Enzo Maresca has revealed that Cole Palmer may still miss Chelsea’s London derby against Brentford, despite recently returning to training.
Palmer has missed the Blues’ last two matches with a groin problem. The 23-year-old limped out of the warm-up prior to the win away at West Ham United and was subsequently unavailable for selection when Thomas Tuchel chose his England squad for the recent international break.
Up until now, we had been kept out of the loop regarding Palmer other than an image being released of the attacker during a training session.
But Maresca has today given an update on the Chelsea attacker in his pre-Brentford press conference. The Blues head coach said: “Cole took part in the session yesterday for the first time, not the entire session.
“We have one more session this afternoon and we are going to try with him to see if he’s okay, otherwise he will be out tomorrow.”
Maresca continued: “He is recovering from an injury, it’s not managing him, it’s recovering from an injury. When he is available, we need to manage him because of the amount of games.”
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Maresca also gave an update on Liam Delap, who suffered a hamstring injury in the win against Fulham. The Blues boss initially stated that the 22-year-old would be out for six-to-eight weeks, but unfortunately, that has now been upgraded with the striker will miss “10 to 12 weeks” of action.
In terms of further injury news for the clash against Brentford this weekend, Maresca also stated that there is a “question mark” on all players returning from international duty in South America. Joao Pedro, Andrey Santos and Estevao Willian were in action for Brazil away in Bolivia, while Moises Caicedo was sent off in Ecuador’s 1-0 win against Argentina this week.
“The three Brazilian players arrived yesterday but didn’t train,” Maresca stated. “Moi arrived last night – I didn’t see him, I will see him today.
“For all of them it is a question mark for tomorrow. When they play in Bolivia, it’s difficult. Hopefully they can be back soon.
