Enzo Maresca has confirmed Cole Palmer will be sidelined for another six weeks as he continues to manage a groin injury. Maresca admitted he was wrong to expect a return after the international break and revealed the forward’s rehabilitation now projects a longer layoff that could push a comeback into early December.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was wrong,\u201d Maresca admitted. \u201cUnfortunately he needs to be out for six more weeks. We try to protect Cole as much as we can. The most important thing is when he comes back, he is fully fit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe medical staff are not magicians. We hope six weeks are enough. We need to see it step by step. For sure, he\u2019s going to be O.K. He looks relaxed. He has tried to recover from the injury and doing all the therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n
A six-week absence would see the 23-year-old miss at least 10 more matches across all competitions. Saturday\u2019s trip to Nottingham Forest will begin the spell without Palmer, who will also sit out matches against Ajax, Sunderland and the Carabao Cup fourth-round meeting with Wolverhampton Wanderers.<\/p>\n
Early November includes a Champions League trip to Qaraba\u011f and a league meeting with Wolves before the international break. What follows is a congested end to November that could coincide with Palmer\u2019s earliest possible return if his recovery accelerates.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, to replace Cole, it\u2019s difficult,\u201d Maresca confessed. \u201cCole is a very important player for us, one of the best in the league. The ones we have, in Cole\u2019s position against Liverpool was Malo Gusto. The game vs. Benfica was Facundo [Buonanotte]. It depends on the game plan we have. We don\u2019t have another player like Cole. Cole is unique.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fixtures Palmer is set to miss:
\nOct. 18 \u2014 Premier League \u2014 Nottingham Forest (A)
\nOct. 22 \u2014 Champions League \u2014 Ajax (H)
\nOct. 25 \u2014 Premier League \u2014 Sunderland (H)
\nOct. 29 \u2014 EFL Cup \u2014 Wolves (A)
\nNov. 1 \u2014 Premier League \u2014 Tottenham (A)
\nNov. 5 \u2014 Champions League \u2014 Qaraba\u011f (A)
\nNov. 8 \u2014 Premier League \u2014 Wolves (H)
\nNov. 22 \u2014 Premier League \u2014 Burnley (A)
\nNov. 25 \u2014 Champions League \u2014 Barcelona (H)
\nNov. 30 \u2014 Premier League \u2014 Arsenal (H)<\/p>\n
Maresca stressed caution over rushing Palmer back and confirmed the medical staff will monitor progress step by step.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maresca: Cole Palmer out six more weeks with a groin injury, risking absence into early December…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3844,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969],"tags":[1066,1047,319],"class_list":["post-3845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-carabao-cup","tag-champions-league","tag-cole-palmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845","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=3845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}