Chelsea\u2019s dependence on Jo\u00e3o Pedro has become impossible to miss. Across his first year at the club, he scored 23 goals in all competitions and added enough assists to bring his total goal contributions to 32. In 2026\/27, he has already been involved in eight goals and assists in seven matches, underlining how central he has become to the team\u2019s attack.<\/p>\n
His absence matters beyond the numbers. Chelsea do have other scorers, with Cole Palmer the next most productive player since the start of last season on 15 goals in all competitions. But Pedro offers more than finishing. He helps connect the side, and when he is not there, the team\u2019s balance changes.<\/p>\n
That has already been felt when others have been asked to lead the line. Morgan Rogers found it difficult to operate as a No. 9 against Tottenham, away from his preferred role as an inside forward on the left. Danny Welbeck was signed to provide occasional cover, mainly in domestic cup matches, rather than to start regularly. Emmanuel Emegha has still not featured because of injury, while Nicolas Jackson is in strong form, but for Aston Villa.<\/p>\n
As a result, Chelsea\u2019s attack loses a major piece when Pedro is unavailable. Alonso was clear about the importance of the issue ahead of the Carabao Cup meeting with Liverpool.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a key player. We will miss him,\u201d Alonso told reporters on Tuesday, building up to the Carabao Cup tie against Liverpool. \u201cBut we will have to be ready to deal with the injury and to be competitive and to try to win games with the players that we have available.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alonso described the problem as \u201can injury in his thigh\u201d. Pedro has had similar muscle setbacks before, missing two games with a thigh issue in April last season, spending almost two months out with a hamstring injury in the second half of the 2023\u201324 campaign, and sitting out around three weeks with a calf problem at Watford in 2022\u201323.<\/p>\n
For now, this is viewed as a setback rather than a long-term alarm, although it is not a trivial one. Alonso said Pedro is expected to be sidelined for \u201ca few weeks\u201d, adding: \u201cLet\u2019s see how many [weeks] \u2026 We don\u2019t want to predict that. But he will not be ready for the next games.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea must manage without Jo\u00e3o Pedro after Alonso said the forward will miss several weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22092,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,2035],"tags":[1066,242,180],"class_list":["post-22093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-chelsea-news","tag-carabao-cup","tag-injury","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22093","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=22093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}