out and there is no real update on him at the moment,” Chelsea coach Enzo Maresca told reporters on Friday.

“We’ll see if (Lavia can play the full 90 minutes). We now have one more training session and then we will decide, but the most important thing is that he is finally back.”

Maresca is spoiled for choice in attack after Nicolas Jackson scored a brace against West Ham United last weekend and Christopher Nkunku scored a hat-trick in a 5-0 win over fourth-tier Barrow in the third round of the League Cup on Tuesday.

The Italian coach has to choose between the two strikers to take the lead against Brighton, but will have to make other decisions after several outstanding performances this week.

“Yes, it is one of them, but I think Pedro (Neto) did very well too. Mykhailo (Mudryk) did very well the other day,” he added.

“All of them, to be honest. It’s important that they give it their all when they have a chance, even if it’s five minutes, 10 minutes or half an hour or right from the start, so it’s important.”

“I told them from day one that we can’t play with seven or eight attacking players, otherwise there will be no defensive balance.”

After Brighton, Chelsea hosts Belgian club Gent in the Europa Conference League on October 3 and hosts Nottingham Forest in the league three days later. (Reporting by Shifa Jahan in Bengaluru, Editing by Christian Radnedge)