Chelsea coach Antonio Conte fears Alvaro Morata could miss the rest of the 2017-18 season, with Olivier Giroud ready to step in for the Spanish striker against West Brom on Monday night.

​Morata has been missing from action for the past five games due to pain in his back, which Conte admitted on Friday he has no idea when the striker will recover from.

With Morata, who is Chelsea’s first-choice forward, still sidelined ahead of Chelsea’s Premier League match against West Brom at Stamford Bridge on Monday, Conte confirmed that Giroud could feature from the start.

Giroud made his debut for Chelsea, who he joined from Arsenal on transfer deadline day, off the bench in the 4-1 loss away to Watford on Monday.

Conte told reporters at Cobham: “Giroud has trained and will be in contention. We are talking a lot about bad results, but sometimes we forget we are facing a serious situation.

“Players like Morata, for us, are very important and have been missing for a long period of time. I don’t know how long he will be out.

“We are struggling a lot to find a solution to solve the pain in his back. If you ask me whether he needs a day, a month or the rest of the season, I don’t know. I don’t know. For this reason, I’m a bit worried. You know very well the importance of the player.”

Giroud replaced Pedro at Vicarage Road in the 64th minute after the Spain international fell down onto the pitch in pain.

However, the 30-year-old is fit again and will make Conte’s matchday squad, along with Andreas Christensen.

The defender was forced off in the 28th minute of Chelsea’s 3-0 defeat by Bournemouth last week after he suffered a hamstring injury.

The 21-year-old did not train with the Chelsea first team on Friday, but Conte said he could still recover from his issue in time to make his squad on Monday.

Tiemoue Bakayoko is, however, not available through suspension following his red card against Watford.