Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca has confirmed Cole Palmer will be absent until after the October international break as the club manages a recurring groin problem. The 23-year-old England international has seen his season disrupted by the issue and will be given extended rest to avoid further damage or surgery.<\/p>\n
Palmer started the campaign with a goalscoring 90-minute appearance against Bayern Munich, but lasted just 20 minutes in the chaotic defeat to Manchester United, leaving the field with a flare-up of his original groin problem. That setback prompted the decision to hold him back from the immediate schedule.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe decided to protect Cole a little bit in terms of him not getting a worse injury,\u201d Maresca explained. \u201cSo we decided to rest him for the next two, three weeks, probably until international break, just to see if with that rest he can be able to recover 100% and to be completely fit after the international break.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think he needs surgery. It\u2019s just a matter of managing his pain and his groin. The amount of games is something that can happen. So this is the reason why we try to be conservative with him to give him rest and hopefully he can be 100% fit after the international break.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beginning with Saturday\u2019s meeting with Brighton & Hove Albion, Palmer could miss a total of three games if he remains out until the international break. He will be unavailable for the return of former Blues boss Jos\u00e9 Mourinho, who will bring his new Benfica side to Stamford Bridge for the second round of Champions League fixtures on Sept. 30. Palmer will also miss the final Premier League game before the break, the visit from reigning champions Liverpool on Oct. 4.<\/p>\n
With his injury certain to keep Palmer out of Thomas Tuchel\u2019s England squad, Chelsea would then have another 14 days to work with their star midfielder in the hope of recovering him in time for a trip to face Nottingham Forest.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe said that with Cole we are a better team, but we also said that we need to play games without Cole, so we are not going to play with 10 players for sure,\u201d Maresca reflected. \u201cWe are going to find a different solution.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maresca: Palmer rested until after October international break as Chelsea avoid surgery risk overall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3103,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969],"tags":[1047,319],"class_list":["post-3104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-champions-league","tag-cole-palmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3104","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=3104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}