Chelsea moved through a period when manager Enzo Maresca had no natural centre back available, but the situation has improved since the international break. Levi Colwill, Tosin Adarabioyo and Wesley Fofana had all been sidelined while Trevoh Chalobah began the hiatus suspended. That combination left Maresca without a single recognised centre back prior to the break.<\/p>\n
There are encouraging returns. Chalobah has served his suspension and is available. Fofana has completed the required period on the sidelines following a concussion and has been training with Chelsea this week. After claims that Acheampong\u2019s injury was \u201cnot serious \u201d, Chelsea were delighted to see the academy graduate start for England Under-21s in a 4\u20130 win over Moldova on Friday. Tosin\u2019s update remains limited, but Maresca confirmed late last month that he would likely return from a calf injury after the international break.<\/p>\n
Beno\u00eet Badiashile\u2019s problem is not thought to be significant, though the club may allow extra recovery time given how much time he has missed over the past 12 months. With those players back and available, it is plausible that, by the time Chelsea travel to Nottingham Forest on Saturday, Maresca will have every defender fit apart from Colwill, whose ACL injury could keep him out for the season.<\/p>\n
Midfield presents the more immediate concern. Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez was sent home from Argentina duty with a knee problem, joining Cole Palmer and D\u00e1rio Essugo on the sidelines. That leaves Maresca managing absences in midfield even as his defensive options stabilise. Mois\u00e9s Caicedo, however, is expected to be in top condition after being left out of the Ecuador squad to rest. The clearer picture in defence offers Maresca selection flexibility, but midfield availability will shape the matchday choices against Nottingham Forest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Three centre-backs are fit and available giving Maresca defensive options ahead of Nottingham Forest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3752,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969],"tags":[1073,1129,1100],"class_list":["post-3753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-acl-injury","tag-benoit-badiashile","tag-defence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3753","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=3753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}