Chelsea host reigning Premier League champions Liverpool at Stamford Bridge on Saturday afternoon, but the match arrives with a significant absence for the home side. Cole Palmer will not be involved after struggling with a persistent groin problem.<\/p>\n
Palmer’s recovery has limited him to just four appearances for club and country this term. He missed early-season fixtures against West Ham United and Fulham and then suffered another setback in the recent defeat to Manchester United. The attacking midfielder started Chelsea\u2019s 10-man loss at Old Trafford but lasted just 21 minutes before being withdrawn.<\/p>\n
He has not featured since and was absent for the matches against Lincoln City, Brighton & Hove Albion and Benfica. That sequence leaves Chelsea without one of their leading attacking options for the visit of Arne Slot\u2019s Liverpool, a team the club know will present a stern challenge despite recent disappointing form.<\/p>\n
Enzo Maresca has confirmed the timetable for Palmer\u2019s return will not suit this weekend. The manager said Palmer will not make his first-team return until after the October international break and that there is no exact comeback date set while the player continues his recovery. He has been omitted from Thomas Tuchel\u2019s England squad as he progresses through treatment and rehabilitation.<\/p>\n
Speaking before the meeting with Liverpool, Maresca offered a cautious update on the situation. \u201cI don\u2019t have any update at the moment [on Palmer]. We have a meeting this week to see how he is and we will then decide [whether he can return after the international break],\u201d said the Italian.<\/p>\n
Chelsea must therefore prepare to face Liverpool without Palmer, adapting their attacking plans for a high-profile Premier League encounter at Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cole Palmer will miss Chelsea v Liverpool at Stamford Bridge with a groin injury; return after break<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969],"tags":[1089,319],"class_list":["post-3537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-chelsea-struggles","tag-cole-palmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3537","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=3537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}