Chelsea\u2019s teenage winger Est\u00eav\u00e3o faces fresh uncertainty after a hamstring problem forced him off early in the club\u2019s recent defeat to Manchester United. The player had started just five of Chelsea\u2019s last 16 Premier League matches following an initial muscle injury in December and missed six games across February and March. He was also granted compassionate leave at the end of January for undisclosed personal reasons.<\/p>\n
Selected for a second consecutive league start in Liam Rosenior\u2019s XI for Saturday\u2019s visit of Manchester United, Est\u00eav\u00e3o lasted 16 minutes before being replaced by Alejandro Garnacho and Chelsea went on to lose the match. The setback came shortly after he had recovered from a previous hamstring issue, a sequence that left him visibly upset on the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was crying at halftime,\u201d Rosenior told reporters afterwards.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally devastated for him. It looks like it\u2019s his hamstring and that\u2019s a moment actually when he\u2019s running through on their goal for a one-v-one and pulls his hamstring in that moment.\u00a0\u201c<\/p>\n
The club have not disclosed the severity of the injury. Determining how long Est\u00eav\u00e3o will be sidelined depends on the exact nature of the hamstring damage, with recovery times varying widely. Chelsea expect more clarity once swelling reduces and scans can be carried out, which is likely to happen this coming week.<\/p>\n
Rosenior offered a simple hope for the youngster\u2019s return: \u201cI hope Est\u00ea comes back sooner rather than later.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the Premier League campaign finishing on May 24, and only five fixtures remaining, time is limited. Chelsea face a seven-point deficit to the current top five in the race to qualify for next season\u2019s Champions League, and making up that gap in five matches will be close to impossible. Given the calendar and the uncertainty over the hamstring, it is plausible that Est\u00eav\u00e3o might not play again this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Est\u00eav\u00e3o faces an uncertain return after a hamstring setback; scans due next week as Chelsea wait…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12319,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,1383],"tags":[227,1047],"class_list":["post-12320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-chelsea-news","tag-alejandro-garnacho","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}