Trevoh Chalobah has been declared fit to face Crystal Palace, a timely boost for Enzo Maresca and his squad ahead of Sunday\u2019s fixture. Chalobah became an important player for Chelsea in the second half of last season, appearing 13 times in the Premier League after being brought back early from a season-long loan at Palace.<\/p>\n
Chalobah did limp out of Sunday\u2019s 4-1 friendly victory over AC Milan, but Maresca has confirmed the defender will be available for the opening match. The manager was cautious on other defensive options. \u201cHe could be available. We will see.<\/p>\n
\u201cBenoit is in the process of coming back, Romeo the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
The availability of Chalobah takes on added significance because Levi Colwill has suffered a serious knee injury and faces a lengthy lay-off. On Colwill\u2019s prognosis Maresca said: \u201cHe\u2019s ok – aware he has to be a long time out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maresca underlined the impact Colwill had last season and signalled the club are considering recruitment options to cover the prolonged absence. \u201cHe was a big player for us last season,\u201d said the Chelsea boss. \u201cLevi was a huge part of our build-up. Now he is out, and we are going to try to find a different solution.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are trying to find a solution internally, but the club know exactly what I think. I think we need a central defender.\u201d<\/p>\n
The manager\u2019s comments make clear Chelsea will explore both internal adjustments and potential additions to the squad to replace Colwill\u2019s role during the campaign. For now, Chalobah\u2019s availability offers a short-term answer as the club assess their options ahead of the new season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chalobah cleared to face Palace; Maresca confirms Colwill faces long-term absence and reinforcements<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1716,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190],"tags":[242,696],"class_list":["post-1717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","tag-injury","tag-trevoh-chalobah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1717","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=1717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1718,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1717\/revisions\/1718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}